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Podcast: Can better support keep more animals in loving homes?

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In this episode of The Informed Animal Ally podcast, Vancouver Humane Society Communications Director Chantelle Archambault and co-host, VHS Executive Director Amy Morris, are joined by UBC animal welfare researcher and associate professor Sasha Protopopova, and post-doctoral fellow in companion animals Lexis Ly. Together, they discuss the emotional and logistical realities behind pet surrender, the complex and overlapping challenges that lead guardians to rehome their animals, the barriers people face when trying to access behavioural support, and how a shift toward community-based care could help keep more pets and people together.

Read the research

Note: This written discussion has been edited for length.

Post-Doctoral Fellow Companion Animals

Lexis is a Post-Doctoral Fellow in Companion Animals at UBC. Lexis’ research focuses on ways we can use data to support One Welfare principles in animal shelters and multispecies communities. Her work supports efforts to support vulnerable human-animal bonds, help animal shelter services provide equitable services, and reduce intake to shelters. Current areas of research interest include owner relinquishment, self-rehoming, pet adoption processes, links between human and animal vulnerability, community-based support services, and access to pet care.

Lexis has been a teaching assistant or co-instructor for numerous classes in UBC’s Animal Welfare Program and facilitated workshops about pedagogy for graduate students. She was honoured with the Killam Graduate Teaching Assistant Award in 2025.

Assistant Professor NSERC/BC SPCA Industrial Research Chair in Animal Welfare

Sasha is an assistant professor at UBC and the NSERC/BC SPCA Industrial Research Chair in Animal Welfare. She has PhD and a Master of Science in Behavior Analysis, a Bachelor’s degree in Pre-Veterinary and Animal Science, and a Bachelor’s degree in Neuroscience. Sasha’s research aims are to improve animal shelter practices, improve companion animal welfare through the development of behavioural interventions in shelters as well as pet homes, and assess and improve on the well-being of working dogs working in assistance roles. 

The research on why people surrender pets

A grey cat in a carrier inside a car

Chantelle: Hi, and welcome back to The Informed Animal Ally, a podcast by the Vancouver Humane Society. I’m the VHS’s communications director, Chantelle Archambault. Joining me as always is the VHS’s executive director, Amy Morris.

And today we’re also joined by two special guests. Returning to the podcast for the second time is UBC animal welfare researcher and associate professor, Sasha Protopopova and her colleague, post-doctoral fellow in companion animals, Lexis Ly.

Thank you so much for joining us on the podcast today. I would love to ask you some questions about a recent research paper you did, but first could you tell us a little bit about your background and what led you to doing research around companion animals?

Sasha: I can start. So, I’ve been doing research for quite some time now. I think it’s been over 10, maybe even 15 years, so it’s interesting to think back about what made me do research in companion animals. I was actually interested in animal behavior primarily, and I started my research with rhesus macaques in a cognition lab when I was an undergraduate student, and really quickly realized that I actually want to be around animals who want to be around me.
And so that’s what led me to really be interested in domesticated animals. And specifically, just dogs are so wonderful. And so, I’m very dog-obsessed, and so I’ve stayed with dogs permanently.

Chantelle: Fantastic.

Lexis: And then I got pretty lucky. I have a background in animal welfare and behaviour and did a little bit of work on the lab animal side, and then did a little bit of work on the dairy cattle side.
But then I met Sasha, who was at the time also very obsessed with animal shelters and really passed that interest onto me. And so, got really interested in how animal shelters function and the types of support they can provide for people and pets, both within the shelter but then also in their community. I ended up doing a PhD in the animal welfare program that I finished last spring.

Amy: Fantastic. That’s really awesome. I love both of your backgrounds and everything that you work on. One of the things you did recently is that you had an article published in March on the circumstances pet guardians face and the support that they try to seek out before making the decision to surrender or rehome their pet. So can you tell us a little bit about this study?

Lexis: Yeah. So, throughout my PhD I was really interested in the idea of surrender generally. About 30% of animals that come into shelters are surrendered by their owners and from what we know from using animal shelter data, we can often collect a little bit of information about why and how animals enter shelters.

But when it comes to surrender, we often collect and report really only one kind of reason that people surrender animals, which is often why you hear headlines like, you know, more people are surrendering for cost related reasons, which is definitely true, but I also think reduces the complexity of the circumstances that might lead people to surrender their animals.

There are a few studies that suggest that surrender itself is not really caused by a single issue, but instead it’s often that the owner and their animal are experiencing a lot of different overlapping challenges that might lead them to connect with a shelter.

