The Universal Ostrich Farm of British Columbia has found itself at the center of a heated debate over food safety, animal disease management, and the mounting pressures faced by Canada’s food inspection system. After a protracted legal battle, the farm recently lost its appeal against a $10,000 fine imposed by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) for failing to report two ostrich deaths caused by highly-pathogenic avian influenza. The repercussions didn’t end there: the CFIA ultimately ordered the destruction of the farm’s entire flock—about 300 birds—in a move intended to halt the spread of the deadly disease. The ostriches were culled in November 2025, capping off a saga that lasted nearly a year in the courts and in the public eye, according to reporting from Canada’s National Observer.
But the ostrich farm’s ordeal is just one episode in a string of crises that have tested the CFIA’s resources, resilience, and public trust. As revealed in the agency’s 2024-2027 corporate risk assessment, obtained by the National Observer, the CFIA is increasingly worried about its ability to protect Canada’s food supply if faced with multiple emergencies at once. The assessment warns that, should several animal disease outbreaks or food safety recalls hit concurrently in the next two years, the agency may not be able to respond adequately. It’s a sobering prospect for a country whose food security is often taken for granted.
Climate change is only making matters worse. The CFIA’s own analysis highlights how rising temperatures and shifting weather patterns are likely to damage infrastructure and increase the risks of disease and pest outbreaks. The agency is currently grappling with approximately $200 million in deferred maintenance costs, and, according to the risk assessment, it "lacks sufficient funding to replace or modernize its infrastructure." These financial strains are compounded by inflation, supply chain disruptions, and a suite of other rising costs, making it likely the CFIA will run out of money before 2027.
“The CFIA is increasingly worried about being able to handle multiple situations at once at precisely the moment when they can be expected to have multiple situations to handle,” explained Lawrence Goodridge, director of the Canadian Research Institute for Food Safety and professor at the University of Guelph, in comments reported by Canada’s National Observer. Goodridge’s concern is echoed throughout the agency’s risk assessment, which notes that each "critical risk"—from infrastructure failures to disease outbreaks—now has a vice president assigned to oversee it, and that "every [CFIA] employee has a role to play."
The past two years have provided a relentless stress test for the CFIA. In 2025, the agency faced a salmonella crisis linked to Iranian pistachios, which required extensive testing and led to import limits. The year before, a listeriosis outbreak in plant-based beverages sent 15 people to hospital and claimed three lives, forcing the CFIA to scramble for containment. These back-to-back emergencies have stretched the agency’s capacity thin, raising uncomfortable questions about what might happen if disaster strikes on multiple fronts simultaneously.
The ostrich farm episode, in particular, exposed the CFIA to an unprecedented level of public scrutiny, misinformation, and even hostility. The agency spent months trying to cull the infected birds, navigating not only the technical challenge of applying avian flu protocols—designed for commercial poultry—to a large, unruly flock of ostriches, but also a storm of disinformation and hate stoked by far-right influencers rallying behind the farm. A protest camp sprang up, and the final cull required a police-protected takeover of the property. As Scott Weese, professor at the Ontario Veterinary College and director of the Centre for Public Health and Zoonoses, told the National Observer, “It’s hard to handle multiple situations at once, and it’s very hard to handle an emerging situation where you really have to try to figure out what’s going on while you’re already dealing with a problem.”
Weese also highlighted the dangers posed by emerging zoonotic diseases: “Where it gets even worse is when you get an emerging disease, because the playbook isn’t there.” He added that being proactive is expensive, and “if you’re barely able to keep up with the stuff you’re regularly doing, something’s going to drop.” The avian flu, for example, has a mortality rate of roughly 52 percent when it spreads to humans—underscoring the stakes of aggressive containment.
The CFIA’s internal assessment acknowledges that its ability to respond is being eroded by federal budget pressures. Ottawa is targeting a 15 percent reduction in the public service over the coming years, with the CFIA expected to cut costs by about $44.8 million by 2027. The 2026 federal budget mandates reductions in redundancies, including lab facilities and staff, while allocating $118 million over five years to help the agency integrate artificial intelligence into its operations to boost international trade. It’s a delicate balancing act: modernize and innovate, but with fewer resources and less redundancy.
Meanwhile, the threats facing Canada’s food supply aren’t confined within its borders. The agency is increasingly concerned about the impact of U.S. policy decisions—specifically, cuts to American food safety staff since President Donald Trump’s administration. Because Canada relies heavily on American farmers and processors, these changes south of the border could have direct repercussions for Canadian food safety. “We don’t think of food security as a national security issue, but it is,” said Goodridge. The CFIA’s concern is serious enough that it created a dedicated task force earlier this year to address food security threats, a move reflecting the growing sense of urgency within the agency.
Despite these mounting challenges, the agency has not been able to shed any of its core responsibilities. “In a growing world, there are more mouths to feed, there are more animals out there, there’s more movement, there are climate stresses or ecological stresses or emerging diseases, but the things that we’re dealing with right now, some of them didn’t exist, or we didn’t know about them 30 years ago,” Weese observed. “We haven’t dropped many things off the agenda, but we’re continually adding things.”
The Universal Ostrich Farm’s legal defeat and the subsequent destruction of its flock are emblematic of the difficult, sometimes controversial decisions the CFIA must make to safeguard public health. The agency’s actions—though unpopular among some—were rooted in the urgent need to contain a highly contagious and potentially deadly disease. Yet, as the CFIA’s own risk assessment makes clear, the ability to take such decisive action may be under threat as the agency juggles more emergencies, tighter budgets, and an increasingly complex risk landscape.
For now, Canada’s food safety system is holding the line. But as climate change accelerates, budgets shrink, and new threats emerge, the question is how long that line can hold—and what might be lost if it does not.