Vancouver Humane Society
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Horses shipped for slaughter can go 28 hours without food, water, or rest; they can fall during takeoff or landing; and receiving countries have no obligation to report back to Canada on the conditions of horses once they arrive. Organizations and advocates both here in Canada and abroad have shared opposition to live horse export, import, and slaughter. To tell us more about the live horse export industry, the VHS is honoured to welcome a leader in this advocacy work, Sinikka Crosland.
Executive Director of the Canadian Horse Defence Coalition
Sinikka is the Executive Director of The Canadian Horse Defence Coalition, a registered non-profit society dedicated to the protection of horses since 2004.
Note: Horse meat is eaten in Canada and various countries in Europe, Asia, and South America. While today’s discussion mentions Japan as the main importer of live horses from Canada, we want to focus on Canada’s role in this issue and share how we can end our contribution to the pain and suffering of animals. This written discussion has been edited for length.
Chantelle: This month we’ll be discussing the live horse export industry and the work being done to stop it. Organizations and advocates both here in Canada and abroad have shared opposition to live horse exports, imports, and slaughter.
To tell us more about this industry and share about the welfare concerns for these horses, we’re honored to welcome leader on the Canadian side of this advocacy work, Sinikka Crosland. Sinikka is the Executive Director of the Canadian Horse Defense Coalition, a registered nonprofit society dedicated to the protection of horses since 2004.
Sinikka, thank you so much for being here today.
Sinikka: Thank you for having me.
Amy: Can you share about your history advocating for horses?
Sinikka: Sure; it can go back a long way, back to childhood. I loved horses and all animals.
I remember being in grade four, and I loved to write. I would write horse stories every day and hand them in to my teacher.
And then finally she said to me, “Can you please not write any horse stories for the whole month of April? Write other things. I love your writing.”
And so it was hard to do, but that’s exactly what I did. I then devoted my month of April to writing about dogs and cats and foxes and cows and pigs and everything else.
So then back to May 1st, I started writing about horses again. I was one of those little kids who just had a fascination for horses. I love all animals. Horses are not my favorite animal by any means because I love them all.
So then from childhood, on it went. When I had started a family already, I got into horse rescue. And this was through a neighborhood group when we lived in West Bank, B.C. We got involved in rescuing horses there and being involved in some other rescues at the time.
And then the PMU (pregnant mare urine) industry came along, where pregnant mares are hooked up to urine collecting devices, collecting estrogen for postmenopausal women.
The foals are the byproduct of that industry. So we discovered that there are a lot of foals out there on the market. We started to go to auctions bid against the meat buyers, and we’d find homes for the foals.
That industry kind of tanked after a while. It’s still out there, but it’s not as prevalent. But there are lots and lots of horses out there needing homes; and I just carried on working on that level.
And so eventually, Canadian Horse Defense Coalition was formed in about 2004. We became a registered nonprofit and things grew to a national level, with even celebrity involvement in recent years.
Amy: That’s amazing.
Chantelle: Yeah. That’s really amazing and we’re really grateful for you to be sharing your expertise today, and I’m sure our audience is as well.
Chantelle: When we talk about the live horse export industry, this is a part of the animal use industry that sort of dwells in the shadows. I think a lot of Canadians aren’t aware that this goes on. Could you give a little bit of background for folks who don’t know what the live horse export industry is and how it works?
Sinikka: The live horse export industry is the process of shipping young draft horses, about between one and a half to three years old, to Japan for slaughter for human consumption.
If people don’t know what draft horses are, the Belgians and Percherons are 16 to 17 hands high, which is somewhere around 64 to 68 inches at the shoulder, and they weigh up to 2000 pounds. So these are big horses.
Canada sends these horses for a delicacy called basashi, which is like a horse sushi, sliced thinly, often served with garlic and soy sauce and served in high-end restaurants. These are very expensive dishes for people to buy.
Chantelle: Thanks so much for that background.
Chantelle: A lot of people think of horses as companion animals, so hearing that horses are being raised and shipped for food can be confusing when folks first hear about it.
Could you help clear up some of that confusion and talk about how horses come to be in this industry?
Sinikka: The horses are basically purpose bred for this industry. There are only a handful of breeders/feedlot operators who do this business in Canada.
The Canadian Food Inspection Agency website says that the horses must originate in Canada. But through access to information, we found out that has changed. So horses from the United States can now cross the border if they have been raised for this purpose and come across to Canada to be shipped from here.
It’s something certainly that our American allies would be interested in hearing about too, that their horses are also coming up to Canada to then be shipped for slaughter.
Amy: I’m curious, does the US have laws about the horses being shipped or is it just a convenience thing that they’re coming into Canada to be shipped?
Sinikka: Right now in the United States, there is no domestic horse slaughter going on. But the feedlot operators down there are quite happy to ship them across the border to Canada and even to Mexico for slaughter elsewhere.
Amy: What are some of the welfare concerns for these horses who are being shipped for slaughter?
Sinikka: The welfare concerns are many.
It starts with the feed lot, the way that they’re born onto the feed lot.
