Abstract Background Improving upon traditional animal disease surveillance systems may allow more rapid detection of disease outbreaks in animal populations. In Ontario, between the years 2001 – 2007, widespread outbreaks of several diseases caused major impacts to the swine industry. This study was undertaken to investigate whether whole carcass condemnation data of market pigs from provincial abattoirs from 2001 – 2007 could have provided useful information for disease surveillance of Ontario swine. The objective was to examine the suitability of these data for detection of disease outbreaks using multi-level models and spatial scan statistics. We investigated the ability of these data to provide spatially-relevant surveillance information by determining the approximate distance pigs are shipped from farm to provincial abattoirs in the province, and explored potentially biasing non-disease factors within these data. Results Provincially-inspected abattoirs in Ontario were found to be located in close proximity to the hog farms of origin. The fall season and increasing abattoir capacity were associated with a decrease in condemnation rates. Condemnation rates varied across agricultural regions by year, and some regions showed yearly trends consistent with the timing of emergence of new disease strains that affected the Ontario swine population. Scan statistics identified stable clusters of condemnations in space that may have represented stable underlying factors influencing condemnations. The temporal scans detected the most likely cluster of high condemnations during the timeframe in which widespread disease events were documented. One space-time cluster took place during the beginning of the historical disease outbreaks and may have provided an early warning signal within a syndromic surveillance system. Conclusions Spatial disease surveillance methods may be applicable to whole carcass condemnation data collected at provincially-inspected abattoirs in Ontario for disease detection on a local scale. These data could provide useful information within a syndromic disease surveillance system for protecting swine herd health within the province. However, non-disease factors including region, season and abattoir size need to be considered when applying quantitative methods to abattoir data for disease surveillance.