An Ottawa Citizen article outlines a heavy-handed food-safety enforcement response to what was essentially a group of friends getting together to buy beef and pork.
In the case of the pork it was home-slaughtered, while the beef was professionally slaughtered and cut and wrapped at home.
Mark Tjissen, a major in the Canadian Forces, and a group of church friends say they made the move because they’re concerned about the quality of animals and processing facilities in the commercial food chain.
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But that seemingly innocent decision has resulted in a Ministry of Natural Resources and police investigation, an on-going stakeout of Tjissen’s house, and eventually a raid involving four police cars and two MNR trucks.
Tjissen, who holds a degree in biomedical toxicology from the University of Guelph, says he knows a fair bit about food safety and it should have been apparent to any casual observer that he wasn’t running a black market slaughterhouse.
He says the group is an informal association of friends from his church that jokingly call themselves the “Christian Meat Cutters Association” and their total annual production amounts to two pigs and two or three cows a year – all for the personal consumption of their own families.