If something goes wrong and a horse needs veterinary care, farrier care with bad hooves and that type of thing, basically in a feedlot, it’s nonexistent. These problems that can happen are often ignored.
There’s no weather protection in many feed lots, so foals that are born in the winter or early spring can freeze to death.
So you have the feedlot problems and you’ve got the transport problems. Now we’re looking at long distance transport from the United States. That’s another problem where horses are crammed into trucks and shipped from the United States.
And then once they get here, they come to a quarantine feedlot in Canada where horses are kept in pre-export isolation for 45 days. The horses from the United States have to be kept an additional six months. The feedlot situation, as I’ve mentioned, is horrible, and that’s extra time that they must be kept in that situation.
So then at the end of that time that they’re the pre-export isolation, they’re taken to be transported to one of three airports in Canada: Calgary, Edmonton, and Winnipeg is where they’re flown out.
There they are put into small wooden crates. They can often stand for a long time on the tarmac waiting for the crates to be ready to be put onto the plane. Three to four large draft horses are crammed into a single crate.
There’s often a problem with headroom because these are tall horses. Their heads can come in contact with the netting at the top. And this is totally a violation of the Health of Animals regulations that their heads come into contact with, with the netting at the top.
So then they have this journey, which can take anywhere from 10 to 13, 14 hours. They can’t lie down, but they do sometimes fall down. And then you have a downed horse in a crate with other horses.
There’s no way of anyone being able to help a horse in distress. You can imagine if you have 30 crates in an aircraft, usually what they send is between 90 and 120 horses per shipment. So there you have them all crammed in there, and how can they be helped?
There have been horses that have been dead on arrival or wounded, injured, that type of thing.
They reach Japan, they’re unloaded at that end, and they still have the journey to the feedlot at that point. Right now in Canada, the regulation is 28 hours they’re allowed to go without food, water, and rest. And that’s from the beginning when they leave the feedlot here to the time that they arrive.
28 hours is a long time, but if there are any delays—which we have seen through access of information that there have been delays—then that period of time can go beyond 30 or more hours.
The other issue is once they arrive, we have no jurisdiction over there anymore. They’re at the mercy of the laws and policies at the other end
Amy: It sounds like there’s a number of aspects of their welfare that get compromised throughout that whole process.
Amy: The federal government committed to ending this industry and their campaign platform and the Prime Minister’s mandate letter to the Minister of Agriculture that was sent in December 2021. So what would you like to see as the next steps to end this industry?
Sinikka: I would really like to see the Prime Minister put pressure on the agriculture Minister to do as he ordered. It’s not a case of, “Here, have a look at this and see what you think about it.” It’s, “I want you to end this,” and yet there has been nothing but delay after delay. The excuses just go on and on. It appears to me that this is a low priority for them.
I would like to see more pressure put on the government. This can come a variety of ways, through more public awareness, more media involvement.
Now that we know there’s a connection to the United States horses coming from there, it would be very handy to have American media cover this and put pressure on the Canadian government.
Chantelle: Something we always ask is what steps the folks listening at home can take to help.
Right now, we know there’s a really important window of opportunity to take action on this issue. Could you share with listeners how folks at home can advocate for an end to the live horse export industry?
Sinikka: There are quite a few things that people can do. Right now there’s an active petition, Petition E-4190, sponsored by MP Alistair MacGregor and initiated by singer, songwriter, animal lover, Jann Arden.
If people go to horseshit.ca, it’s her website and she’s working hard to raise awareness. There are steps that people can take there: they can write to their MP; they can sign that petition.
People can talk to their MPs too, they can make appointments to go in and visit with their MPs, or write them letters, or phone them up. Tell them that this was a promise that this industry should be stopped.
They can write letters to editors of their local papers. This is a way of letting people in the community know who may not even have heard of this industry, and who will hear about it and be quite appalled by it. That would be a way of encouraging other people to go to Jann’s website and find out how to sign the petition.
And with all this pressure being put on the government, we can see that that would really help.
Chantelle: Yeah, absolutely. This is a really important opportunity to make a change right now for animals who are suffering and to advocate directly to your decision makers. So thank you so much for sharing that information Sinikka.
And as we’ve mentioned before, a shift toward plant-based foods is needed worldwide to decrease the demand for industrial animal agriculture. So you can make a difference standing up for animals every time you sit down to choose a meal.
Chantelle: As always, we know this is a really heavy topic for folks listening, but it’s so valuable for people to learn and share about it so that we can all work together and make a difference for these animals. Thank you so much for being here with us today, Sinikka.
Sinikka: You’re very welcome. I appreciate being here and spreading the word.
Chantelle: We really appreciate having you, and for those of you listening, we hope you’ll join us next month as we wrap up our series on animal cruelty with a discussion on how all these laws we’ve been talking about are enforced. We’ll see you next time.
More and more people are adding compassion to their festive meals by opting out of animal-based products and ingredients. In this special episode of The Informed Animal Ally, the Vancouver Humane Society’s Amy Morris and Chantelle Archambault discuss their experiences adapting to the holidays after going vegan.
Note: This written discussion has been edited for length.
