NEWMARKET, Ont. — A six-year battle by a shepherd trying to protect her flock of rare sheep from government slaughter ended under an avalanche of more than 14,000 pages of paperwork Monday.
An Ontario Superior Court of Justice judge threw out charges against Linda “Montana” Jones, an eastern Ontario sheep breeder, and Michael Schmidt, a well-known agricultural scofflaw, blaming prosecutors and the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) for its reluctant disclosure of massive amounts of government documents.
It brings to a close the strange yarn of a fugitive flock, taken from Jones’ farm hours before the CFIA arrived to slaughter them.
http://www.shropshiresheep.orgThe hand-written note left by the “Farmers Peace Corp.”
It started in 2010 when a sheep in Alberta tested positive for scrapie (a degenerative disease similar to the “mad cow disease” that affects cattle). The CFIA said it came from Jones’ farm where she bred Shropshires, a rare breed that traces its lineage to the first sheep imported to Canada from England. Her farm was placed under quarantine and the CFIA moved to slaughter her flock as Jones fought to keep them.
On April 2, 2012, the day CFIA officers and police arrived at her farm, 170 kilometres east of Toronto, with an order to destroy 31 sheep, the flock went missing during the night.
A handwritten note, hammered into a post near the barn’s door, said the “Farmers Peace Corp.” had taken the flock into “protective custody.”
After two months on the lam, the missing sheep were found on a farm near Chesley, Ont., a five hour drive from her farm. They were then slaughtered and tested by CFIA.
Officials were always skeptical about Montana’s involvement and the government alleged it was an inside job — a conspiracy between her and Schmidt, along with Robert Pinnell, a motorcycle enthusiast who worked on Schmidt’s farm, and Suzanne Atkinson, an agricultural reporter with Ontario Farmer.
Last month, charges were dropped against Pinnell; in 2014, Atkinson pleaded guilty to unlawful transport of quarantined animals without a license. She admitted she was part of a group that planned the sheepnapping and housing the sheep that night at her dairy farm.
The Crown planned to use her testimony at trial.
The case, however, ground down over habitually slow disclosure of a massive amount of paperwork. Prosecutors didn’t turn over the requested documents for years.
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One of the documents disclosed late was an internal CFIA memo from Mark Murdoch that called into question the integrity of the positive scrapie sample that started the whole ordeal. The memo was “critical” to the defence case, court heard.
“The difficulties in this case arose because the CFIA did not devote sufficient resources to the management of this file,” said Justice Laura Bird in delivering her judgment. The Charter of Rights guarantees the right to be tried within a reasonable time.
Jones and Schmidt walked out of court to cheers and hugs.
To the delight of their two dozen supporters, Jones nuzzled a Shropshire and Schmidt guzzled a glass of raw milk, which has been his passion; he has repeatedly been in conflict with food regulators over the distribution of unpasteurized dairy products.
“Even though we won today, I don’t want to walk away from it as if it never happened, because it has been seven years of very, very much effecting everybody’s lives here,” said Jones.
Laura Pedersen/National PostSheep breeder Montana Jones pets "Murdoch" the Shropshire sheep, who is owned by her friend and supporter Elwood Quinn, after having her criminal charges dismissed by the Ontario Superior Court in Newmarket, Ontario on Monday, Nov. 28, 2016.
She said the government spent more than $1 million of taxpayers’ money chasing her and her sheep.
“I can’t help but wonder what that might have gone towards as far as food sovereignty, as far as the government spending that saving heirloom seeds, building a library, teaching children about growing.”
One of her lawyers, Shawn Buckley, said the win was bittersweet.
“It is hollow because we were all actually hoping to take a run at the Health of Animals Act, which allows — just on mere suspicion — to basically take total control of a farm without any review, without any time limits, without any consideration of how it is destroying the farmer and we view that as unconstitutional.”
David Eagleson, the CFIA investigator on the case, declined to speak with the media after the ruling.
Unless the government appeals, which seems unlikely, the decision ends the acrimonious and lengthy case.
Jones was charged with six offenses — five regulatory matters under the Health of Animals Act, and one criminal code charge of conspiracy.
Schmidt faced the same conspiracy charge and two Animals Act charges.
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shropshiresheep.orgCanadian Food Inspection Agency officials corral sheep marked for slaughter at Montana Jones’ farm in April 2012.