Drea Humphrey reports on the CFIA’s controversial kill order for 400 healthy ostriches in Edgewood, B.C., despite no active H5N1 cases, citing PCR testing flaws and herd immunity claims. Farmers, backed by RFK Jr., Dr. Oz, and others, resist culling, arguing natural immunity research is at stake, while Jocelyn—a 13-year-old Fraser Valley avian flu case—questions the logic. Legal appeals pause the order, but the episode warns of broader risks to food sovereignty and property rights if Bill C-293’s pandemic-preparedness powers succeed, urging support at saveostriches.com and a June 2 Regina town hall on sovereignty. [Automatically generated summary]
Drea Humphrey updates us fresh off the front lines of the battle for the birds at Universal Ostrich Farm in Edgewood, B.C. I'm Sheila Gunn-Reed, and you're watching The Gun Show.
My friend and colleague, Drea Humphrey, just spent a week living out of a camper van on a farm in Edgewood, B.C. because that's what it takes when the government tries to quietly wipe out 400 healthy ostriches and no one else is asking the hard questions.
The Canadian Food Inspection Agency claims it's about H5N1 avian flu, but they haven't proven a single active case on site.
There are no clear outbreaks, no transparent science, just a kill order for every bird.
But these aren't sick animals.
They're valuable research birds for avian flu and COVID-19.
So while CBC retypes government press releases, Drea packed up her bags and her camera and she moved on to the farm in a van.
She filmed the police as they showed up to assess the protest.
She interviewed the owners as they fought to save the animals they considered family.
And yes, she told us the birds' names because they're not statistics.
They're living creatures caught in a bureaucratic nightmare.
Drea has been telling the story the government hoped would fly under the radar.
The farmers are resisting.
The birds are watching.
And thanks to Drea, the rest of the country and the world finally is too.
Watch her reports.
It's everything journalism should be, but almost never is.
And Drea joins us now to update us on the battle for the birds in British Columbia.
Joining me now is Drea Humphrey, fresh off the battle for the birds at the ostrich farm in British Columbia in Edgewood.
Drea, I wanted to have you on because there's a lot of moving pieces.
A lot of things have even changed or presented themselves, I guess, since you came home from your, I guess almost a week-long stay this time with the ostriches.
This time.
But before we get into that, take us all the way back to the very beginning.
Why do we care about these ostriches?
Why do I suddenly care about ostriches after spending a lifetime of disliking them?
You and others, you know, across the board are caring about the ostriches for number one, the very basic reason is that it is not humane to kill healthy animals.
So that is really unifying people from all political backgrounds.
However, this is a serious threat if this call goes through.
And even the fact that despite the farmers' pushback, it's gotten this far to farming and food sovereignty, to freedom in science, and to even property rights.
I mean, the sky is the limit when the state can come in, buy an anonymous tip, which by the way, they don't even need an anonymous tip.
It can be the Canadian Food Inspection Agency's suspicions for some reasons that you may have avian flu.
But in this case, it was an anonymous tip that occurred late last year.
They came on.
The farmer said, yep, you're welcome to do whatever you need to do.
There's a sickness here.
We went to the vet like we're supposed to.
The assumption is that it's similar to a sickness they had earlier, a couple of years ago, except for the younger ones because they were newer ostriches and they were treating them the same way.
Now, for those of you who have been watching our coverage for years, you know that the PCR test has a lot of issues, including the inventor, the late Kerry Mullis, saying that it should not and cannot be used to diagnose anything.
And so what did they do?
They asked to see some of the dead carcasses and they only test two, which is very fascinating.
Out of hundreds, including living ostriches, they choose to only test two with the PCR tests that were deceased.
And from that, they say that there was avian flu present.
So a little bit of time passed and the farmers, who, by the way, are not farming these ostriches anymore for food since 2020, they have been part of research, groundbreaking research that according to them has neutralized COVID-19, not just one strain, multiple strains, meaning according to them,
what they have doesn't require you to get a booster every three months if you get it.
And they're very close, according to them, to doing that to the avian flu.
So you have the CFIA calling millions upon millions of birds.
In British Columbia, it's been almost 9 million in the name of the avian flu in the last three years, saying these birds must die after the farmers say, wait, our older birds, which is 85% of our flock, they were asymptomatic.
And that's consistent with what they had before.
But not only that, as months pass, why are you killing them?
It's five months now because they had a legal battle in between, but they've been asymptomatic and healthy, 85% of the flock, which means it's not when less than 85% of your flock die, it's not supposed to be what they call a high pathogen.
So all signs point to let's test these birds for antibodies and immunity and leave them alone.