Chantelle: It’s the holiday season, so we wanted to talk about our experience adapting to the holidays after going vegan and maybe inspire others who are thinking of trying a plant-based holiday for the first time, or who are thinking of new plant-based ways of celebrating.
So let’s jump right in. How was your experience adapting to the holidays after going vegan?
Amy: Making my own food or if I have a holiday where I’m just spending it with vegan friends, that’s easy.
But the times that I first encountered holidays with extended family were pretty tricky to navigate. I really had to think through what my strategy was going to be in advance.
The first thing that I did was to set some clear expectations with my close family to say, it’s important for me to have food available for me at this event, and I really want to appreciate that food. So there’s different ways to do that. Essentially, I’m happy to go to the grocery store and buy things for myself, and this was at someone else’s house, so prepare my own food either before and bring it over or, or if there’s space for me to prepare it at the house.
And by doing that, I think I really set myself up for success because I wasn’t depending on others to accommodate my needs.
It also created the space for them to offer up to prepare some dishes that I could eat.
I’ve seen that play out a few different ways. At one holiday celebration, there was a meal that got provided for me, and it was very interesting because essentially I was expected to eat it and take it home with me because that’s how much my family was not interested in even thinking about a plant-based diet.
I think that speaks to the adaptation that can be required, but also the importance of opening it up to conversation.
Chantelle: Absolutely.
I was actually really fortunate. I think my experience is a little bit different because I have not spent any holidays with extended family since going vegan, so it’s been pretty insular for me. My immediate family is very accommodating, which I’m really lucky about.
I think the best part for me has been, bringing my baked goods and being able to share them. People were very welcoming about it, even if they were hesitant at first.
Amy: I love that. I definitely have done that as well.
With another family that I spent holidays with, the approach that I took was, I will make dishes to share. I brought all the ingredients over, or in some cases, prepared some things in advance, so there were two types of stuffing.
And what was nice about that is everyone was sort of motivated by the idea of there being like novelty and different things to try, and so everyone was willing to try the dishes that I brought.
I think that was a good testament to the fact that plant-based eating can be a transition for people. Making dishes that you know, you know are going to be tasty and sharing that is a really nice way to have people start to shift the way they think about what plant-based food tastes like.
Chantelle: Yeah, absolutely. And plant-based stuffing is delicious.
Amy: Oh yes. In terms of what I put into it, I like to use a good bread, like a vegan sourdough or whole grain, then mix that up with sweet potato and some potato and carrots, lots of herbs and rosemary, you can put cranberries in it and things like that.
It almost comes out like a roast.
Chantelle: That sounds so lovely. It has that holiday feel and it speaks to how much our celebrations tend to revolve around food and how much this is an opportunity to share our own plant-based recipes with others who are vegan and are also not vegan and thinking of adding more plant-based foods into their diets.
What’s your favorite plant-based holiday treat?
Amy: I’ve experimented so much with a lot of different things. I think the foods that I have a lot of fun making are things that maybe you would traditionally put dairy in.
Making something like a pumpkin pie is so much tastier than even a store-bought one that would maybe have dairy, and serving it with coconut whipped cream made with a whipped cream dispenser. The novelty of the experience as well of having really fresh coconut whipped cream makes the pumpkin pie that much more delicious.
Chantelle: That sounds fantastic. Coconut whipped cream is also amazing.
Amy: How about yourself?
Chantelle: I really liked adapting my childhood recipes to be plant-based.
When I was younger, we used to make Sweet Marie bars, which are rice crisp cereal, peanut butter, brown sugar, corn syrup, and I’ve now replaced the butter with vegan margarine and put a plant-based chocolate on top. And that is so delicious.
I also make chocolate coconut macaroons. They’re so good.
For me it’s about finding those nostalgic flavors, and adapting them has been actually super easy. I wrote an article for our PlantUniversity platform about replacing animal-based ingredients with plant-based ingredients in a way that is very simple and sustainable.
Amy: What advice would you give to someone having their first vegan holiday?
Chantelle: I would say find plant-based versions of the foods you already love.
There are more and more products available to find those plant-based versions of foods you love.
If you’re cooking homemade, it’s so much easier. So for instance, that stuffing you made sounds incredible. You can make roast veggies. There’s so many versions of a seitan roast online that you can find and incorporate those nostalgic flavors.
I don’t feel like I’m missing out on anything. I think the best part is that you can also celebrate what you’re gaining; you’re adding all this love and care and compassion into your meal.
What advice would you give?
Amy: I think there’s so much that gets complicated around holidays. I know that when we talk about holiday, it looks very different for every person. You might be spending it alone. You might be spending it with a huge group of people.
I would say overall, be kind to yourself, set reasonable expectations so that you don’t get stressed out or frustrated.
Focus on what experience you want to have. If you want to be spending time making food and en enjoying making food, do that. And you know, whether it’s you eating it or you sharing it, have it be that the experience itself is part of the joy. Maybe trying a new recipe or adapting one.
