The highest court in Ontario ordered the provincial government to pay $3.5 million to a company that was at the heart of the contaminated meat scandal about 20 years ago. In a decision issued last week, the Ontario Court of Appeal ruled that the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs in the province owes a duty of care to Aylmer meat packers and its owner Butch Clear, when it took over the company's slaughterhouse in 2003 amid its investigations into contaminated meat, and the ministry controlled the plant for 19 years before returning it to Aylmer, but by that time the company was destroyed. The case focused on Clear's lost opportunity to sell the plant due to the government’s takeover of the slaughterhouse. Consequently, Clear filed a lawsuit against the province for negligence, trespass, and conversion, seeking compensation, but the claim was dismissed at that time.

Going back to 2003, a confidential informant told the ministry that the plant in Aylmer, southeast of London, Ontario, was illegally processing sick and disabled cattle, so the police launched a criminal investigation and charged the company with selling uninspected meat. Accordingly, the ministry took control of the plant, which stopped operating that day according to the appeal decision. The document stated that the ministry brought in the police, then security later, and confiscated all meat that spoiled during the first ten days of its closure.