For most consumers the outbreak of BSE in 2003 has faded from memory. Occasional cases happen, but the food safety process keeps it out of the food chain. BSE never was even remotely a threat to public health in Canada, but because of media fascination with its colloquial name “mad cow disease”, it was blown out of all proportion.
Fear-mongering headlines alluded to a possible BSE epidemic, yet no one in North America died or got sick from BSE by eating Canadian beef. I compare that to the 5,000 people per week that die or get hospitalized from food poisoning every week in North America with not a word of concern from media or government.
However there was one group of people that were severely impacted by the BSE hysteria - cattle producers. When the outbreak occurred, export markets were immediately restricted or closed to Canadian beef and cattle - a situation that is still in effect with some countries. That action saw prices crash and billions of dollars were collectively lost by the cattle and beef industries in Canada.
In retrospect the BSE disaster may well have been avoided had the Canadian government taken action earlier to prevent its spread by controlling the British source of the infection. At least that’s what a class action lawsuit against the Canadian government alleges. The lawsuit claims that the Canadian government knew about the BSE source and what needed to be done to stop it, but failed to act on its own recommendations until it was too late.
As expected the claimants allege negligence by the government and will no doubt want billions in compensation for cattle producers. The initial government response to these sorts of lawsuits is that they are nuisance claims and should be dismissed by a judge. Unfortunately for the government, judges in a number of provinces agreed with the claimants that they indeed had a case. Legal steps were then taken to amalgamate the various provincial lawsuits into one national class action lawsuit by the cattle producers of Canada against the Canadian government.
At that point government lawyers, bureaucrats and their political masters got out the heavy ammunition and claimed that the lawsuit is driven by greedy law firms who invented the whole exercise for their own benefit. Typically in these matters, bureaucrats and politicians cannot even imagine that the government might actually have made a mistake - that’s just not possible. They also presume that ordinary citizens are just too dumb to launch a class action lawsuit against the government. It’s always those dastardly lawyers stirring up gullible citizens about issues that they just don’t understand. Be that as it may, there are many legal issues (residential schools, hepatitis C, asbestos, etc) that would never have been resolved had not law firms organized the cases into class action lawsuits. Governments after all never voluntarily admit to any mistake.
At this point as the lawsuit goes through the courts some realties hit both sides. The law firms know that it could take up to ten years before there is a final decision. Even if the government loses, it could derail the process by using legislative hurdles. For the government side, it has to decide if prolonging or losing the case has a political price. That usually means how many voters are involved and where; what is the mainstream media opinion on this issue if any; how determined and financed are the claimants to carry out the case; and how much a settlement would cost.
It would seem that the government has the upper hand at this stage. It involves very few voters mostly in areas where the Conservatives already have a lock on voters, except in rural Quebec. The urban media has no interest in this obscure case and it will cost billions to settle, not something city taxpayers want to hear. Besides if push comes to shove, government can allege that they were only acting to protect the food supply - that could be a deadly perception blow, which true or not, will affect voter opinion which is all that matters to governments.