On the other hand, if it’s stressful to try to think about all of that, and maybe even like, you know, you feel you’re missing some of the dishes that you’re going to be surrounded by, find some kind of treat or something like that, that makes you feel good. That way you can still have that feeling of celebration in your own way.
It’s been one year since the Prime Minister issued a mandate for the federal Minister of Agriculture to ban the live export of horses for slaughter. Since then, approximately 2,000 horses have been shipped on lengthy and stressful transport journeys abroad, destined for slaughter.
Most Canadians would be surprised to learn that Canada is one of the top exporters of live horses for slaughter. Every year, approximately 3,000-5,000 live draft horses are loaded onto planes, packed tightly with 3-4 horses per crate, and flown abroad where they will be slaughtered for meat.
Polling shows that a majority of Canadians are opposed to the practice of exporting live horses for slaughter.
The VHS supports organizations including the Canadian Horse Defence Coalition and advocates, like singer-songwriter Jann Arden, who have long been calling for an end to live horse export for slaughter. In Spring 2021, the VHS signed a group letter calling on the federal government to end the practice.
A federal parliamentary e-petition garnered more than 77,000 public signatures in support of a ban, making it one of the most popular animal-related federal petitions on record.
In December 2021, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau directed the Minister of Agriculture, Marie-Claude Bibeau, to ban the live export of horses for slaughter. One year later, horses continue to be shipped to their death as a result of government inaction.
Can you help protect horses from suffering through long journeys to slaughter?
Cover photo: Canadian Horse Defence Coalition
Are you a teacher? Learn more about making plant-based eating part of your classroom routine!
Read more about student-led efforts to make plant-based foods more available in their school cafeteria.
The public questionnaire is now closed as of December 16th, 2022. To provide additional input on other elements of a national school food policy, please use the quick email tool above.
Perhaps you picture a researcher in the field studying the migratory patterns of wildlife. Perhaps you see a veterinary student learning to administer vaccines to a dog. Perhaps you picture a rabbit in a lab, eyes reddened and irritated from toxicity testing. In Canada there are many different uses of animals in research, teaching, and testing, ranging from noninvasive methods to some of the worst suffering animals endure. In this month’s episode of The Informed Animal Ally’s series on animal cruelty, the Vancouver Humane Society’s Amy Morris and Chantelle Archambault discuss the various ways animals are used in science, protections in place for these animals, and how you can help.
Note: This written discussion has been edited for length.
Chantelle: To start out, Amy, could you give us an overview of some of the uses of animals in science in Canada?
Amy: Animals are used in research, teaching and testing. Usually we talk about these as a group. I’ll start by talking about the ways animals are used in research. I want to preface this discussion recognizing that people come from a variety of backgrounds. We know there’s been human medical innovation that has involved animals in the process of how we’ve gotten to where we are today.
But we at Vancouver Humane Society are of the mind, based on all the available information we have, that we’re at a place now in society where innovation can move past animal use and research, teaching, and testing, and really be even more effective.
For a long time, we’ve had the three R’s, which have been advocated for for many years, which are replacement, refinement and reduction, as it relates to this area of research, teaching, and testing. But although these are spoken about, it still seems to be common practice for institutions and people involved in them to do what’s always been done rather than to consider innovation. The sad reality of this is that it’s costing billions of dollars, and more importantly, millions of animal lives unnecessarily.
Amy: We’ll highlight alternatives later on in the podcast, but I just want to start off with some facts about where things are right now. We know animal use can range from research with the intent to improve animal wellbeing to medical research for human benefit.
Universities have research divisions that include animals. These range from mild experiments, sometimes for the benefit of the animals, to extremely invasive experiments. And this research is managed through what are called animal care committees, where a group of individuals meet to decide whether and how the research can proceed. All these universities report their research data to an entity called the Canadian Council on Animal Care (CCAC).
We’ll talk more about them later, but essentially, more than three and a half million animals were used by institutions that were accredited by the CCAC in 2021. It’s a huge number of animals.
That breaks down into five different categories.
We have studies of a fundamental nature in science relating to essential structures or functions, which is kind of a, a broad category that’s more than 50% of all animals used by CCAC accredited institutions.
Chantelle: This is also called basic research and it’s designed to find out more about the fundamentals about things like animals’ behavior, biology, and physiology. It can range from studying migratory patterns of wild animals, to studying the heart rate of Steller sea lions in captivity, to studying the effects of caffeine consumption on the brains of mice.
So it’s really a wide range of experiments and research.
Amy: Absolutely. Then the other 50% break down into:
So it’s quite broad, the many uses of animals.
And one other way that they can be categorized is the categories of invasiveness. The CCAC has broken these down into five categories, typically labeled A, B, C, D, E.
Chantelle: It’s already so concerning to hear that research is allowed to cause such a severe level of pain in animals, and again, I want to emphasize when we think about those types of testing, research, and teaching, we’re talking about huge numbers of animals being used and reported to the CCAC. It’s really enormous amounts of suffering going on.
In the most invasive experiments, the animals used most frequently were fishes, mice, and rats. Other animals used for testing include dogs, cats, rabbits, guinea pigs; the same species many people consider to be part of their families who we know to be capable of love and complex social bonds, fear and pain.
