Bill Proposed At House of Commons To Increase Penalties To Farm Trespassers

Jun 23, 2021

One of the many bills still on the table in the House of Commons, before the summer sitting begins, is C-205.

That's the private members will introduced in the commons more than a year ago by Alberta Tory MP John Barlow. It centres around increasing penalties and fines against individuals or groups that trespass onto farms and ranches.

"A couple of years ago I had an incident in my riding at a turkey farm near Fort Macleod," shares Barlow. "A farm family went out to check their barns, a free range turkey farm, at 7:30 in the morning. When they opened one of the barns, there were about 40 people who had done a sit in, they had broken on to the farm and into the barn and were terrorising the turkeys. This ended up in a five hour stand off with the RCMP and the activist, who wanted some of the animals released. This really was a traumatising experience for that farm family."

As a result, Barlow had many farmers and processors contact him asking if this was free-game on farmers. Barlow notes that this tresspassing and trauma is something that we as Canadians cannot put up with anymore. The bill has support from the PC party as well as many opposition MP's of the NDP, Bloc Quebecois, and Liberals. Bill C-205 is now back before the commons for third and final reading, racing the clock before MP's leave for the summer.

With Files From Dean Thorpe

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Video: Evolution of Beef Cattle Farming

The Clear Conversations podcast took to the road for a special episode recorded in Nashville during CattleCon, bringing listeners straight into the heart of the cattle industry. Host Tracy Sellers welcomed rancher Steve Wooten of Beatty Canyon Ranch in Colorado for a wide-ranging discussion that blended family history and sustainability, particularly as it relates to the future of beef production.

Sustainability emerged as a central theme of the conversation, a word that Wooten acknowledges can mean very different things depending on who you ask. For him, sustainability starts with the soil. Healthy soil produces healthy grass, which supports efficient cattle capable of producing year after year with minimal external inputs. It’s an approach that equally considers vegetation, animal efficiency, and long-term profitability.

That philosophy aligned naturally with Wooten’s involvement in the U.S. Roundtable for Sustainable Beef, where he served as a representative for the Colorado Cattlemen’s Association. The roundtable brings together the entire beef supply chain—from producers to retailers—along with universities, NGOs, and allied industries. Its goal is not regulation, Wooten emphasized, but collaboration, shared learning, and continuous improvement.