Montana Jones wrote today on Facebook:
“**WHOAH!** The media does not always fact check…Awaiting retraction/correction for a huge error in this article!
Please issue a correction The Toronto Star, CTV News, CTV Toronto, The Canadian Press, Global News, Times Colonist, and all other publications who ran with this wooly misinformation.
Reporter Diana Mehta wrote a significant false statement “Ten of the sheep were found either dead or dying during an inspection a few days later and were removed from the property”. FALSE
In fact, the CFIA destruction order started out with 41 “susceptible” sheep and dropped to 31: There were NO “dead and dying” sheep. The CFIA used that phrase apparently to imply sheep disease on my (Montana Jones) farm and mislead the public.
The reason the number changed is that a week prior a group of young sheep that were on the CFIA destruction order were shipped off farm to an abattoir, on the advice of the CFIA who authorized them to be processed and sold for meat. I chose not to sell any freezer lamb at the time and just took the loss, because there is and was so much public misperception about scrapie and human health, with people making erroneous fearful comments about mad cow disease. Under the circumstances at the time it was the best option for the sheep.
The CFIA / Crown planting that phrase, and the subsequent quoting of it by Judge Bird in her ruling, was misleading and not based in fact. They were sent for meat the week before on March 28,2012, under direction and supervision of the CFIA .”
From the Canadian Press story:
“Charges in a long-running case over the abduction of prized sheep from an Ontario farm were stayed this week, after a judge found there had been unreasonable delays in bringing the matter to trial.
The development ends a slow-grinding legal ordeal for an Ontario sheep breeder and a dairy farmer, unless the Crown decides to appeal.
Linda “Montana” Jones and Michael Schmidt were charged following an investigation into the removal of 31 sheep from an Ontario farm in April 2, 2012, hours before the animals were to be euthanized.
The Canadian Food Inspection Agency had ordered the slaughter after a sheep sold by Jones to an Alberta farm allegedly tested positive in 2010 for scrapie, a deadly and easily transmitted disease that affects the nervous systems of sheep and goats.
A lawyer for Jones and Schmidt sought a stay of proceedings earlier this month, arguing the delay in bringing the case to trial was unreasonable….”
“When the CFIA learned of the positive test for scrapie on the Alberta farm, it made a number of orders which affected Jones’ farm and her herd of Shropshire sheep, Bird’s ruling said.
On March 23, 2012, an order was signed authorizing the destruction of 41 sheep, an action that was to take place on April 2 that year.
Ten of the sheep were found either dead or dying during an inspection a few days later and were removed from the property, Bird’s ruling said.
Jones said, however, that there were no dead or dying sheep on the farm. She said a group of young sheep that were on the CFIA destruction order were sent to an abattoir on the advice of the CFIA, which authorized them to be processed and sold for meat. Jones said she chose not to sell any freezer lamb at the time.
On April 1, 2012, the remaining 31 sheep that were to be killed were suddenly taken from Jones’ farm by a group that called itself the Farmers Peace Corp….”
Read the whole story on the Canadian Press website.
The Bovine 
The Canadian Press did update the article somewhat but still misreads in a confusing way. The misleading original is already out there in publicatiojs like the Kitchener Waterloo Record and other, and will continue with that grave error, but this a start to getting the actual facts out there.
We are hoping the Judge will correct the error with a Corrigendum so that the decision of record is entirely true. It’s an excellent, detailed, well pointed decision, except for that one line that the judge quoted from CFIA, through no fault of Honourable Justice Laura Bird’s.
She was only repeating what she had been told by the Crown, who had been told by the CFIA. I protested to that wording years ago when they first used it and I pointed out how inaccurate and misleading it was then.