Chantelle: Now that we have that context for how animals are used in science, Amy, could you run us through a little bit more about what the CCAC is? What are some of the processes and laws in place to protect the animals used in science? And what are the limitations on protections for animals?
Amy: The CCAC, as I mentioned, is the Canadian Council on Animal Care. This is essentially an entity that is a non-governmental, non-profit type organization.
They don’t have any regulatory authority. All the institutions that are working with them are doing it out of a desire to be accredited.
They provide minimum ethical standards and required guidelines for the use and care of animals. In science, it is a requirement to get a Certificate of GAP (Good Animal Practice) in Canada. If an institution is going to receive federal funding for animal based products, they’ll have to get that certification.
Institutions that import animals to a lab environment also need to be in good standing with the CCAC.
I spoke a little bit about animal care committees before. To provide more context about what those are, universities have these in place and the CCAC guidelines dictate who needs to be on those animal care committees. They’re made up of researchers, chair and members of the public. They don’t dictate how the member of the public needs to be identified.
And that’s such a broad term, right? Because a member of the public could have a variety of thoughts and opinions on how animals could and should be used.
Every university does it differently. Some might post the position publicly. A more common route is that the existing committee members be asked to reach out to their networks and try to find someone who might be willing to be involved. They can’t have a conflict of interest, so it can’t be a spouse; that needs to be arm’s length.
There is a time commitment to it and it is an unpaid volunteer position. The role is pretty extensive; they’re reviewing protocols, renewals for protocols, of how and when animals can be used. There’s also amendments sometimes to protocols; you get maybe one to three projects a month to review. People will do maybe a few years of this kind of role and then move on, and they need to find more people to get involved.
At UBC for example, there’s one committee for all animal care projects, and then they distribute different protocols out depending on the number of members that there are. The members of the public are one of several committee members. It’s a great way to get involved in advocating for animals in a meaningful way.
People can reach out to universities directly to find out more about their selection process. It’s also a way to really deeply get an understanding of what it looks like to have different research and teaching and testing in universities.
Chantelle: Absolutely.
And that being said about all those requirements, it’s not a legal requirement to have CCAC accreditation. So there’s private institutions that are not CCAC accredited that also conduct research.
That’s unregulated in Canada outside of the Criminal Code and provincial animal protection laws. I don’t know of any cases that have been put forward for animal cruelty charges in Canada related to animal use in research. Employees are typically in an uncomfortable power hierarchy, so they wouldn’t be likely to report poor conditions, even if they aren’t happy with the way animals are cared for or are treated. There’s also agreements about nondisclosure and confidentiality that would make it more difficult to advocate for animals that are being kept in research and testing institutions.
You can take a look at the list of CCAC institutions on their website, and you can see that most of those are universities.
So now that we have a little bit of background on oversight and laws, we can delve a little deeper into what progress is being made to change the laws. One change on the table right now has to do with toxicity testing.
Amy: Yeah, this is a really interesting one because several years ago in 2015, Bill S-214 was introduced in parliament to legally phase out toxicity testing on cosmetic ingredients in Canada, so testing on animals for essentially cosmetic purposes.
It made it through Senate and then to the second reading of the House, which is very far along. It just needed one more reading to pass; and Parliament ended before it could receive that third reading. The reason that was even worse timing is that the bill already had support from all parties and from the cosmetics industry.
A letter that was submitted by Cosmetics Alliance Canada to the Senate and and to the House shared that animal testing to support the sale of cosmetics is no longer common in Canada.
This is for all intents and purposes something that just could easily pass and would prevent future uptake of testing on animals. We know now that this process is being restarted with a new bill, Bill S-5, that’s currently underway. Chantelle, could you share more about what’s happening with that?
Chantelle: Absolutely. It is really frustrating to see that that died during the election cycle. A little bit more background on toxicity testing. Toxicity testing tests the degree to which a substance affects an organism.
So for instance, the length of exposure of a substance like a new chemical, the route of exposure—whether it’s toxic through contact to the skin, inhalation, injection—and the concentration of a substance.
As you can imagine, it results in pretty severe suffering. It’s considered the most harmful use of animals in science. It commonly causes the most severe level of suffering and it impacts about 90,000 animals per year in Canada.
Testing the substances involves forced ingestion, forced inhalation, and skin and eye irritation. If animals don’t die as a result of the experiments, they’re typically killed afterwards. This is pretty horrific.
The US and the EU have already made commitments to phase out toxicity testing. The federal government in Canada made phasing out toxicity testing a campaign promise in the last election.
It is something that it makes sense as the next step in progress for animals in this area. Bill S-5 is an amendment to the Canadian Environmental Production Act (CEPA). That’s the law that governs how we assess chemicals and processes by which we test that substances won’t harm the environment and human health. Part of that process is toxicity testing, the testing to determine toxic effects of a certain substance; for instance, if a new ingredient was going to be used in a product.
Part of Bill S-5 aims to address toxicity testing on animals.
The previous bill died before being passed when the election cycle happened. This bill was reintroduced to Senate, and Senate made a lot of amendments that actually strengthened the protections.