But the state of Canada is hell-bent on doing the opposite.
And that's what the stand's all about.
Now, I'm going to ask you to speculate because I've done nothing but wildly speculate about this story and all the little side quests that I go on with this story.
But why do you think the Canadian government, the CFIA, is so hell-bent on euthanizing these birds?
You know, I'm working on a piece where I'm going to put it all together.
We might call it a conspiracy theory piece.
But as we know, sometimes conspiracy theories are accurate.
The thing that I'm noticing, again, from people across different political backgrounds is that they themselves come to the conclusion of the research.
I have seen people in my own family come to that conclusion.
They're saying, do they, they're at least questioning, do they want to end this research?
Especially when you see the United States pleading for the opposite approach.
Our largest trading partner is saying, wait, Don't kill these research birds.
Let's collaborate and see where this is going to go.
Let's work together for a solution.
So you start to think they're healthy.
The CFIA is refusing to retest them to prove the farmers wrong or prove themselves right.
And they're getting immense pushback politically, now internationally, and they're still saying they're moving forward.
So you tell me what's left other than to take a close look at, hey, if these farmers are right, if they really have found this way to, with non-mRNA, because, you know, $600 million just went to Moderna to find an mRNA vaccine for the avian flu, maybe it's bad for someone's business for them to move forward with their ostriches that are alive and originated from Africa.
They've been through a lot.
They've had, I'm assuming, a lot of viruses.
And this farm has been farming them for 30 years, but many of them were alive before that.
And I think there's also just the, besides the money, I think, that someone stands to make, if these birds are not part of finding a solution to these pathogens in another way that doesn't involve the mRNA.
I think the government has long thrown out the idea of something that we just accepted as reality for a very long time, herd immunity, natural immunity.
Like we, all of a sudden during COVID, we weren't allowed to talk about those things.
We had to pretend like they didn't exist and herd immunity and natural immunity were just things that conspiracy theorists talked about instead of like the basis for the majority of our vaccination programs prior to 2020.
And, you know, like, even if you don't care about ostriches and I didn't care about ostriches, actually, I'll say something even harsher.
Not only did I not care about ostriches, I really didn't like them.
And I'm not sure I like them, but I really didn't like ostriches.
But the point of this all is, if they can do this with these healthy research birds, they can do it with anything.
Again, if people want to think that that's a conspiracy theory, can I point you to Bill C293?
That was the private member's bill that thankfully died when parliament was prorogued.
And that was what they called the pandemic bill or more likely the vegan bill, because it gave the government the power to cull animals or close meat production facilities if somebody in the government decided that these places were a disease vector for the next pandemic.
And that's exactly what they're trying to do to these birds right now.
Well, you mentioned the herd immunity.
I want to read a quote.
It's a direct quote from inside one of the legal proceedings of what the CFIA's lawyer said, you know, in response to the farmers' lawyer and say, let's just test them for natural immunity.
Someone's made a meme out of it, but on the left, it's exact quote.
They said, there is a small subset of the population that holds certain beliefs about herd immunity.
Again, there's your small fringe minority sort of slap back.
It's very anti-science.
The other theory is legalities.
I mean, how many other farmers, I think it's over 238 just in British Columbia alone that have been culled in the last three years in the name of avian flu.
So we don't know how many said, well, wait, wait, wait, wait.
They're not, look at them.
They're fine.
Then you go ahead and you don't do your stamp out policy, which is, well, we killed them all as soon as we take this PCR test, which by the way, that policy comes from the World Health Organization.
So what would that, what Pandora's box opens if you allow these birds to live, but perhaps you've had similar quiet battles with other farms beforehand.
Right.
Yeah.
I mean, a chicken farm, you know, a turkey farm, this may have happened to them.
It's a little less interesting and odd because it's not a bunch of weird looking space alien looking ostriches.
But yeah, this has happened to farms before.
Government Overreach Debate00:03:14
And this seems to be where everyone is coalescing around the idea that the government is overreaching here.
Even David Eby, like since when do we find David Eby on the same side of an issue as me, you, RFK, Dr. Oz, and just general normal people.
Since when do we find the mainstream media, for lack of better words, reporting pretty fair on this situation?
And to be honest, I think that has a lot to do with the people, the everyday people who aren't overly into politics, being able to come to the conclusion that there's overreach because they're not being distracted.
You know, when RFK Jr. put out his statement, they're not being distracted with, oh, he's aligned with Trump.
Or, you know, those narratives are not going out, except the Taiyee did a horrible case and one CBC journalist, you know, both of those pieces trying to sort of frame the protesters as potentially being violent, which nothing of the sorts is happening there.
