The federal government has now admitted that the Canadian Food Inspection Agency and the RCMP spent over $900,000 on the agency’s mission to slaughter more than 300 healthy ostriches at Universal Ostrich Farms in Edgewood, B.C.

The numbers were revealed through an order paper question filed by Conservative MP Scott Anderson after months of stonewalling from Ottawa.

Despite Anderson pointedly requesting a complete accounting of all federal dollars spent, the amount the CFIA and RCMP did disclose is merely a glimpse into what was likely millions of tax dollars spent on lengthy court battles to avoid testing the birds to prove their health, and a nearly 50-day occupation of the farm with RCMP deployed at full force.

Nevertheless, for the farmers whose livelihoods and the healthy prehistoric creatures that were wiped out in the kill mission, the totals that have been revealed only add salt to the wounds.

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The CFIA alone admits to $444,000, including $9,000 on feed that the farmers would have been happy to provide had they not been barred from caring for their birds weeks before the “cull.”

More than $72,000 was spent on portable toilets and hand-wash stations, and over $32,000 on unspecified “specialized equipment.”

It also paid $100,000 for private security at three of its offices.

The RCMP, meanwhile, reported spending at least $450,000 on what it calls “public safety.” While reporting from the farm, it seemed more like serving and protecting the CFIA.

After all, despite pleas from the farmers, police didn’t seem interested in investigating why CFIA officers tampered with the farm’s cameras or how an ostrich hen, Spirit, was left to die slowly in a spot officials likely thought no one could see.

The RCMP also doesn’t appear to be addressing the criminal animal-cruelty complaints about the method of killing, either.

Instead of humane, one-shot dispatching, marksmen opened rapid fire on fast-moving birds in a large pen for hours. And the most glaring part of Anderson’s findings isn’t what the government admitted to — it’s what they failed to disclose.

Ottawa provided no totals for the marksmen contracts, no costs for drone surveillance or social-media monitoring, no budget for the kill-planning team, and no tally of the massive salaries and overtime accrued during the nearly 50-day standoff.

Both the CFIA and RCMP claimed they simply “haven’t calculated” those numbers.

Anyone who stood at the checkpoints or watched the shift rotations knows the federal presence alone should have pushed the real cost well into the millions.

Instead, Canadians were handed partial figures and expected to accept that as transparency.