This petition is now closed. Thank you to everyone who signed and spoke up for animals. Please go to this page for current campaigns.
The Vancouver Humane Society is joining the Canadian Coalition for Farmed Animals and advocates across Canada in calling for a ban on force-feeding ducks and geese for foie gras production.
Foie gras is produced by force-feeding ducks and geese until their livers swell up to ten times their normal size, causing a painful condition known as hepatic lipidosis (fatty liver syndrome).
Many other nations have banned the production and/or import of foie gras due to the severe animal welfare concerns, including the UK, Argentina, Australia, and India.
TAKE ACTION: Canadian residents can sign the official parliamentary e-petition until January 2, 2026. After you sign, be sure to click the link in the confirmation email so your signature is counted.
End foie gras production, import, and sale in Canada
Join the Vancouver Humane Society, the Canadian Coalition for Farmed Animals, MP Nathaniel Erskine-Smith, and advocates across Canada in calling to protect ducks and geese from inhumane force-feeding for foie gras.
The petition calls on Canada’s Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food to:
Ban the practice of force-feeding ducks and geese for the production of foie gras;
Ban the importation and sale of foie gras produced by such force-feeding;
Provide financial assistance and guidance to producers for transitioning to plant-based agriculture.
Sign the federal e-petition on the Parliament of Canada website before January 2, 2026, at 10:28 a.m. PT.
Important: After you sign the petition, be sure to check your email and click the confirmation link to ensure your signature is counted.
Last week, the Government of Canada introduced Bill C-16, the Protecting Victims Act.
This bill that moves to criminalize the distribution of animal sexual abuse images, while recognizing animals as victims and tools of coercive control.
These types images are not only acts of cruelty toward animals—they are also used to groom and exploit children and control victims.
This historic milestone was made possible through years of advocacy from Humane Canada (the federation of humane societies and SPCAs) and Member organizations.
TAKE ACTION: Use the quick message tool from Humane Canada to call on your MP to support the Protecting Victims Act.
Violence against animals and violence against people are deeply connected, a reality that has left children, survivors, and animals without the protections they need. Bill C-16, the Protecting Victims Act, is a crucial step forward that recognizes the violence link and takes action where it is urgently needed.
The bill criminalizes the distribution of animal sexual abuse images, material that has been used to groom, manipulate, and exploit children. It also expands protections for people whose animals are harmed or threatened as a form of coercive control, a tactic widely used in intimate partner violence and criminal harassment.
These measures close long-standing gaps in Canadian law and strengthen safety for the entire family unit.
But Bill C-16 is not yet law. For these protections to take effect, Parliament must pass the legislation. Your voice can help ensure that happens.
December 16, 2025 marks four years since the federal Liberal government promised to ban live horse export for slaughter, yet the commitment remains unfulfilled.
In that time, more than 10,700 horses have been shipped on long, stressful overseas flights, destined for slaughter despite widespread public opposition.
These grueling 20+ hour journeys where horses are confined in cramped crates have led to injuries, extreme exhaustion, miscarriages, and deaths.
Bill C-355, introduced in 2023 to end live horse export for slaughter, passed the House of Commons but stalled in the Senate and died with the 2025 election.
With one of the most vocal Senators who previously blocked the bill now retired, Canadians are calling on the federal government to finally keep its promise and end this inhumane industry for good.
Take action!
Online
Remind decision-makers that this issue matters to you! Use the talking points below to send a message to your Member of Parliament and the federal Minister of Agriculture.
Use the key points below to help you draft your email. Personalized emails are more impactful, so be sure to use your own words.
Why you’re writing:
Share that you’re a constituent of the Member of Parliament;
That you’re writing regarding Canada’s inhumane practice of live horse export for slaughter;
That it’s the four year anniversary of the federal government’s promise to end live horse export for slaughter;
That you’re urging the government to follow through on this promise and end the practice once and for all.
Why the issue matters to you:
Consider sharing a few of key issues below that most concern you:
Horses are loaded into crowded crates and flown on lengthy and stressful journeys overseas, destined for slaughter.
Horses can legally go 28 hours without food, water, or rest – though investigations show many journeys exceed this already inhumane time limit.
Deaths and injuries are commonplace, with investigations uncovering extreme exhaustion, miscarriages, and even deaths during and soon after the flights. For example, 21 horses died in 13 months between May 2023-June 2024.
More than 10,000 horses have been sent to their deaths since the government promised to ban live horse export for slaughter.
Polling shows a strong majority of Canadians are opposed to live horse export for slaughter.
Reiterate your request:
That you’re strongly urging them, as your elected representative and the Minister responsible for implementing a ban, to prioritize an end to live horse export for slaughter.
Ask for a reply:
Thank them for their consideration of your request and ask that they respond to you at their earliest convenience, as this issue is important to you.