So yeah, it is definitely a unifying issue.
So what is going on with the CFIA?
Yeah, it's very, very weird.
You know, and you just touched on it lately, but let's talk about it a little bit.
You spent about a week at the farm this time.
You were in the Rebel News camper van.
Tell us what it's like at the farm because, you know, you had the police visit, I think, to take the temperature of the ostrich of Palooza that is happening there.
But what's happening there?
Like, I'm on the outside looking in.
I'm a little jealous that I'm not there.
I have a serious fear of missing out.
Me too now that I'm home.
Oh, my gosh.
What is it like there?
It's hard to leave there.
Everybody says the same thing.
And I think that's because, you know, we're all fighting in a different way.
Most of us are trying to take our stand, even if it's sharing this show that you're watching.
You're taking a little stand.
But it's not every day that you're surrounded with like-minded people that are like, nope, we're drawing the line here.
We're going to do it peacefully.
We're going to stand our ground.
And I'm amazed by how organized what's happening there at the farm is.
I mean, I guess it makes sense.
Farmers are up early in the morning, as I'm also seeing when they're feeding animals for hours.
And then they're, you know, the Katie Pissitney, the daughter of the co-owner and Karen.
Well, Katie's father is a paraplegic.
So they're also, you know, caring for a paraplegic.
So I guess they have that grit.
And then there's the sore port of the people.
So they have a kitchen.
Everything is run by a volunteer for whoever shows up there.
If you want food, you help.
So you help with the kitchen.
There is security surrounding the property 24 hours.
And they had to up that after a mysterious, the second mysterious murder of one of the ostriches was quite bizarre to be there while it was happening.
And then you have the small town sort of RCMP popping by.
So you mentioned them popping by, which obviously was to case the joint.
Volunteers and Volunteers00:04:16
They said it was for a wellness check.
Everybody's sure fine.
But then you had them investigating this ostrich murder.
And I'm like, you know, this is turning into this weird sci-fi novel or something because, you know, they are surrounding the property.
So where did this come from?
Witnesses, I'm not sure that I believe that's what happened, but there's a lot of belief there that a drone came down because people saw a drone and that it shot them because they think it's from above.
However, it's a little weird what's going on, but it is remarkable to see the people coming together, taking a stand and people coming from all over.
I've heard people say a lot from Alberta.
I've heard people say they're from Ontario and they're really concerned about this issue.
And you hit it on the nail when you said, if our liberal government isn't going to simply just say, hey, let's have another look at our policy or, hey, let's test them.
That's their out.
They could just test them for immunity.
If they're not going to do that when the farmers are part of research claiming to be able to take down COVID and avian flu, then no animal is safe.
No farmer is safe.
No pet is safe.
Right.
Yeah.
Yeah, that is, you know, that's another thing.
Like, say you're not a farmer, you don't care.
You don't eat meat because you don't care.
But do you love your pets?
Because the way that they say that some of these farms are contracting avian flu is through migratory birds.
And migratory birds are everywhere.
And if your cat, your dog, your bunny rabbit is outside and is exposed to migratory birds, you could have the CFIA beating down your door and exterminating your pets.
Global News already put a piece out telling us experts are concerned because it's passing into cats.
Now, they put the stat on there of, you know, across, I can't remember, but across many countries, there's only been very few cases.
And they say the cats are asymptomatic as well.
So that's a whole other thing.
But, you know, we're already warming up to that.
And actually, pets have been culled in the name of the avian flu before, because if you have a dog and you have a farm and that dog goes near the animals, sometimes they've been culled for that.
So definitely it's not out of the reach.
Now, I just touched on it briefly that David Eby is on the same side of an issue as RFK and Dr. Oz.
So the Americans are watching this with great interest.
What's happening there?
Yes, you're right.
The Americans, and again, I don't know if they're in it for the business or just a fight, but they see something in these birds in this fight that apparently our liberal government does not.
And so you have RFK Jr., who wrote a very sensible, science-based letter saying, you know, basically these animals are worth far more alive than dead.
And then you have a supermarket billionaire, John.
I'm going to put his name here because I have a hard time saying his long last name.
He's really been, you know, promoting it on his radio show.
And then you have Dr. Oz.
So Dr. Oz is now at the top of their Medicare system in the U.S.
And he said, hey, you know what?
We got to basically get these, save these birds, let them refugee over to my ranch, my 900-acre ranch in Florida.
You know, Canada's got to get its head out of the sand.
That's what he said, you know, with a little pun towards ostriches.
Now, the farmers have, you know, been in contact with Dr. Oz.
