Canada has the shameful reputation of having some of the poorest animal “protection” and transport laws in the developed world.
Agriculture use is but one on an exhaustive list of so-called “accepted activities” that are exempt as long as “codes of practice” are followed. It has to be, because it could not exist if held to the same standards of care legally required of those with companion animals.
Over 800 million animals are killed for food in this country every year, most of whom are bred into lives not worth living and are raised in factory farms that check off all the boxes for conditions that will lead to antibiotic-resistant super-bugs and future pandemics.
Instead of being offered the opportunity to engage in natural behaviors, they are forced to endure mutilations such as de-beaking, de-horning, tooth clipping, tail docking and castration. All were performed without anesthesia. All standard industry practices.
Annually, fourteen million individuals are injured during transport to slaughterhouses (which occurs in all extremes of weather with no food, water or rest) and 1.6 million are dead upon arrival. These are not random numbers pulled out of thin air by activists. They are statistics provided by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency.
But instead of introducing legislation that will lessen the suffering of farmed animals in Canada, the government passes ag-gag laws which criminalize those who seek to expose it.
Debbie Wall lives in Winnipeg, Manitoba. She was a candidate for the Animal Protection Party of Canada in the 2021 federal election.
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