The birds are an unlikely example of how public health fights have shifted political dynamics in ways the U.S. is influencing and reckoning with.
OTTAWA — It all started with an avian flu outbreak last winter on a small British Columbia ostrich farm. The beleaguered flock’s brush with disaster has now spiraled into a national standoff over science and personal freedoms. And it’s one that extends beyond Canada, as top Trump administration health officials have become personally involved.
After the Canadian Food Inspection Agency ordered the owners of Universal Ostrich Farms to kill more than 300 birds last year, they refused, sparking a legal and political battle that on Thursday will reach Canada’s Supreme Court. It is a winding, only-in-the-Trump-era political saga that involves a New York City grocery magnate, a celebrity doctor turned agency head and the lightning rod American ambassador to Canada.
And the 10-month fight over the flock has evolved into a wider debate about government overreach, institutional trust and the international rules that guide Canada’s trade policies.
“We’re not criminals, we’re farmers,” Katie Pasitney, who co-owns Universal Ostrich Farms, recently told reporters. “We’re doing nothing wrong.”
In the U.S., she has rallied allies like Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. who agree.
Like her, Kennedy and members of his Make America Healthy Again movement believe the order to kill the birds amounts to government overreach based on outdated policies. Kennedy says the Canadians should study the birds rather than kill them to understand why some birds survive the flu.
The controversy has stirred up debate across Canada’s political landscape. Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre, caught between his populist base and party moderates, is under pressure to defend the birds — a dilemma exposing fractures in his support ahead of a 2026 leadership review.
Prime Minister Mark Carney has so far managed to dodge the issue as his government faces calls to be more transparent and retest the birds.
\Lawmakers from across party lines told POLITICO the issue resonates with constituents from British Columbia to Ontario.
“We should not have been able to garner more attention and more support internationally from the Trump administration than our own government,” Pasitney said.
The Ostriches
Last December, after receiving an anonymous tip, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency showed up at Universal Ostrich Farms in Edgewood, British Columbia, to test the flock. When two ostriches tested positive for avian flu, the agency ordered the entire flock culled.
Court documents show that 69 birds died in December and January after the agency declared an outbreak. Over 300 birds survived, but the CFIA ordered them destroyed under Canada’s “stamping-out” policy — a measure aligned with the policies of the World Health Organization, the U.N.’s health agency, designed to help prevent viral spread among animals and people while maintaining trade stability.
The farm owners objected vociferously, but they weren’t the only ones.
“We understand the importance of containing the bird flu and the important role that agency plays. What’s hard to watch is a lack of discretion and ability to evaluate case-by-case scenarios,” British Columbia Premier David Eby told CBC in May.
Universal Ostrich Farms has bred the birds since the mid-1990s. At first they raised them for slaughter, but in recent years they began using the ostrich eggs for research. During the Covid-19 pandemic, the farmers began collaborating with researchers in Japan and Boston studying antibodies from the eggs.
The farm argues its ostriches that survived the avian flu outbreak have developed herd immunity to H5N1 and that their eggs hold scientific insight into the illness. But the CFIA disputes that claim.
“Through a thorough review of scientific peer-reviewed literature, no evidence was found that a particular ostrich flock would be superior to other ostrich flocks for antibody production,” the CFIA said in a statement in May.
The farm is seeking an exemption to save its ostriches, but the Federal Court of Canada and the Federal Court of Appeal have upheld the decision.
On Sept. 22, the CFIA took control of the ostrich enclosure — a first for Canada, even though it has plenty of experience killing birds: More than 14 million commercial and backyard birds have been culled in recent years, including more than 8.7 million in British Columbia.
For now, the ostriches remain alive … behind police tape.