The Supreme Court of Canada may.
Nearly a year ago, a federal agency order a cull of a domestic flock of ostriches at an ostrich ranch in BC, because of cases of avian flu.
The ostrich ranchers have been fighting the cull order ever since, unsuccessfully, in the federal courts.
Next week, the SCC will decide whether to grant leave to appeal the decision of the Federal Court of Appeal, which upheld the cull order.
Will the ostriches survive? Tune in next week. Same time, same channel.
In the military we had the idea called “OBE” = “overcome by events”. Which applied to decisions rendered too slowly to be of use because circumstances had changed meanwhile.
If the ostriches were supposed to be culled a year ago to prevent the spread of disease and they are still alive today, then their culling now is irrelevant. Either they have spread disease or they haven’t. But in either case killing them now won’t change or improve that. The decision in either direction is OBE. And so should be foregone entirely as a waste of valuable decider bandwidth.
Yeah, presumably a “temporary” stay was issued on the grounds that culling the herd would cause irreparable harm. But leaving the herd alive would also cause irreparable harm.
And it’s not completely pointless to issue decisions that have been overcome by events. It still sets a precedent for next time, to hopefully enable a more timely decision. The court could also decide to hold the ranchers liable for the additional damage that resulted from them fighting the initial decision.
You can’t be penalised for exercising your legal right to challenge a government order.
The ostriches have very…dedicated supporters, willing to travel long distances to protect Freedom.
Based on social media posts, it looks like they’ve really come out of the woodwork on this issue. Is an Ostrich Convoy next?
Ask the residents who fought the city of New London to keep their land. The city gov’t attempted to charge them back rent for all the time they spent fighting in the courts. They only got out of having to pay anything when the governor stepped in. Absent that, the city would have kept trying to collect.
My comment was in relation to Canadian courts.
I would suppose there’s some sort of threshold test to dissuade outright frivolous objections.
But otherwise, yeah, standing up for your rights ought not carry a big risk of penalties coming back on you.
Hence the anti-SLAPP laws in the US.
Schrödinger’s ostrich?
But fighting for their rights is not necessarily the same thing as leaving the ostriches alive. They could have culled the birds when ordered, and then challenged the order to get payment for the damages they suffered.
To use the extreme example, when the police arrest someone, the arrestee isn’t allowed to escape and then challenge the arrest, even though the arrest will result in a loss of the suspect’s time.
This is the end
my only friend
the end
You just knew Big Pharma was involved, scheming to keep us dependent on vaccines.
One of the ostriches was named for Charlie Kirk.
Therein lies the real motive?
Not to mention trying to suppress “OstriGrow to combat baldness, OstriTrim to curb hunger and OstriClear for acne”.
As soon as the rhetoric includes “big beautiful” you know the con is on.