2.0.1. A veterinary surgeon designated by the Minister or any other person authorized for that purpose by the Minister may enter, at any reasonable time, any premises, other than a dwelling-house, or any vehicle where there is an animal or animal carcass in order to take, free of charge, any samples of the animal’s products or tissues, in particular blood or semen, any samples of its secretion, its excreta or its dejecta or any samples of the animal’s immediate environment required to determine the state of health of the animal.
An injection administered to an animal to determine if the animal is affected with a disease, an infectious agent or a syndrome is considered to be a taking of a tissue sample.
Before taking a sample, the designated veterinary surgeon or the authorized person must produce identification and the certificate signed by the Minister attesting to the veterinary surgeon’s or the person’s authority and inform the owner or the person in charge of the premises or the vehicle or any person in such premises or vehicle of the compulsory character of the sample taking and state how the information collected and the results of the analyses will be used.
At the request of the designated veterinary surgeon or of the authorized person, the owner or custodian of the animal must provide any relevant information, in particular information on the age, origin and health history of the animal, that is required for the selection of the animals from which samples will be taken and for the determination of their representativeness and condition of health.
For the purposes of this section, the provisions of the first paragraph of section 55.11 and of section 55.12 apply, with the necessary modifications.