And so, we wanted to kind of capture this by asking and analyzing more questions than just the singular reason why people ended up going to shelters, but instead asking people more about the experiences that happened to them prior to surrendering their animals, including how long they had their animal for, all of the different challenges that they are experiencing, all the different ways that they had tried to keep their pet in their home, and then also all the different methods they might have tried to actually rehome their animals. That might be to a shelter, but also it might be to community members like family or friends. 

Judgement, stigma & the reality behind the numbers

A close up photo of a person holding and kissing a dog

Chantelle: I really enjoyed reading this study. I thought it was very interesting and very nuanced and I really appreciated your perspective on it. When people hear that someone surrendered a pet, there can be a lot of judgement. From your research, is there anything that you wish people understood more about what’s really going on in those situations?

Lexis: Yeah. I have definitely heard this. I think that one thing that people could understand a little bit more is that, again, people are often dealing with a lot of multiple overlapping challenges. So, for example, in our study, we used a method called latent class analysis, which instead of taking a look at all these reasons why people surrendered their animals individually, instead it compiles a lot of different questions together and tries to find patterns in the way people respond in order to create groups of people within your sample.

And so, we did find that the sample of participants kind of separated out into a couple different groups, but within these groups, there was a lot of different reasons that kind of contributed to the circumstances that led them to rehome their animal. So, one of the groups, for example, was the new acquisitions group.

So, this was a group that was primarily defined by actually not having their animal for that long, so most of them owned their animal for less than a year and actually rehomed their animal within, like, a month. And so, they made a very quick decision. Most of the reasons as well included having too many animals in their home, but also, they were more likely to have another animal in their home.

While some people might say, “Oh, you know, when people adopt their animals, they don’t even know what they’re getting into” or maybe they have unrealistic expectations, what might actually happen is that they are trying to transition their animal to living in a new environment and have another animal in their home that they might need to introduce their animal to.

And in fact, we found that it was this group that had the highest likelihood of trying to seek out support to try to keep their pets. So, oftentimes folks in this group were trying to connect with trainers and get behavioural support. I think that when thinking about kind of what I wish more people understood about what was really going on, a lot of people do try to get support to try to keep their animals in their homes.

Oftentimes when we only take a look at what happens once they get to the shelter, we might forget the fact that oftentimes people are trying to reach out to their community to try to solve the problems that are at hand before going to shelters.

Sasha: Yeah. And to comment also broadly on this, I think we often hear things like being a responsible owner and it’s irresponsible to surrender and, and I think those are such loaded terms and, and they’re very stigmatizing.

And one can certainly imagine that if someone is in a situation where, for example, they are needing to rehome for whatever reason, maybe there’s a new medical situation in the family that, or a new housing situation, and like Lex has just mentioned, usually multiple, not just one thing at a time. So, it’s many things are all coming together to this family.

Us labeling them as irresponsible is not really all that helpful, and it’s most likely also going to prevent them from engaging in looking for support, and potentially also maybe even, like, preventing them from engaging in companion animals later on as well. And so I think we should just be really careful when we judge people.

Amy: I really appreciate you highlighting those concepts. And I know when I worked in a shelter environment and I was calculating statistics, I was always wondering about what was behind those and who were the people behind the numbers. And the system I was using could only give, you know one option. And so then you’re going off of maybe incomplete information.

I’m really excited to hear what are some of the challenges that people can face that are leading them to surrender a companion animal.

Barriers to support and what people actually tried

An elderly man holds a cat; companion animals are an important part of many Canadian families

Lexis: In our study, the analysis that we did separated our sample into three different groups, one being the new acquisitions who had these early ownership challenges, maybe with incompatibility with another pet in the home.

But there was also a group that were facing owner hardships, and this group was actually more likely to respond that they were facing multiple different types of owner hardships. So this includes housing, financial, and personal crises. So, that could be, like, a short-term personal crisis or, like, a long-term life change, like moving or having a new job.

And so it was likely that people in this group might have responded yes to multiple of those things meaning that, again, these owner hardships might actually come kind of all together and not just be one particular circumstance. And then there was another group that was experiencing behavioural incompatibility, so some sort of pet behaviour issue, and these were separate from those who were newly acquired.

So, maybe this group of owners with behaviour concern might have had something that, again, maybe developed later in their relationship that might be something that needs to be tackled differently than those who are newly acquiring their animals. We also did find that some of the challenges were actually related to the types of support that people tried to seek out and whether they were successful in trying to seek out that support.