Thanks to supporters like you, the VHS is updating the long-running PlantUniversity project to reach a new audience: postsecondary students in the Lower Mainland. We’re meeting students where they are, whether on campus or in the dining hall, to save the lives of farmed animals today and tomorrow.
PlantUniversity shares simple, affordable ways to help students add more plant-based meals into their routines. The difference this makes for animals is massive; more than 80 billion land animals are killed for food worldwide each year. The high demand for animal products exacerbates the inhumane conditions animals endure on industrial farms, in crowded transport trucks, and in slaughterhouses.
85,444,639,663
land animals were killed for food worldwide in 2023 (Faunalytics)
Choosing plant-based more often is one of the most effective ways to reduce suffering while also supporting our planet and personal health.
Beginning this fall, the VHS’s PlantUniversity team is working with student leaders at Metro Vancouver’s largest campuses to host in-person events, partner with local brands for tasty samples, and collaborate with professors to include animal-friendly food choices in coursework. Outreach activities and materials will highlight the impacts of our individual food choices on animals, the planet, and our health.
So far, the program has reached more than 100 professors at Lower Mainland schools. The program’s inaugural event over Climate Week in September directly reached hundreds of students with informational materials, peer support, and delicious plant-based baked goods, and with thousands more estimated to have seen prominent signage sharing the climate impacts of animal-based foods compared to plant-based. Meanwhile, the program is making resources available to all postsecondary students across Canada through engaging social media posts, simple recipes, and guides to help students nationwide become leaders in their own campus communities.
The VHS is working alongside partners Reimagine Agriculture and Canadian Universities Initiative to develop these online resources, which will be available to all students in perpetuity. These partner organizations are also working with campus food providers to make plant-based foods more available and accessible through initiatives like default veg programs, in which plant-based meals are the default order and students may request animal products as an add-on.
Many students are making independent food decisions for the first time. With your help, we can give them the tools to choose compassion the next time they’re in the dining hall.
Do you know a faculty member, staff person, or student who might like to get involved? Please call Matt, the PlantUniversity Coordinator, at 778-251-3354. You can also reach him by email at matthew@vancouverhumanesociety.bc.ca. Thank you for helping the next generation choose kinder plates.
We hear and appreciate the concern many animal supporters have shared about the situation at Universal Ostrich Farm in Edgewood, B.C. Like you, we care deeply about the lives of animals, and their well-being is at the heart of every piece of the Vancouver Humane Society’s work.
This has been a painful and complex situation. Our thoughts are with the ostriches, the community, and everyone affected. We know many members of the public have been moved by the farm’s publicly stated shift away from oil and meat production toward a research-based model. At the same time, we recognize that avian influenza presents real challenges for farmed animals, wildlife, and public health.
We encourage the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) and the farmers at Universal Ostrich to work together in good faith to explore humane, science-based alternatives to culling. If the ostriches are given the opportunity to live out their lives free from harm and exploitation, we support efforts to find a solution that protects their health and well-being.
The VHS remains committed to compassionate solutions that see animals as individuals with lives worth protecting.
This petition is now closed. Thank you to everyone who signed and spoke up for animals. Please go to this page for current campaigns.
The Vancouver Humane Society is joining The Fur-Bearers and advocates across Canada in calling for an end to fur farming for all species in Canada.
Wild animals confined on fur farms are kept in cramped and inhumane conditions to be killed for non-essential fur products.
The Province of British Columbia has banned fur farming of minks due to public health risks, but many animals continue to suffer across the country.
TAKE ACTION: Canadian residents can sign the official parliamentary e-petition until August 17, 2025. After you sign, be sure to click the link in the confirmation email so your signature is counted.
You can also use the quick action tool from The Fur-Bearers to send an email to federal decision-makers calling for change.
Join the Vancouver Humane Society, The Fur-Bearers, MP Gord Johns, and advocates across Canada in calling to protect wild animals farmed for their fur.
Sign the federal e-petition on the Parliament of Canada website before August 17, 2025, at 11:40 a.m. PT.
Important: After you sign the petition, be sure to check your email and click the confirmation link to ensure your signature is counted.
The feedback period for the Pig Code of Practice is now closed. Thank you to all who spoke up for pigs!
The National Farm Animal Care Council’s (NFACC) Pig Code of Practice, last updated in 2014, was up for review until June 4, 2025.
The code of practice serves as a guideline for the on-farm care and handling of pigs raised in Canada.
There are many significant welfare issues associated with the current pig code of practice, including: extreme confinement; lack of opportunities to engage in natural behaviour; lameness and injury; unnecessary painful procedures; and inhumane forms of on-farm euthanasia.
Hundreds of advocates spoke up for pigs, submitting their top welfare concerns with help from the VHS’s tip sheet.
