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On Tuesday, Ontario’s Superior Court struck down various provisions of the province’s controversial Security from Trespass and Protecting Food Safety Act, an “ag-gag” law which acts to shield the animal agriculture industry from reasonable scrutiny and conceal its systemic cruelty.
Passed in 2020, the Act made it effectively illegal to conduct undercover investigations within farms, slaughterhouses, and other meat, dairy, egg, and fur industry operations in Ontario. Notably, for purposes of understanding the lawsuit, several provisions prohibited anyone from securing employment at these facilities under false pretenses - a tactic often used by animal rights activists to document and expose the conditions under which animals are kept and slaughtered.
The lawsuit’s applicants, which included Canadian animal rights advocacy org Animal Justice [ed note: friendly colleagues of Green Economy Law], challenged the Act’s constitutionality, contending that it sought to protect the animal agriculture industry by means of overbroad speech prohibition.
In his written decision, Justice Markus Koehnen agreed that a number of the Act’s provisions went too far; these were declared “of no force and effect” for violating the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms' freedom of expression protections. However, other challenged provisions were deemed proportionate to the law’s stated objectives, namely guarding against risks to animal safety, biosecurity, as well as property and economic considerations. These provisions were left unaffected.
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