Defiant cattle dealer prodded again

Friday, January 22, 2010

© AgMedia Inc.

by BETTER FARMING STAFF 

On Jan. 11, Justice of the Peace Dan M. MacDonald sentenced Richard Walter (Butch) Clare, Burford and two associated companies, to pay $15,000 in fines for dealing in livestock without a licence. 

According to a news release issued today by the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs, for 10 weeks in the summer of 2007, Clare and the two companies —1553603 Ontario Inc. and 1648291 Ontario Inc., operating as Butch Clare Livestock, purchased 2,156 head of cattle from various licensed livestock dealers for about $1.35 million. Clare and the companies were convicted in the Ontario Court of Justice in Brantford in October. 

“That’s a huge business not to be having a license,” says Bob Brander, Cheltenham, who chairs the adjudication board of the Ontario Beef Financial Protection Program. Brander describes the $15,000 fine as “fairly hefty.”  He thinks it’s the maximum allowed for dealing cattle without a license under the Livestock and Livestock Products Act. 

A cattle dealer license only costs $25, says Brander. But a cattle dealer must provide either financial statements or put up a bond equivalent to the value of cattle that would pass through their hands in a year.

If Clare still doesn’t have a license “anybody who deals with him won’t be covered” under the Ontario Beef Financial Protection Program if they aren’t paid for cattle, Brander warns. 

Clare may be Ontario’s most notorious cattle dealer

On May 11, 2007 Aylmer Meat Packers Incorporated and its president, Clare pleaded guilty in the Ontario Court of Justice in London to offences under the Meat Inspection Act and the Food and Drugs Act. On Dec. 14 of that year, Mr. Clare was fined $5,000 and $10,000 on the Meat Inspection Act and Food and Drugs Act charges respectively. Aylmer Meat Packers Incorporated was fined $10,000 and $100,000 on the Meat Inspection Act and Food and Drugs Act charges respectively.

These fines arose from a widely publicized investigation and subsequent Meat Inspection Act charges laid by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency in March 2005 and Food and Drugs Act charges laid by Ontario Provincial Police in September 2004. Clare's abattoir was shut down by inspectors in 2003.

"I never, ever sold a piece of meat I wouldn't eat myself, Clare told the judge. By their guilty pleas, however Aylmer Meat Packers Incorporated and Clare acknowledged that between July 23 and Aug. 21, 2003, the company sold meat that was unfit for human consumption. 

On Nov. 1, 2007, Butch’s son Jeffrey Clare, on behalf of 1648291 Ontario Inc., also operating as Butch Clare Livestock, entered a guilty plea in the Ontario Court of Justice in Brantford to an offence under subsection 65(1) of the Health of Animals Act, resulting in a fine of $25,000. Clare was charged for exporting cattle to the United States on January 19, 2006, that were over 30 months of age. The age restriction was imposed on Canadian cattle when cattle trade was partly reopened following the detection of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) in Canada in May 2003.

On October 21, 2008, the elder Clare pleaded guilty in the Ontario Court of Justice in Kitchener to one count under the Livestock and Livestock Products Act. He was fined $9,000 plus a victim surcharge. The court heard that between June 1 and 29, 2006, and between Sept. 15 and Oct. 16, 2006, Clare had been engaging in the business of buying and selling cattle without a dealer's licence as required under the act.

Clare also pleaded guilty to a second count under the act, as an officer and director of 1553603 Ontario Inc., for dealing cattle without a licence between July 5 and September 14, 2006.

Agriculture ministry spokespeople didn’t immediately return phone calls after issuing their press release late this afternoon.

Butch Clare, contacted on his cell phone this evening, said he was at a cattle sale in Kitchener. "I don't talk to reporters. I think you are a bunch of f***ing low life wh***s." 

Update Jan 22, 2010

Gwen McBride, director, food safety programs branch at the Ontario agriculture ministry says there is a minimum fine of $2,000 under licensing offenses for a first offence under the licensing provisions of the Livestock and Livestock Products Act and a minimum of $5,000 for subsequent offenses.

McBride says that Richard (Butch) Clare had no history of violating livestock licensing rules prior to his being charged in 2007. Even though Clare was deemed a first offender, he received a bigger fine than the minimum that can be applied.

Asked if the fines were a deterrent, McBride said the penalties “are up to the courts, not the ministry. . .. It’s the court decision. You would have to talk to the Justice of the Peace.” BF