And I don't know exactly what.
I know, it's crazy that this grassroots fight has led all the way to the Secretary of Health of the United States and beyond.
And they're having conversations with these people.
I don't know the ins and outs of the conversation.
I do know that they declined the offer for, I don't even know how that would have worked out logistically, but for the ostriches to make it there while they're in quarantine or maybe not physically make it there.
Maybe, I don't know how that would work.
Grassroots Fight Gains Momentum00:11:53
But they did decline.
They say they want this fight to be in Canada and they want Canada to change on this issue.
Yeah, I guess that's at the beginning.
I was like, they could have pulled the old Tiger King Disappearing Act and start flunking these ostriches everywhere.
To hide them from the CFIA, but that doesn't change anything.
That doesn't fix it for the next farmer.
And it might not be ostriches.
could be turkeys next time.
Tell me real quick about the young lady who is an avian flu survivor who is frequently put forward as the reason this call is necessary.
Right.
Yeah, we've talked about the public pushback, the political pushback, and I'm sure the very last person perhaps the CFIA expected to be getting pushback is from the infamous 13-year-old girl who's been deemed Canada's first avian flu human case.
She had enough.
It was her idea.
She could barely talk because of damage they believe she got from the ventilator.
They came from the Fraser Valley area closer out to where I live.
They drove seven or eight hours to get there to stand with the farmers and the birds against the CFIA.
In particular, they are sick and tired of their daughter's story being used to excuse, in this case, especially, killing healthy animals.
They wanted to put a face to the name for the first time and give the first name, which is Jocelyn.
She had never been named before.
It was always just a 13-year-old BC girl.
Well, now she's like, this is ridiculous.
Don't kill these birds.
And a couple of interesting things that I noticed the mainstream media has ignored over that story, despite them continuously, oh, the 13-year-old girl.
They never let the public know that she, according to the family, has no recollection of being around any birds.
However, she was exposed to a very ill dog that had didn't have avian flu, had some sort of other illness.
So I don't know if that's related, but you'd think as a journalist, you would want to know some more about that.
And the dog, they were caring, they were sort of volunteering to help care for the dog.
The child, the 13-year-old teen, got sick shortly after that.
She was hospitalized beginning of November, and the dog was put down just a couple of days later.
So you'd think the public would know about that, especially since they're being told that the strain they have is from ducks in Alberta.
They're out here in BC, not around ducks.
Very interesting.
The other thing is, again, the farmers are saying, please test for antibodies.
It's a real thing.
Herd immunity is literally about the herd getting immunity.
So this child, this teen's antibodies are being tested for research based out of Toronto.
Oh.
But yet we're going to kill these ostriches who we know have antibodies because it's been months.
We're going to destroy all that and do nothing with their antibodies for this avian flu that they're saying is, you know, so important for us to handle in such a way.
Nobody in their family, despite being, you know, around their daughter, got avian flu.
So again, this is supposed to be about contagion.
That's not what we're seeing here.
And they don't know.
They're scratching their heads on how she even got it in the first place.
Yeah, I saw in the press conference, they said that they had the disease confirmed independently beyond just hospital testing, which I think was important, but they still don't know how she caught it.
And yeah, big irony there that her antibodies, now that she's recovered from the avian flu, can be used in research, but ostriches who have experienced the same, they're going to be culled.
I guess we should be grateful that they're not culling this young lady.
Drea, tell us about the state of the birds right now, because now, like me, so many people are bizarrely emotionally invested in them.
Well, the farmers are continuously pleading for the public to come out there, whether it's a day trip, you want to stay a week, you want to stay a couple of days, get to look the birds in the eye.
And I could see why they're saying that because when you get there, whether you like them or not, I mean, it is something special.
I had never looked an ostrich in the eye and their eyes are huge.
And, you know, they're just so inquisitive.
Like when you go and you talk by them, you can see my videos.
They come up and they stand behind.
It's like almost like they know they're famous now and they show off and they play with balls and they fight with each other.
They're mating.
I mean, it's just so ridiculous when you go out there and you look at them and how healthy and thriving they are to think that the CFIA is continuing on this route.
So if you can go out there yourself, experience it.
There's that little bit of convoy aspect to it where, you know, it's more like the prairies or whatever, but people have come together.
There's bouncy castles, there's campfires.
And it is really amazing to look at those birds.
And it's quite disheartening to know that even now, even though there's a temporary pause on the call by agreement between councils, simply to allow the farmers' lawyers to get a stay application in.
If that stay is granted, then I would assume there's going to be a pause for longer while they get to the next stage of appeal.
