The Canadian government is currently working with provincial and
territorial governments to develop an Agricultural Policy Framework (APF)
that will shape the agricultural sector in Canada "into the 21st
century."
The governments have already agreed on an action plan that will address
five areas: food safety and food quality, environment, science and
innovation, renewal, and business risk management. Sadly, despite the
more than 650 million animals raised and killed for food in Canada each
year - that is, 1237 animals every hour - there is NO mention of animal
welfare anywhere in the document.
Given the institutionalized cruelty involved in animal agriculture, this
represents an incredible omission and an animal welfare crisis of
enormous implications.
At present, over 90 percent of Canadian farm animals are raised in
intensive confinement. With their basic behavioural needs denied for the
sake of profit maximization, most farm animals live lives of intense
stress, suffering, and sadness.
In order that they are kept alive in meagre and overcrowded living
conditions, Canada's farm animals routinely have their testicles, beaks,
horns, and tails removed without anaesthetic, and are fed a steady diet
of antibiotics, hormones, and steroids. In transport, they are commonly
deprived of food, water, and heat (no livestock trucks are
temperature-controlled), and reach the slaughterhouse weak and scared.
The last moments of their tortured lives could hardly be more traumatic:
kicked, dragged, thrown, or prodded down narrow shutes, many of these
animals are mis-stunned and slaughtered while fully conscious. Federal
studies have shown that even with advanced inspection notice many
slaughterhouses fail to comply with the most basic humane handling and
stunning regulations.
Whether we consider the plight of breeding sows, ceaselessly kept
pregnant and crammed in tiny stalls with metal grates for floors; battery
caged chickens, which spend their entire lives in a tiny box so
small they cannot spread their wings; male chicks, which are variously
suffocated, gassed, drowned or ground up alive by egg-producing factories
to which the have no value; the horror of a veal calf's life, confined in
total darkness, inhibited from movement, and fed a deliberately deficient
diet; or an all-too long list of other abuses, we see an industry that
treats animals as inanimate objects.
Again, it is shocking that improved farm animal living conditions is not
even on the list of policy considerations.
Fortunately, there is a space for public input. The Canadian government
is calling on citizens to comment on the APF - which it describes as the
"most significant shift in agricultural policy ever undertaken" - and
says that "all input provided during the dialogue period will be analyzed
and considered in the policy development process."
Please urge the government to immediately include strong animal welfare
standards in the APF, asking that the cruel practices currently
sanctioned are reduced or eliminated. In particular, call on the
government to eliminate battery cages for hens and gestation crates for
sows.
Make your voice heard by visiting the "Putting Canada First" feedback forum, calling (613) 759-7167, or by writing to:
Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada Sir John Carling Building, Rm. 331 930 Carling Ave. Ottawa ON, K1A OC5