Keep an eye out for the next public feedback stage around fall 2026 to winter 2027, when NFACC will release specific updates for comment.
Thank you! The 5-minute survey to speak up for millions of pigs is now closed.
Read the top welfare concerns for pigs
Advocates filled out a short survey and shared their top 3 concerns for pig welfare. Scroll down to read a few of the top welfare issues the VHS recommended for consideration.
Photo: Jo-Anne McArthur/We Animals
Note: Click or tap to expand images. Though the images do not show graphic violence or injuries, they depict animal suffering and may be upsetting to some viewers. All photos were taken on Canadian pig farms between 2020 and 2022.
Top welfare priorities
Extreme confinement
Recommendation: End extreme confinement, including use of gestation and farrowing crates.
Background: Gestation and farrowing crates are used to isolate and confine individual pigs who are pregnant (gestation crates) and ready to give birth and nurse piglets (farrowing crates).
Both types of enclosures are so small and narrow that the mother pig can only stand up, lie down, and take a few steps forward or back, but cannot turn around.
Click for image of gestation crates
Jo-Anne McArthur/We Animals
On an industrial pig farm, a sow chews repetitively on the metal bars of her gestation crate while her neighbours drink accumulated water from a channel that runs in front of their enclosures. Sows confined inside these bare, concrete-floored enclosures can sit, stand and lie down, but they cannot walk or turn around. Quebec, Canada, 2022.
Lack of space & enrichment
Recommendation: Require more space and species-specific enrichment opportunities to engage in natural behaviours.
Background: Inadequate space and overcrowding can contribute to stress, aggression, injury and lameness and restrict the ability to engage in important natural behaviours.
Appropriate environmental enrichment is crucial for allowing pigs to express species-specific natural behaviours (e.g. rooting, chewing, exploring) and prevent boredom, stress and abnormal behaviours. Appropriate nesting materials are also a crucial form of enrichment for pregnant pigs.
Click for image of a crowded industrial pig farm
Jo-Anne McArthur/We Animals
Young pigs live in compact pens inside this industrial farming facility. The windows open to the hallway and not to the outdoors, and investigators confirm that the pigs live in complete darkness except for when a farm hand enters the rooms. Canada, 2020.
Unnecessary painful procedures
Recommendation: End painful procedures, such as castration, tail docking, teeth clipping, and ear notching.
Background: Pigs can experience acute and chronic pain during and after these unnecessary procedures. Current pain control requirements do not account for both acute and chronic pain. For instance, castration for piglets younger than 10 days of age requires the use of analgesics (for lasting relief), but anesthetics (for immediate pain) are only “recommended”.
Click for image of pigs with docked tails
Jo-Anne McArthur/We Animals
Pigs can be seen with docked tails on an industrial farm. Tail docking of pigs does not require anesthetics for acute pain control. Canada, 2020.
Inhumane forms of euthanasia
Recommendation: Ban euthanasia by blunt force trauma.
Background: Blunt force trauma, usually striking the piglet’s head against a hard surface or with a blunt instrument, is an approved method of euthanizing piglets under the current code of practice. This unethical practice presents significant welfare risks and places an emotional burden on handlers.
Click for image of piglets on a farm
Jo-Anne McArthur/We Animals
Curious piglets look at one another from inside a small pen. The pig on the right is ill and thin. At this farm, there are no windows facing the exterior and the pigs live in darkness. Canada, 2020.
Lameness & injury
Recommendation: Improve flooring, bedding and housing conditions to reduce lameness and injury.
Background: Concrete, slatted flooring has been identified as a major contributor to lameness and injuries in pigs. Improved flooring requirements are needed to reduce the incidence of lameness and injury and to ensure pigs can move freely and lie down and rise comfortably.
Access to bedding, such as straw or shavings, can provide thermal comfort, cushioning and enrichment opportunities.
Click for image of piglets on a slatted floor
Jo-Anne McArthur/We Animals
Slatted floors can be seen in this pig farm that houses more than one thousand pigs in a windowless building. Investigators told We Animals Media they had visited this farm many times and confirmed that the lights inside the building were only turned on when people briefly entered to check on and feed the pigs. Canada, 2020.
In late March, The Hill Times published an opinion piece by Senator Don Plett, an appointed leader who has vocally defended Canada’s controversial live horse export industry and delayed the passing of life-saving Bill C-355. The piece defended the shipping of live horses from Canada on long journeys overseas for slaughter.
Canada’s Politics and Government News Source Since 1989
Mitchell calls Senator Plett’s defence of the live horse export for slaughter industry “a bold move, given that the industry is seen as a national embarrassment to most, with nearly 80 per cent of Canadians of all political stripes supporting its timely end.”
