Legally, livestock are already incredibly vulnerable in our food system. There are no federal or provincial laws regulating on-farm animal welfare nor do they receive regular government inspection to ensure their well-being. Functionally, these standards of regulation and the reporting of abuse is left to the industry itself, whose primary motivation is profit based. 

In recent years, this has meant that reporting of animal abuse to proper authorities has been limited and relies often on whistleblowers and undercover investigating. For instance, employee-shot footage in 2014 showed horrific abuse to turkeys as they were beaten with shovels and kicked which led to the company pleading guilty. Similarly in 2018, 14 animal cruelty charges were laid against a mink farm after whistle blower footage demonstrated unsanitary conditions. These infrequent internal accounts seem to often be the only hope we have of discovering these horrors, given the apparent lack of government oversight and enforcement of animal welfare issues.

Yet Bill 156 would make a bad situation far worse by punishing employees for reporting abuse or lack of sanitization. Section 7(1)(d) gives farmers the ability to arrest any trespassers without a warrant on their property which would allow them to target employees who had signed a non-disclosure agreement that prohibited them from filming or photographing. If that employee later saw troubling conditions, they could be prosecuted for trespassing and subject to fines even when they were exposing illegal conduct.

It is important to understand the effects the bill has by proxy on workers’ safety. Over the past 10 years up to 2018, agriculture has averaged the highest lost-time injury rate of any sector in Ontario’s economy. By reducing the likelihood of workers reporting issues with unsafe conditions and biosecurity risks, it further erodes these limited safety measures.

Foreign workers are a staple of the agricultural industry in Canada. This reliable labour supply includes some undocumented migrant workers, some individuals with limited English language skills, and those whose financial security is dependent upon their work in the agricultural sector. These factors may create a reliance on foreign agricultural workers. Consequently, employees may not feel as though they can freely voice their concerns, or alternatively, they may feel pressure to remain in their job even if it’s unsafe. Should they decide to quit they could struggle to find other employment opportunities - the meat processing industry, in particular, is an oligopoly with two plants providing roughly 70% of Canada’s beef - leaving many of these workers powerless.

Take the example of COVID-19: meat processing plants across North America have been the source of some of the largest COVID-19 outbreaks. One Cargill plant near High River, Alberta was linked to more than 1,500 cases. This location has received severe criticism for not ensuring the safety of workers and creating incentives that pressure the unwell to continue showing up. This is not an outlier with meat-processing plants across North America having similar patterns of outbreaks. This demonstrates that parts of the industry are already unwilling to ensure worker safety and Bill 156 will only make this worse. 

The bill has already been opposed by groups such as, Canadian Journalists for Free Expression, the Canadian Association of Journalists, and the Canadian Civil Liberties Association over concerns of the violation of Charter rights including the freedom of expression, the press, and peaceful assembly. The Bill will effectively silence investigative journalists and whistle blowers who are necessary in providing consumers with knowledge to make informed decisions with significant knock-on effects to the environment and public health. It should be noted that similar ‘ag-gag’ laws have been deemed unconstitutional south of the border in the states of Idaho, Utah, Iowa, and Kansas.

Additionally, this Bill was passed during one of the worst public emergencies in Canadian history. The government is taking advantage of a time when the media is focused on spending valuable time reporting on the COVID-19 pandemic and the Black Lives Matter movement while citizens are not only trying to respond to these changing developments, but are also preoccupied with their own health and financial well-being. Even if interested parties did have the time not all of the Committee’s hearings have been made public.

Our food supply is critical to every single person in this country. We need a thoughtfully regulated system that has strong oversight to ensure the protection of all involved. This Bill punishes those for exposing wrongdoings instead of the wrongdoers itself. The legal challenges that will come and the protests that continue should be no surprise to any reasonable person.

1. Security from Trespass and Protecting Food Safety Act, 2020, SO 2020, ch. 9

2. Labchuk, Camille Brief RE: Bill 156, Security from Trespass and Protecting Food Safety Act, 2020 (Toronto: Standing Committee on General Government, 2020) 1

3. Griffith-Greene “Turkey farm video shows ‘gaping hole’ in government animal welfare oversight” CBC March 14, 2014, https://www.cbc.ca/news/turkey-farm-video-shows-gaping-hole-in-government-animal-welfare-oversight-1.2571451

4. Canadian Press, The “Ontario animal welfare agency lays 14 animal cruelty charges against mink farm” CTV News May 11, 2018, https://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/ontario-animal-welfare-agency-lays-14-animal-cruelty-charges-against-mink-farm-1.3925854

5. 2019 WSIB Statistical Report “Industry Sector Claims and LTI Rate” WSIB Statistics 2019 http://www.wsibstatistics.ca/S1/Industry%20Sector%20Claims%20and%20LTI%20Rate%20_%20WSIB%20By%20The%20Numbers_P.php

6. Dryden, Joel & Sarah Reiger “Inside the slaughterhouse” CBC May 6, 2020, https://newsinteractives.cbc.ca/longform/cargill-covid19-outbreak