An “unfit“ animal is an animal that cannot legally be transported. Canada is quite unique compared to, say, the EU regulations, by having a separate category of “compromised animals”, whereby those animals are not fully fit but they are allowed to be transported under special circumstances.
The difficulties we in the CVMA have when we look at the proposed regulations are, first, the maximum time they could be transported is 12 hours—that's a long time for an animal to go downhill—and, two, there are a number of conditions listed for compromised animals, meaning that the suffering will be exaggerated by the transport. Having sick or injured animals enter the human food chain is a way of allowing industry to get an economic return from them.
We are suggesting that the list of compromised animals be reconsidered so that animals that shouldn't be transported at all are not transported, and that the only option for these animals should be local slaughter, say within an hour of the livestock unit. Otherwise those animals are going to suffer unduly, and that's not acceptable.