In June 2006, 150 wild common carp were sampled from Hamilton Harbour, Lake Ontario, Canada. Tissue pools consisting of kidney, spleen and encephalon were screened for viruses as a condition facilitating the export of live carp to France. Cytopathic effect (CPE), indicative of a viral infection, became evident after 8 days of incubation at 15 degrees C. Eighteen of 30 tissue pools (five fish per pool) eventually demonstrated viral CPE. The viral pathogen was initially cultured and isolated on the epithelioma papulosum cyprini cell line and subsequently shown to produce CPE in the fathead minnow and bluegill fin cell lines. Electron microscopy demonstrated the virus to be a rhabdovirus. Reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction assay and nucleotide sequence analysis identified the isolate as spring viraemia of carp virus (SVCV). Phylogenetic analysis of a 533 bp region of the glycoprotein gene grouped the Canadian isolate in SVCV genogroup Ia together with isolates from Asia and the USA. Sequence comparisons revealed the Hamilton Harbour, Lake Ontario isolate to be most similar to an isolate obtained from common carp in the Calumet Sag Channel in Illinois in 2003 (98.9% nucleotide identity). This is the first report of the detection of SVCV in Canada.