Iain Stables, 39, of the RM of Montrose entered guilty pleas in Provincial Court in Saskatoon Monday on 17 counts of possession of stolen property over $5,000 plus a count of motor vehicle theft, according to Saskatoon’s StarPhoenix newspaper.

Stables hasn’t yet been sentenced on those counts, StarPhoenix writer Bre McAdam reported Monday, adding that the case has been set over to Sept. 25.

The newspaper reported the case has been proceeding through the Provincial Court’s mental health strategy (MHS) court in Saskatoon.

According to the Provincial Court website, individuals accused of crimes can be referred to the MHS court through a Crown prosecutor if they appear to have “issues related to mental health, such as cognitive disability, FASD, brain damage or psychiatric disorder.”

People charged with offences where the Crown seeks a penitentiary term are not eligible for the MHS approach, the court said.

Charges originally laid against Stables last year included 16 counts of possession of stolen property over $5,000, seven counts of theft over $5,000, five counts of motor vehicle theft and one count of break, enter and theft.

The machinery RCMP reported as recovered last year from a property near Donavon in the RM of Montrose included five John Deere farm tractors, two Deere hay balers, two Deere Gator side-by-sides, two Dodge trucks, a Haybuster, a cattle hauler, a car hauler, a mower and a tiller, with a total value “in excess of” $1.2 million.

The machinery in question has been reported as stolen from both “citizens and dealerships” across western Saskatchewan, including the Saskatoon, Rosetown, Biggar and Outlook areas, RCMP said in February last year.

Stables and his family operate Isla Bank Angus in Montrose, about 50 km southwest of Saskatoon.

The operation, which has been in the Stables family for three generations but moved in 2011 from its original site near Delisle, received a 75-year Heritage Award from the Canadian Angus Association in 2014.

Stables and his wife were on the cover of Country Guide in 2015 (“The new ranch,” March 17, 2015, pgs. 32-34) in a profile of Isla Bank as a start-up cattle operation in the 21st century. — AGCanada.com Network

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Chilliwack Cattle Sales (CCS) and co-owner Wesley Kooyman were convicted Friday in Provincial Court over violations of the province’s Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act.

According to the local Chilliwack Times newspaper, CCS president Kenneth Kooyman entered three guilty pleas for three charges on the farm’s behalf while one of the farm’s directors, Wesley Kooyman, pled guilty to a fourth charge.

According to a report Friday by Times reporter Paul Henderson, lawyers for the Crown and defence issued a joint recommendation for fines of $75,000 on each of the four charges, for a total of $300,000, plus $45,000 in total victim fine surcharges.

U.S.-based animal welfare and vegan advocacy organization Mercy For Animals, whose operative recorded the video in 2014, on Friday hailed the convictions as the first against a company for acts of its employees “following an undercover investigation by an animal protection group.”

The video, made available on its website and broadcast nationally at the time on CTV, showed dairy workers “viciously kicking, punching and beating animals with chains, metal pipes, canes and rakes,” the group said in a release.

The Kooyman brothers, who operate the farm, “were in a position to prevent certain activities and failed to do so” and “unwittingly had permitted a culture of abuse to thrive,” the Times quoted Crown prosecutor Jim MacAulay as saying in court.

Wesley Kooyman will be prohibited from owning or caring for cattle for a year, the Times said, other than to feed cattle in the presence of others.

While Wesley Kooyman attended the barns at 3:30 a.m. each day to feed the cattle, he “had no knowledge of any mistreatment of animals during the night shift or he would have put a stop to it,” defence lawyer Leonard Doust was quoted as saying in court.

In a statement quoted by the Times, Wesley Kooyman said he “accept(s) the judgment of the Court and we vow to do everything we can to prevent anything like this from happening again.”

Charges remain against seven fired CCS employees, the Times said, noting a pre-trial conference is scheduled in April 2017 for four of the men and three others are due to plead guilty a few days later.

The case’s impacts have been felt well beyond the court system. In September 2014, a few months after MFA’s video went public, the B.C. government made the National Farm Animal Care Council’s dairy code of practice mandatory for all dairy producers in the province.

MFA, citing reports obtained this year from the B.C. Milk Marketing Board (BCMMB), said more than 25 per cent of B.C. dairy farms were found out of compliance with the provincial code of practice for animal welfare during inspections over an 18-month period.

Inspection reports, the group said, “showed numerous problems, including overcrowding, lame or soiled cattle, tails accidentally torn off by machinery, branding and dehorning of calves without pain medication, cows lying on concrete, and failure to produce a manual outlining management practices on individual farms.”

Montreal-based dairy giant Saputo, formerly a major CCS customer, distanced itself from the farm after the video appeared, announcing in June 2014 it would not take milk from the facility.

