At Dorval airport, a dog that works for the food-inspection agency now sniffs people arriving on flights from Britain to check if anyone is bringing in food or plant products, officials say. Customs officers are also asking British arrivals more detailed questions about where they've been and whether they are visiting a farm while in Canada. Those deemed to be a risk are then taken aside. If they have visited a farm in Britain and if they are carrying dirty clothes from that farm, they are asked to dry-clean those clothes and to stay away from Canadian farmland for the next 14 days. Passengers arriving from Britain are not automatically required to step on disinfectant mats here as they are in some European countries, like Cyprus.
Canadian authorities seem remarkably calm as the world watches the disease take over Britain.
In 1952, however, paranoia reigned. Though some farmers today still believe he was a convenient scapegoat, a German immigrant named Willi Bruntjen was identified as the person who brought the disease to Canada. Some politicians believed he was a communist agent, sent to Canada with the disease as a calculated blow against the economies of the Western nations. The idea wasn't that far-fetched. Forty-two farms were hit.