If it's not granted, the CFIA has made it very clear they will be calling these birds despite everything we've discussed in this show.
It's crazy.
It's crazy.
And again, five months, none of them are sick.
What is the pressing urgency to public health right now, except for the fact that they don't have an off-ramp?
Right.
Who the heck is who the heck is the WHO to tell us this is how we should handle such a thing?
We should just kill them all because they tested positive back in December after an anonymous tip.
Anonymous tip.
Drea, how do people find the work that you have done on these ostriches and support your missions, missions to the farm?
And I suspect you're going to have another one very, very soon.
I know, I know.
Oh, my goodness.
So we have a website.
So we've been covering this for months.
I've been covering it ever since I heard the farmers say they have natural immunity and the government was going to kill it everywhere.
So if you really want to go back, because it's been hard to put all of the loose ends into one thing, go to save theostriches.com.
All of the information is there, including how to help the farmers.
They have a give, send, go obviously for their legal fees.
But every information is there.
The science stuff is there.
There's more to come.
There's still another report coming out from me physically at the farm.
And I'm really trying to stay on top of this, even though I'm here at home.
And so even since I've been home, I think there's been like four or five articles that have come out.
It's non-stop.
Yeah, it's non-stop.
So save theostriches.com.
And please, if you can, because I think this is the first time I've done this for this long, where basically the whole BC Bureau is focused on this story, an imminent threat to our food security and more.
So what happens is it's not just the travel expenses.
It's not just the expense to rent the van and be there or whatever.
It's the expense of not reporting on other, you know, other important issues that maybe bring in an income for Rebel News.
So if you can donate at save theostriches.com to keep, you know, it helps me know you want me to keep focusing on this important issue, which I believe is super important.
Please do so at save theostriches.com.
Drea, thanks so much.
Thank you so much for fighting for, at the end of the day, even if you don't care about any of this stuff, it's property rights and due process.
You know, if you, if you're not guilty of the thing that they say you're guilty of, i.e. Being sick with avian flu, shouldn't you be entitled to treatment as though you're not sick with avian flu?
But it's property rights for farmers, it's food security, it's everything.
And I'm just so glad that you've dedicated your time to this and made me feel something for ostriches I didn't know that I was capable of.
Don't we all?
Thanks, Drea.
Thanks for having me.
Well, friends, as always, the last portion of the show is yours because without you, there's no Rebel News.
So I got to listen to what you think about the work that we do here.
I give you my email address right now.
It's Sheila at RebelNews.com.
If you have something to say about Drea and the ostriches, send it to me there and you might just have your comment, question, story idea read on the show next week in the third section, which is yours.
But don't let that be the bar for entry either.
For example, if you are watching a free clip of the show or if your friends are watching free clips of the show because you're trying to encourage your friends to become subscribers to Rebel News Plus, leave a comment over there because I do go looking over there to see what everybody's saying.
Not just subscribers.
I mean, you guys are very important, but I do want to hear what everybody has to say too.
So also those comments help us get higher up in the YouTube algorithm, which makes them serve us up to more eyeballs, which I think is really important because I think the message of freedom and fighting against government overreach is something that I think everybody needs to hear.
So today's email comes to us by way of Bruce in Radway, Alberta.
Longtime supporter of Rebel News, longtime viewer of my show.
We couldn't do Rebel News without people like Bruce and his lovely little cat, Delta.
Bruce says, Hi, Sheila.
What practical help has Ottawa given us, Albertans?
I can't think of a thing.
This election of a fourth liberal term shows that we can't reform Ottawa.
We tried with Stephen Harper and Preston Manning.
Nothing was changed by those good leaders.
Even with French names first and last, Pierre Polyev was looked down on as just another backwoods politician.
I'm done getting screwed.
We could be so much richer without that ball and chain called Confederation.
Sincerely, Bruce.
That was on my show last week with Corey Morgan of the Western Standard, who also wrote a book called The Sovereigntist Handbook available on Amazon.
We are doing a series of town halls.
Our next one is coming up in Regina on June 2nd.
So if you're in, I was going to call you Ratland, but that's just an Albertan being snarky.
If you are in Saskatchewan, please go to donegettingscrewed.com to get your tickets.
They're only five bucks.
We're at the Turn V Center, which is a large venue.
But I think the venue is going to fill up as these things tend to do.
If you're considering coming, don't wait.
Get your tickets.
And I hope to see you there.
Again, that's donegettingscrewed.com.
Well, everybody, that's the show for today.
Thank you so much for tuning in.
I'll see everybody back here in the same time in the same place next week.
Am I in the same place next week?
I think I'm on the road actually next week coming back from Regina.