CCS milk that had been destined for Saputo had to be rerouted to a U.S. biodigestor plant. During its investigation at the time, the BCMMB also stopped marketing the farm’s milk, leading to the dumping of over 35,000 litres of product.

“The abuse brought to light in this case should be viewed as a catalyst for change to ensure the proper treatment of dairy cattle through appropriate, enforceable and legal measures including severe penalties for offenders,” Saputo said in a release at the time.

Since the video appeared, CCS has named a director of human resources and requires employees to take three days of mandatory training on animal care and handling. Along with direct supervision, employees now also work in view of surveillance cameras.

“We can monitor what is going on 24 hours by looking at our cellphones,” farm manager Jeff Kooyman said in an article by Nicolas Mesly in Country Guide in December last year.

For its part, MFA said it would now press for NFACC’s dairy code of practice to be made mandatory in all provinces, to “help ensure that dairy cows receive a basic level of care and humane handling.”

“It is obvious the dairy industry is incapable of self-regulation,” MFA president Nathan Runkle said in the group’s release Friday.

“Giving the dairy code of practice the force of law in every province would be a much-needed first step toward ensuring the sadistic animal abuse we uncovered in Chilliwack never happens again.” — AGCanada.com Network

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FBC, an arm of Glacier FarmMedia, earned a total of 10 gold, silver and bronze awards on Oct. 1 from the Canadian Farm Writers Federation (CFWF), which held its annual conference that weekend in Saskatoon.

FBC’s Quebec farm journal, Le Bulletin des agriculteurs, also earned three awards on Oct. 7 from CFWF’s Quebec counterpart, the Association des communicateurs et redacteurs de l’agroalimentaire (ACRA). This year’s ACRA annual meeting was held at Saint-Jean-de-Matha, west of Trois-Rivieres.

Le Bulletin won the Prix Roger-Blais, a prize honouring farm newsletters, for its July 6 e-newsletter. Le Bulletin writer Marie-Josee Parent also earned two Prix Moise Cossette awards, one for technical feature writing and the other a special “jurors’ favourite” prize.

At the CFWF awards banquet in Saskatoon, Grainews editor Leeann Minogue and Country Guide contributor Gerald Pilger earned the gold and silver Frank Jacobs Award respectively for best press column.

Writing in Country Guide, Jay Whetter, editor of the Canola Council of Canada’s Canola Watch, and Canadian Cattlemen contributor Madeleine Baerg earned the CFWF’s gold and silver Jack Cram Award respectively for monthly press reporting.

Manitoba Co-operator reporter Shannon VanRaes, as part of a Glacier FarmMedia analysis of the proposed Canada/EU free trade agreement, and Alberta Farmer Express reporter Jennifer Blair won the CFWF’s gold and bronze Q.H. Martinson Award for weekly press reporting. VanRaes also earned the silver John Phillips Award for news photography.

Country Guide field editor Ralph Pearce and Grainews columnist Sarah Weigum also earned the CFWF’s silver and bronze Peter Lewington Award for best technical feature, while Country Guide contributor Angela Lovell won the silver Dick Beamish Award for press feature writing.

CFWF, ACRA and the Eastern Canada Farm Writers’ Association (ECFWA) plan to hold their next annual conferences jointly in September 2017 in Quebec City.

FBC’s Grainews, Country Guide and Manitoba Co-operator are also nominated this year for a total of four Canadian Online Publishing Awards (COPAs), to be announced next month in Toronto. — AGCanada.com Network

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The COPAs, to be presented Nov. 7 in Toronto, are a juried competition to promote and support Canada’s digital publishing industry, and are operated by Mississauga-based publishing sector magazine Masthead.

Finalists for the 2016 COPAs were announced Wednesday in the competition’s three divisions: Blue (Business/B2B/Trade/Academic), Red (Consumer) and Green (News).

The four COPA finalists from FBC in the Blue division this year include Country-Guide.ca, for Best Trade Media Website, and Grainews.ca, for Best Editorial Packaging.

The E-Quip Blog with Scott Garvey, a farm machinery and equipment blog by Grainews machinery editor Garvey, is a finalist in the same division for Best Blog or Column.

Also, in the Best Video Content category, FBC’s ManitobaCooperator.ca is represented by Titans of the Garden, a segment produced by Co-operator reporter Lorraine Stevenson following a grower of giant pumpkins from planting through to the weigh-in at Manitoba’s prestigious Roland Pumpkin Fair.

Various websites and mobile apps produced by Glacier Media’s FBC division have earned one gold and five silver COPAs in the Blue division over the last three years. — AGCanada.com Network

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