Jewish groups scored a victory in their fight to preserve kosher slaughter, with an injunction granted Wednesday in Federal Court that suspends Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) rules that they said would have ended the practice in Canada.
“There are serious issues as to whether the CFIA’s Guidelines are unreasonable,” wrote Justice Guy Régimbald in his decision granting the injunction.
He also suggested there was reason to believe the rules could encroach on Charter religious protections.
“The evidence, as presented, demonstrates a potential for irreparable harm that cannot be adequately compensated with damages,” he added.
The groups took the government to court earlier this year, claiming new federal government rules requiring that animals slaughtered using non-standard means be subjected to cognitive tests to ensure they’re irreversibly unconscious before being processed.
Conventional slaughter sees animals rendered unconscious via bolt stunners, which deliver a powerful blow to the animal’s head before they’re hung and drained of blood.
That step doesn’t align with the rules of kosher slaughter — called “shechita” in Hebrew — in which highly trained “shochets” (ritual slaughterers) dispatch animals with a single, uninterrupted slice to the throat with a smooth blade that severs the carotid and jugular — as well as the trachea and esophagus — in one motion.
Jewish dietary laws require animals to be alive, healthy and alert prior to slaughter.
The sudden and rapid loss of blood pressure quickly and painlessly renders the animal unconscious, the applicants maintained in their original claim.
Rabbi Saul Emanuel, director of the MK Kosher Certification Agency and co-plaintiff in the suit, was pleased with the outcome.
“We are gratified that the court validated shechita as a legitimate and humane approach that takes full account of animal welfare and meets the scientific standards established by CFIA.”
New CFIA guidelines requiring cognitive tests represented enough of a slowdown in operations that many abattoirs quickly abandoned their kosher meat lines.
The suit alleged that plant closures between August 2022 and January 2023 had reduced the number of kosher-capable meatpackers to just a few across Canada, cutting weekly kosher beef yields from 3,400 head of cattle to just 1,750.
Canada’s once-largest processor of kosher meat, Laval, Que.’s Montpak, ceased its kosher production line once the new rules went into place.
That meant Jews who require kosher meet for religious reasons must rely almost exclusively on limited, expensive and often poor-quality imported meat, the applicants argued to the court.
“The evidence demonstrates that veal is almost impossible to obtain, and that beef, while remaining available, is at a substantial cost,” agreed Régimbald in his decision.
“The result is that many Jews will not be able to access kosher beef and veal, either because it is simply not available, or the cost is prohibitive. During that time, they cannot eat a type of meat that has a special role in the Jewish tradition, especially on Jewish holidays.”
That situation, he explained, constituted irreparable harm.
Richard Rabkin, managing director of the Kashruth Council of Canada, said the ruling upholds the fact that shechita is humane.
“Significantly, the judgment recognized that the current CFIA guidelines are clearly discriminatory ‘as they unfairly associate a religious practice of shechita to animal pain and impose a challenge that does not apply to non-kosher meat production,’” he said.
Dr. Jacob Hascalovici, a neuroscientist and neurologist specializing in pain, said that consciousness and pain responses require a functional cerebral cortex.
“That requires a continuous supply of oxygen from blood at very specific blood pressures,” he said.
“Scientific literature from the last 100 years has consistently demonstrated that shechita causes a sudden catastrophic loss of blood pressure in the brain. The result is near instantaneous loss of cerebral cortex function, and therefore the ability to feel pain and maintain consciousness.”
Shimon Koffler Fogel, president and CEO of the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA,) said that Canada’s Jewish community are working with the CIFA to develop permanent solutions that satisfy both the concerns of the regulator and the needs of Canada’s Jews.
“The Jewish community and CFIA are both committed to the highest animal welfare standards, and we are confident that with goodwill, an agreement can be reached,” he said.
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