The piece outlines several of Senator Plett’s misleading claims, including:
The claim that horses exported for slaughter have “ample room”. “This despite countless images captured at Canadian airports showing these horses crammed together in wooden crates as well as evidence given by the horse racing industry and others at parliamentary committee hearings on this issue last year.”
The claim that “qualified” attendants are present on flights. While sport horses often travel with multiple staff, Mitchell notes that “a single attendant on a flight of 100 or more horses packed into a cargo hold can do little to assist horses who may fall or become injured or stressed during transport.” Records show that these attendants routinely miss animal injuries, including a January 2024 incident involving four collapsed horses, one of whom was already dead and two of whom died after landing.
The claim that “virtually no deaths of horses during transport have been ‘reported to the CFIA'”. Mitchell outlines the underreporting of horse deaths: “Government of Japan data from June 2023-June 2024 alone shows that although no deaths or injuries were reported to the CFIA during this time, at least 22 horses died during or shortly after transport and more than 60 others suffered serious injuries and illness.”
“The ongoing spread of the highly pathogenic bird flu worldwide is reaching an “unprecedented” scale, a United Nations agency warned” earlier this month. The disease spreads easily on crowded poultry farms, which has led to 600 million farmed birds being killed.
Bird flu’s current spread is ‘unprecedented,’ UN agency warns
The ongoing spread of highly pathogenic bird flu worldwide is reaching an unprecedented scale, a United Nations agency warned Monday.
“Speaking at a conference in Rome, key members of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) met to discuss the global outbreak of avian influenza.”
“Once limited to a few continents, avian flu has spread across all five continents since 2021, affecting more than 528 species, the FAO warned.”
“The virus is now present in 124 countries, causing the deaths of 47 million wild birds, while more than 600 million domestic birds have been culled (killed)”.
An opinion piece by Eleanor Boyle, published in the Tyee earlier this year, suggests that scaling down the farming of birds for food will be necessary to control the spread of avian flu. Boyle notes that British Columbia, a hot spot for bird flu, is a great place to start shifting the food system.
“Though B.C. turns out less than 15 per cent of Canada’s chicken and eggs, the province accounts for more than 50 per cent of the nation’s recent avian flu-related bird kills and 81 per cent of the country’s now-infected barns.”
The high density of birds packed into barns and the close proximity of farm buildings are risk factors, the article notes. Research shows the disease spreads (and mutates) among crowded animals.
Although wild birds shed pathogens as they fly overhead, “historically, wild-bird pathogens were innocuous. Commercial poultry settings are where low-pathogenic strains tend to become high-pathogenic.”
“Compassion in World Farming says there’s such strong evidence that the poultry industry fuels avian flu that ‘only major farm reforms can end it.'”
Taking decisive action to shift toward more plant-based foods will mean less zoonotic disease risk and a brighter future for animal well-being and public health.
According to two papers recently published in the journals Environmental Research Letters and Climate Policy, the US beef industry knew of its role in climate change decades ago and “worked to obstruct efforts to encourage meat reduction for the sake of climate change”.
A beef industry document from 1989 laid out plans to influence public opinion and legislation in response to climate concerns.
The plan appears to be a blueprint for the industry’s actions to obstruct efforts that would reduce meat/beef consumption for the sake of climate protection.
Industry groups organized generously funded advertising campaigns to counter the messaging of environmental advocates.
The industry lobbied against sustainable diet change efforts including Meatless Mondays, official dietary guidelines, and the landmark EAT-Lancet report.
“The low-tech and immediately available option of halving US beef and veal consumption, resulting in a savings of 125–410 megatonnes (Mt) CO2eq per year over the 32 year period, could have been 24–80 times more effective in reducing GHG emissions in a single year than what was achieved cumulatively by reducing methane emissions (mainly in the oil and gas industries) over a similar timespan (1990–2022).”(Jennifer Jacquet et al 2025 Environ. Res. Lett. 20 031006)
According to reports, the beef industry’s lobbying and marketing efforts have silenced advocates, maintained a high public demand for meat, and slowed the development of sustainable food policies for decades; all while knowing the climate impacts of the industry.
What the beef industry knew about its environmental impact – and how it spent decades blocking climate action.
In February 1989, the Environmental Protection Agency held a workshop on how to reduce climate emissions. A representative from the nation’s largest and oldest beef industry group — the National Cattlemen’s Association (NCA) — attended the workshop. Soon after, the organization developed a report to keep beef on family tables despite the growing knowledge around its climate impacts.
“The Cattlemen’s plan — an internal 17-page memo titled “Strategic Plan on the Environment” — went unnoticed for decades until two University of Miami researchers, Jennifer Jacquet and Loredana Loy, recently unearthed the document in the NCA’s archives.”
“Notably, the beef industry plan had barely a mention about addressing cattle pollution. Instead, it centered around how the public and policymakers would perceive that pollution.”
