Bare Bones Briefs: Federal Court grants injunction protecting kosher meat supply | CLIO breaks Canadian software financing record with $900 million funding

By Julius Melnitzer | July 28, 2024

CFIA’S SLAUGHTERHOUSE GUIDELINES MAY INFRINGE JEWS’ FREEDOM OF RELIGION RIGHTS

Federal Court Justice Guy Régimbald has granted an interlocutory injunction against the Canadian Food Inspection Agency’s enforcement of guidelines that have reduced kosher beef production in Canada by 55% and kosher veal production by 90%. Canadian law has long required slaughterhouses to verify that food animals are unconscious before they are suspended (lifted and hung by one leg to facilitate slaughter). New guidelines that came into force in 2019 required slaughterhouses to verify three specific indicators of unconsciouness, but CFIA only began enforcing them in June 2023.

According to the applicants, the new requirements reduced efficiency in the ritual slaughtering process to the extent that only three slaughterhouses producing kosher meat remained in the country. The restriction on kosher meat, the applicants argued, violated their right to freedom of religion.

Régimbald agreed. There was a “serious issue”, he concluded, whether the guidelines were unreasonable because they required that the animal be brain-dead, as opposed to unconscious, before suspension. There was also a “serious issue” as to whether they amounted to “a limit on the Applicants’ and the Jewish community’s sincere beliefs in a practice or beliefs that have a nexus to religion.” As the applicants had met the traditional tests for granting injunctive relief. including “a potential for irreparable harm that cannot be adequately compensated with damages”, Régimbald granted their application.

LEGAL TECH FIRM ACHIEVES RECORD FUNDING

British Columbia based Clio, a legal tech firm founded in 2008 that has grown to 1,100 employees, has built on a US$3 billion valuation to raise $900 million in funding – a Canadian software financing record, the company told the Toronto Star. New Enterprise Associates led the funding round, and participants included Goldman Sachs Asset Management, Sixth Street Growth, CapitalG, Tidemark, and the Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement system, who joined current investors TCV and JMI Equity.

Julius Melnitzer is a Toronto-based legal affairs writer, ghostwriter, writing coach and media trainer. Readers can reach him at [email protected] or https://legalwriter.net/contact.