Canadas Jewish community wins court reprieve halting new federal kosher slaughter rules [Video]

Kosher meat production, including veal, should immediately begin to ramp up in Canada after a Federal Court judge ordered the country’s food inspection agency to back off enforcing new ritual slaughter guidelines, issuing a temporary injunction on July 24.

Citing “irreparable harm” that enforcement of these government guidelines could impose on the religious freedom rights of Canadian Jews, Justice Guy Régimbald ordered a halt to the Canadian Food Inspection Agency’s requirements of three specific biological signs proving that the kosher animals slaughtered without first stunning them are actually unconscious, before the workers can hoist the carcasses and take them away for further processing.

The ruling came sooner than expected, and just two weeks after lawyers for the Jewish Community Council’s MK certification organization joined the Toronto-based Kashruth Council of Canada, along with meat packers Shefa and Mehadrin, and expert witnesses, for two days of legal argumentsbefore the Federal Court judge in Montreal on July 10 …