(Ai image used for illustrative purposes only)
Grant Alexander recalls a chilling chapter in his life that he has tried to block from his mind, when the Head Veterinarian for the Canadian Food Inspection Agency allegedly threatened him and his family with homelessness while overseeing the destruction of their entire cattle herd in Saskatchewan in 1989.
The ordeal began after a bred cow sold in the family’s fall 1988 sale was due to calve in early February. Because the buyer lived far away, Mr. Alexander offered to calve her on the farm and deliver both cow and calf to Omaha, Nebraska in late March. “We had been holding production sales for many years, and our cattle had sold all across Canada and to thirty US states,” he explains. “We started the export tests and before we could blink, we had CFIA in our yard informing us that our farm and all the cattle were being quarantined.”
The very next day, Grant explains that a CFIA team with a crew of helpers arrived and required the family to process the cattle. “We ran six hundred and twenty-eight head through the chute, drew blood samples, tagged them with CFIA tags and read tattoos,” he recalls. The following day, the family was instructed to arrange for all six hundred and twenty-eight cattle to be sent to slaughter. “We went along with CFIA because we were told that this one cow had tested positive for brucellosis,” he says. However, allegedly, every animal tested negative. “We started asking the question, how could this be? How could a cow that tested negative now have had a positive test a few days before?” He adds that samples from the so-called reactor cow were sent to labs around the world, and every test result returned negative.
Mr. Alexander says he travelled to Ottawa seven times that summer in an effort to resolve the situation, but each trip left him with fewer answers and more problems with the CFIA. According to him, the agency even told the Canadian Cattle Association that he was a “very dangerous individual” and advised them to ensure he never owned cattle again. What the CFIA didn’t realize, he says, is that he co-owned a herd sire with the President of the Canadian Cattle Association—and that the two were good friends.
What struck Mr. Alexander most, however, was the behaviour of the head veterinarian of the CFIA overseeing the operation. “He said he had heard a rumor that we were going to sue CFIA for slaughtering our herd. I told him we were just investigating our options and hadn’t made any decisions. He said to me in very certain terms, if we decided to take them to court, he would destroy us and my family would lose everything.”
Mr. Alexander says the veterinarian assured him that they would not win any legal battle because he “basically made all the rules, including all the health labs under his control. This man even told me that my parents would not even have a place to live and I would have to live with that.” Faced with this threat, he made the difficult decision to stop pursuing legal action. “After some thought, I made the decision to quit trying to get any justice, as it was almost impossible to win against the government.”
The financial toll was devastating. “This depopulation of our herd cost us many hundreds of thousands of dollars, but we survived despite the times I really doubted that we would,” he says. Compensation promised within three weeks took seven months to arrive and was only about one third of the herd’s value because government rates had not been updated in fifteen years.
The slaughter extended beyond their farm, explains Mr. Alexander. “Everywhere in Canada that had purchased cattle from us in the previous two years were tested, and all their offspring and the cows were also slaughtered despite testing negative. Almost twelve thousand head across Canada were tested and all were negative,” he says.
Mr. Alexander also recalls threats to the family pets. “When the head vet from Ottawa instructed the vets doing the depopulation to kill all the cats and dogs on our farm after the cattle were dead, dad stepped up and told them to make sure the hole they dug was big enough for him as well, as the only way he was going to allow them to destroy all the pets was if they shot him first.” The officials eventually allowed the animals to live.
Mr. Alexander explains that the agency even demanded records of semen sales over the previous ten years. “I basically told them that I would never release the list of semen purchasers to them and I would refuse to release this to them even if they put me in prison or had me murdered.”
Reflecting on the ordeal, he emphasizes the disconnect between the people enforcing the rules and the bureaucracy above them. “What I am basically saying is that the CFIA bureaucracy has been messed up for many decades. There are lots of top quality people doing the work on the ground, but the top bureaucracy live in ivory towers and I really do not think they care about everyday producers.”
“My heart goes out to these ostrich producers,” he adds referring to the recent slaughter of over 300 ostriches by the CFIA in Edgewood, British Columbia. “They did not have to lose their flock of birds, just like we should not have.”
Mr. Alexander stresses that his story is not one of bitterness, but a warning. “I have never spoken about this publicly until now as I was afraid some people would take it as sour grapes or say there was another side of the story that I was not telling. That definitely is not the case. I could tell a pile of other stories that would make you just shake your head.”
“What happened to us could happen to anyone in Canada,” he says. “I always supported CFIA and their job of keeping Canada’s health status as one of the best in the world. What I do not support is the corruption and power tripping that has been happening at the top levels of government agencies who seem to want to show everyone just how powerful they are.”
I can’t believe the Canadian government would allow something like this to happen. Absolutely despicable. I haven’t slept well since the ostriches in BC were culled.
The overreach is out of control…they only investigate themselves as recently quoted in an interview with CFIA…they work for the WHO and big pharma and need to have accountability NOW…we need to rise up and protect our farmers
I am disgusted with our federal government uncaring ways. I have been very upset and traumatized by the massacre of the ostriches in BC. I’m sick of government agencies (CFIA, RCMPs, and politicians) doing the bidding of unelected, non-Canadian, power hungry, narcissist elitists groups. None of them have any right to tell anybody in any countries how to live. A good example of that is what they did in 2019 – 2021 with lying to the world about C-19 and the MRNA jab. I was a medical transcriptionist during that time and not once did I get a report to do involving someone sick or dying of C-19. But I did a lot of them about MAID and the elderly not being aloud to see their families (Children, grand-children) before they died. It upset me so much that I quit my job. None of those organizations have any humanity in them. I have lost all trust in the medical profession, the RCMPs, and all federal agencies. They don’t care about us Canadians. We are a burden to them because we do not submit to their will.
Perfectly said. You are absolutely right
Please NAME who the ‘head vet’ at the CFIA was/is who actually threatened this farmer, and likely others in the stories here. Until the names of these individuals are released how can farmers and citizens unite to get this agency’s employees, their standard of conduct, and laws changed apart from them being criminally charged for their outright abuse.