Cam Dahl, the general manager of Manitoba Pork said legislation designed to protect landowners from trespassers would enhance the ability of livestock producers to guard their animals against the introduction of disease.
Bill 62, the Animal Diseases Amendment Act and Bill 63, the Petty Trespass Amendment and Occupiers Liability Act, introduced by the Manitoba government, will increase the protection of landowners from trespassers.
Dahl said the legislation would help ensure penalties for trespassers who break a farm’s biosecurity.
“It helps ensure that people can’t just come onto your farm and breach your biosecurity zones.” He thinks it makes total sense and people will understand it now after over a year of COVID and protecting human biosecurity.
The same is valid for pork and chickens and turkeys and dairy cattle in Manitoba that biosecurity is critically essential to preserving the health of the animals.
The threat from foreign animal disease is real.
African Swine Fever, for example, has resulted in several million hogs dying in China; that is not supposed to happen here.
The Manitoba hog sector contributes approximately 1.7 billion dollars to the provincial economy and over 14 thousand jobs. Hog production is a success story that all Manitobans can celebrate and needs complete protection and this legislation will do that into the future.
It’s interesting how this legislation prompted something else from those who think the hog industry is a detriment to Manitoba.
This headline appeared in a news release titled AG-GAG LEGISLATION HAS COME TO MANITOBA.
The Winnipeg Humane Society urged the Manitoba Government to strengthen animal protection laws for livestock rather than penalize those who advocate for improved welfare conditions.
One observer said this group would love to come into a livestock producer’s premises legally or illegally and check out whether the animals are safe and treated well according to the group’s standard.
The WHS’s release said; specifically, Bill 62 and Bill 63 seek to make it an illegal offence for Manitobans to document farm animals during transportation and bear witness to all livestock in transport trucks, production facilities, and slaughterhouses.
Never will the so-called do-gooders recognize that number one, people raise animals for food. Secondly, codes of practices on how to handle these animals are in place to assure the humane treatment of those animals.
As shown by this statement, husbandry practices on industrialized farms provide minimal standards of care for farm animals. Without the ability to document abuse and neglect, animal cruelty will be further hidden from the public eye, rendering farm animals and their welfare virtually invisible.
Dahl emphasized the critical purpose of the two acts is to help protect animals by assuring biosecurity, ensuring that outside people will not breach that biosecurity and bring in disease whether it’s from the next farm, something in the ditch or foreign animal disease.
“The purpose is to protect our farm families and the animals that they care for.” •
— By Harry Siemens