Now it’s gone back to Parliament again where the standing Committee on Environment is going to review it. Animal Justice has been working with government officials to make amendments to the bill, working within the bounds of the law that’s on the table to make as much impact as possible for animals.
The goal right now is to make animal testing the very last resort when absolutely no alternatives are possible.
Amy: Something I think is really interesting about this is some other countries that have passed laws in this area are not allowing products that are made of components that are tested in other countries. That’s sort of the gold standard for a law like this, where you’re not just outsourcing the problem of testing on animals to another country. I’m really curious to see whether this bill ends up including some elements of that; whether it’s an end to that practice altogether or whether it allows for loopholes where the testing can just happen in another country.
Chantelle: That’s a good point. And there are a lot of alternatives that are available now that would make that unnecessary in most cases.
Amy: Something that’s really important to consider when talking about alternatives; it’s not just the animal testing piece, but it’s also just thinking about the types of animals that are used.
There are live animals that are used. There are also animals that are purposely bred to be used for dissection in education.
There are a number of technological innovations that make it possible to learn about biology without intentionally producing animals to be killed for dissection or used for various forms of research, including testing.
The Society for Humane Science shares that although 79% of science teachers in British Columbia still do dissection with their students, non-animal alternatives to dissection have been shown to be just as effective or more effective in terms of how well they help students meet their learning goals, and they even save time and money. They have a great blog post with so many non-animal model alternatives that cover a wide variety of species.
Any teacher anywhere can use those resources and move to a place where dissection isn’t costing animal lives.
Chantelle: I can see how requiring dissection in some schools would actually be a deterrent for people who would be more prone to using animal-free methods. Anecdotally in my own life, I’ve seen people who have dropped out of the biology stream of science specifically because dissection was a requirement in their school. So it is interesting to see where the future will go and what kind of individuals that will draw into the field.
Chantelle: Jumping back to testing methods, one of the main arguments I’ve heard in favor of animal testing is that it’s necessary for medical progress. There have been life changing medications developed in the past through methods that used animal research, like penicillin.
You’ll still hear people say, “I understand the harms that animal research causes, but I personally have a loved one with a life threatening condition, and we need to find a cure for that.”
In reality, those two perspectives, the one advocating for animal wellbeing and the one in favor of making progress for human medical treatments are becoming more and more aligned.
While there have been developments in the past using animal based methods, they’re few and far between, and now that process might actually be slowing medical progress.
Amy: Yeah, absolutely. The film Medical Illusion, produced by documentary filmmaker Gary Charbonneau, covers how ineffective animal use is and the different alternative technologies that are available.
It’s estimated that around 95% of drugs that are shown to be effective in animals failed to be effective in human clinical trials. That failure rate is enormous. You don’t accept that failure rate in any other area; yet somehow because it’s animal lives our society is discounting that.
In some cases, institutions are testing on animals for diseases that don’t even occur naturally in those non-human animals. They have to be artificially created in the animal creating an unrealistic disease process. And then that results in drug responses that are entirely different than that what would occur in a human.
The scientific experts in this film, Medical Illusion, advocate for investment in technologies such as more personalized medicine, such as tissue engineering, and bioprinting technologies such as 3D organ printing. The one that I think is really interesting is organs on a microchip.
I’m really excited for a future where these technologies are the go-to for all scientists.
Chantelle: Absolutely. And it’s so exciting to see that there’s also medical professionals advocating for the same thing. Dr. Charu Chandrasekera at the Canadian Centre for Alternatives to Animal Methods is doing a lot of great work in this area.
It would really benefit everyone to move away from animal testing. Of course, we know that the animals and those who care for them would benefit by not having testing required on animals, but also the institutions doing this research and the medical community as a whole.
When you consider the investment that goes into trying to make medical progress, each new medication represents a massive investment of time and money—10 years and more than a billion dollars on average that go to waste if a drug fails in a human clinical. That’s a huge investment trying to find necessary cures for life changing conditions and diseases, only to fail at the human clinical trial stage.
One example is more than 400 human trials have failed for Alzheimer’s. But Alzheimer’s has already been cured in mice because their biology is the basis for so much animal based research. Requiring animal testing means that treatments that could be effective for humans might be thrown out because they aren’t effective for animals that they aren’t even intended to be used on. Who knows how many medications that would’ve been life saving for humans have been missed because they weren’t safe for mice?
Chantelle: We always like to talk about what our audience can do to advocate against animal testing. What are some ways that people can advocate against animal testing, research and education?
Amy: An easy thing to do is to purchase products that weren’t tested on animals.
To know for certain that a product’s ingredients were not tested on animals, and that there are no animal ingredients (such as gelatin) used as well, PETA’s Beauty Without Bunnies program accredits more than 5,900 different companies. Their website is really helpful way to learn more about that program.
Leaping Bunny is another program that accredits companies. They only accredit based on companies that don’t test on animals, which means accredited products might still contain animal based ingredients. When making purchasing decisions, it’s important to review the ingredient list to ensure that no animal products like gelatin or coloring based on animal bodies is included in that product.
