Ontario government ordered to pay $3.5M to company it took over and 'destroyed' during 2003 tainted-meat probe

In a decision released last week, the Court of Appeal for Ontario ruled the provincial Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs owed a duty of care to Aylmer Meat Packers and its owner, Butch Clare, when it took over the company’s abattoir in 2003 amid its sprawling tainted-meat investigation.

Aylmer and Clare had sued the province for negligence, trespass and conversion and sought damages, but their claim was dismissed at trial. Lauwers said the trial judge erred in several ways, including by conflating the province’s duty of care with the standard of care.Article content The Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs declined to comment. A spokesman with the province’s Ministry of the Attorney General said the province is reviewing the decision but would not comment further.

That prompted covert surveillance of the plant by Ministry of Natural Resources inspectors between May and August 2003, the decision said. Those inspectors saw suspicious activity and the ministry, along with Ontario Provincial Police officers, raided the abattoir, the judge wrote. The ministry brought in police and later security and “detained” all the meat in the plant in sealed freezers, the document says. There was nearly 270,000 kilograms of meat in the freezers and another 22,000 kilograms of meat that spoiled within the first 10 days of the government taking over the plant.

“The meat spoiled because the ministry, having noticed the malfunctioning freezer in September 2003, took no steps to repair it for 10 months,” Lauwers wrote.

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