There’s some trade offs of these two programs in terms of how they accredit. Ethical Elephant created a graphic to help distinguish the pros and cons of those different programs.
Chantelle: Absolutely. That’s a really actionable step that everyone can take every time you’re buying a product.
Chantelle: Another step is contacting your MP to support phasing out toxicity testing. Bill S-5 is in consideration at the House of Commons right now, and that could make a huge impact for some of the most severe suffering that happens for animals used in science.
You can visit this Animal Justice Academy video for more details about the bill and about toxicity testing in general. You don’t need to be an expert to speak with your MP; you can call or email them and just let them know that you want to talk about Bill S-5 on CEPA, and you want to ensure that they support reducing the unnecessary suffering of animals. Science is evolving; other countries have already made commitments to phase out toxicity testing. This is a really attainable goal that Canada can make to have a significant impact in the lives of animals.
Amy: Absolutely. And I think another really big way that we can have impacts are at different levels of educational institutions. This could be anywhere ranging from high schools where dissection is happening to universities where you could join an animal care committee.
If you’re someone who has the capacity to volunteer your time, joining an animal care committee is a way to make a tangible impact for animals. You can reach out to your local university, find out if they’re conducting research on animals and ask more about their selection process. Get involved in making sure that research is consistent with guidelines and regulations, and even more, recognizing that there’s a a place for someone to serve as an advocate for animals.
The other role, if you have kids or even if you don’t, is reaching out to high schools and finding out what programs are being used for dissection. See if you know you can meet with a biology teacher and share about the different alternative models and find out what the barriers are to them adopting those models. Certainly every single one of us can become an individual advocate in communities because those decisions are being made on a teacher by teacher basis.
Chantelle: Absolutely, and this is such a rapidly developing field that there’s so much space for impact on the short term and the long term for animals.
Now that we’ve gone over all these laws around animal cruelty over the past six months, we’re going to be wrapping up the year next month with a discussion on how the laws and regulations are enforced. Until then, if you’d like to share your thoughts on this topic or any other topics that we’ve discussed already, please reach out to the Vancouver Humane Society on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram.
The return of the Chilliwack rodeo this year, along with a controversial new rodeo held in Langley Township, has raised concerns about the well-being of animals made to perform in rodeo events. Video footage taken at both rodeos this summer shows stressed and frightened animals being roughly handled and deliberately agitated into fleeing and bucking.
Vancouver Humane Society is partnering with The Happy Herd Farm Sanctuary this Giving Tuesday to make life better for animals!
Between now and November 29, you can donate directly to our joint campaign. The first $6,000 in donations received will be matched by generous local partners! We are also looking for businesses and individuals to support this campaign through matched giving donations. Check out our sponsorship package for more details.
Every supporter that donates toward the Giving Tuesday campaign will be entered into a prize draw for the chance to win a $50 Lotus Seed Vegan gift card or a $25 The Burrow gift card.
The Happy Herd provides a loving home to 65 animals rescued from the farming industry. Over the past year, they welcomed two goats, two kittens, a rabbit and two guinea pigs. Happy Herd’s costs have risen dramatically over the past year due to wildfires and floods causing supply chain issues across B.C. A round bale of hay for the cows has jumped from $65 to $110, most feed has increased by at least 20% and the cost of a vet visit has risen from $135 to $185.
Your generous support of this campaign will have a lasting impact on the lives of the animals who call The Happy Herd home.
Since 1984, the Vancouver Humane Society has been supporting individuals, organizations, and governments to take action for the welfare and rights of animals influenced by human activities. Whether advocating against rodeo cruelty, providing emergency vet funds for companion animals in low income homes, offering resources to help people and businesses choose plant-based options, or lobbying for policies that minimize harm to animals, VHS is dedicated to ending animal suffering in all forms. All donations to VHS will go directly toward vital programs and advocacy work in order to create a kinder world for all animals.
Thank you so much for your support of both of our organizations!
B.C.’s provincial government has announced that it is moving ahead with regulatory changes that will restrict the sale and use of some of the deadliest rodent poisons. As of January 21, 2023, second-generation anticoagulant rodenticides (SGARs) will be prohibited, with exemptions for sectors that have been deemed ‘essential services’.
The government’s decision follows a temporary, partial ban that has been in place since July 2021, along with a public consultation around proposed permanent changes. During this period, more than 2,500 British Columbians signed the Vancouver Humane Society’s petition in support of a comprehensive rodenticide ban. The VHS and more than 1,300 individuals participated in the public consultation; the VHS also submitted a report in support of a comprehensive rodenticide ban.
Despite widespread feedback in support of further restrictions and a full ban, the Province announced its decision to move forward with its initially proposed changes. Concerns remain that gaps in the regulations will continue to pose a risk to animals.
In addition to the exemptions that will allow SGARs to continue being used in many circumstances, many other dangerous poisons will still be allowed under the updated regulations, including first-generation anticoagulant rodenticides (FGARs) and neurotoxins. There are also concerns that enforcement is more difficult without consistent and comprehensive regulations.
Despite concerns, the decision to significantly restrict the use of SGARs is an important step in the right direction. The VHS and animal allies will continue to advocate for further action to protect animals from encountering these and other inhumane poisons.
The VHS recommends that the government’s partial ban be a starting point in a much-needed move away from deadly and inhumane rodent poisons and toward humane alternatives and preventative approaches for dealing with human-rodent conflicts.
A growing number of B.C. communities have gone above and beyond the partial ban. To date, more than 20 B.C. municipalities have banned rodenticides on municipal property, including Whistler, which recently adopted a policy to ban FGARs and SGARs.
Keep an eye out for bait boxes in and around your community, which indicate a rodent management program is in use. Note: Not every bait box contains rodenticides. Bait boxes can also contain snap traps. Look for a label that indicates the bait box’s contents.
Reach out to the decision-maker in charge of the building and inquire about what rodent/”pest” control products are in use at the location.
If rodenticides (or other inhumane products like glue traps) are in use, offer to share more information and alternatives:
Rodenticides are highly toxic poisons that cause a slow and painful death for the rodents who consume them and can severely injure or kill any scavengers, predators or pets who encounter the poisoned rodents or the poisons directly. This includes anticoagulant poisons (including first-generation products) and other rodenticides, such as neurotoxins like Bromethalin. Effective and sustainable alternative solutions exist to address human-rodent conflicts, including high quality snap traps, captive bolt traps, and rodent contraceptives. The most effective long-term solutions include: - Exclusion techniques: rodent-proofing buildings and fixing structural flaws and access points; - Preventative measures: addressing attractants such as garbage, compost, fallen bird seed and fruit, leaky plumbing; - Habitat modification: making the environment around buildings less hospitable for rodents by cutting back bushes and grasses, storing items away from buildings and off of the ground.
Share contact information for humane rodent control companies (e.g. Humane Solutions) or encourage the decision-maker to speak with their current company about replacing rodenticides with humane alternative approaches.
Some examples of prohibited and non-prohibited locations include:
| Examples of prohibited locations | Examples of exempt locations |
|---|---|
| *SGARs are not allowed here – Residential buildings such as apartments – Office buildings – Parks – Schools – Non-food retail shops | *SGARs can still be used by licensed “pest control” companies here – Hospitals – Supportive housing and shelters – Agricultural operations – Grocery stores – Restaurants – Landfills and recycling facilities |
See page 12 of this PDF for the full list of exempt locations where SGARs are allowed to continue being used. If a SGAR is being used at a location not on the list, it is not in compliance with the ban. Watch the video below for tips on documenting and reporting prohibited rodenticides.
The Ministry of Agriculture will be doing a review of the farmed animal welfare framework between now and spring 2023, confirms a recent article in the Country Life in BC agricultural newspaper. The Vancouver Humane Society reached out to the Ministry calling for true public transparency on farms and changes that would make a meaningful difference in the lives of the millions of sentient animals raised for food in this province.
Oct. 26, 2022
Dear Minister Popham and the Ministry of Agriculture,
We are writing in reference to the article published in Country Life in BC (October 2022, vol. 108 no. 10) confirming that the Ministry will be doing a review of the farmed animal welfare framework between now and spring 2023. We are grateful that the Ministry of Agriculture is actively taking action to consider the lives of farmed animals.
The Vancouver Humane Society represents 36,800 supporters who are concerned about the state of animal welfare for farmed animals in British Columbia. Over the past 10 years, undercover footage filmed on farms raising cows for milk, cattle for beef, pigs for meat, chickens for meat, and hens for eggs, has demonstrated that these animals are in a dire state. From being plucked bare, legs being pulled off, animals being actively abused, stereotypical behaviour like bar-biting, untreated wounds, trampled animals, and inhumane euthanasia methods, animals are not given the consideration they deserve as sentient beings.
Since the publishing of Animal Machines by Ruth Harrison in 1964, there have been disturbingly few changes to address the suffering of farmed animals. Minister Popham, you previously advocated for animals and ending their suffering when serving as the opposition party. The Ministry of Agriculture has the unique ability to significantly reduce the suffering of millions of animals each year by introducing measures that ensure true public transparency. A focus on ‘public trust’, while making no measurable changes to the suffering of animals, is unconscionable, and yet has been the primary approach of the Ministry of Agriculture to date.
We ask for the Ministry of Agriculture to conduct a thorough review which considers the importance of transparency, specifically, one that recognizes the importance of conducting consistent farm audits and making publicly available the findings of the audits. This is the only mechanism that could ensure that there is transparency that results in meaningful outcomes for the animals affected. The Vancouver Humane Society also asks to be included in all stakeholder consultation related to the farmed animal review as an animal protection agency with a British Columbia focus that exists outside of the role of enforcement.
Thank you for your serious consideration of the suffering experienced by sentient farmed animals and of our request to be included as a stakeholder in the review process,
Amy Morris
Executive Director
More than 3,000 animal supporters have called on the Ministry of Agriculture to introduce greater protections for farmed animals, including third-party audits and video surveillance on farms. Will you join us? Learn more about the ongoing campaign below.