There was a lot of types of support that people wanted to try to seek out or they actually sought out but wasn’t successful for some reason. So, some examples of these were behavioural support, so trying to contact trainers or behaviourists, or even just looking online and trying to do things at home.

There were some people in our study who had talked about trying multiple different trainers and really only stopping because they either felt like it wasn’t helping or because of the cost barriers related to getting ongoing support. Another example of a type of support that people sought out was part-time care.

So, for example, a lot of people needed support from community members or family or friends to try to actually look after their animal, maybe during a personal crisis. So, for example, people talked about getting support from family members to walk their dogs or even to look after their animals for a short period of time.

And again, what we saw in our qualitative responses was that when that type of support kind of ran out, when they had no more friends to ask to look after their animals, or when their friends were going through certain circumstances themselves that stopped them from being able to provide support, that is often when these challenges or these decisions to have to rehome their animal occurred.

Chantelle: It sounds like people were going through quite the, the journey before making the decision to give up a pet, and that makes sense because it’s a really difficult decision to make.

How were you collecting the information about those journeys that people were going through first before making that decision to give up their pet.

Lexis: The way that we did our survey was that we asked people who had surrendered their animals up to five years ago a bunch of different questions about the aspects of surrender that we wanted to learn more about. So that includes things like whether or not they did seek out assistance. If they did, what type of assistance was it?

And if they didn’t, what kind of assistance would they have wanted? We asked folks as well to self-report just, like, all the reasons that they felt contributed to the surrender. So again, instead of trying to ask them, like, what the top reason was, that wasn’t really our concern. It was more so understanding all of the different things that kind of played into their decision.

And then we also asked them about, yeah, their, like, help-seeking patterns. So again, like, whether they tried to seek out assistance, and seeking we used very loosely. So even if it was like, “I wanted to search up, like, a trainer that was in our area,” that is somebody who is trying to seek out assistance to try to keep their pet.

We wanted to be able to capture all of that. I think in the future it would be great to do more studies kind of understanding the temporal aspect of that journey. So people did kind of self-report how long it took them to come to the decision to surrender their animals, and these decisions were often a month or more, which is similar to previous research.

But I think that understanding kind of the when or the temporal aspect of, like, when would be best to actually intervene to try to help support people who might try to keep their pets is definitely an important next step.

Chantelle: Yeah. Thanks so much for that.

Amy: Thank you. Yeah. You also spoke earlier about how some people in your study only had their pets for a short time. What kinds of challenges are coming up early on that might lead someone to feel overwhelmed or unprepared?

Lexis: Yeah. The new acquisitions group was the group that were more likely to have the pet for less time, and they’re more likely to make that decision within a shorter period of time. They were also most likely to report that they had another pet in the home, that one of the reasons why they surrendered their animal was because they had too many animals in the home, and they were also slightly more likely to report that they had cost-related concerns to caring for their animals.

I think that this might have been difficulties with transitioning the animal both into the home itself, but then also potentially with incompatibilities with a household pet that already exists. Interestingly, this group was also the most likely to try to seek out behavioural support, so a lot of people did try to do what they could to support that transition into the home.

So, I would say that while some folks were probably overwhelmed or concerned for introductions to their household animals, it seemed like a lot of people, maybe contrary to popular belief, were actually trying to get trainers and to try to look up online to see how they could introduce their animals together.

Sasha: Um, one thing that Lexis’s research is also really highlighting that we have these, like, animal sheltering systems that are also kind of part of society and we can’t… It almost feels like we can’t really look at decisions of people independently of these broader sheltering systems. And one thing, Lexis, please let me know ’cause I don’t remember the data at all as well as you do, but is it the case that there were people who had already been part of the sheltering system?

So, if they were adopting these animals, then they have a pathway to return those animals as well. And so they are more likely then to engage with the shelter back on the return side as well, or, like, the surrender eventually.

Lexis: Yeah. So this new acquisitions group was also the group that was most likely to rehome their animal through the shelter rather than through, like, friends or family or through some other self-rehoming means.

And again, that could indicate that because they had already engaged with the shelter, they might go back to the shelter because they trust the shelter. And so- There’s a
Sasha: support.

Lexis: Yeah. I think that it’s important to remember that, like, shelters are hoping to position themselves as a community-based support and for a certain group of people.
In our study, it seems like that was the case.

Chantelle: Yeah. It makes sense that they’d be familiar. With the resources and it sounds like the visibility of those resources was really important, giving people the option to reach out to them.

Sasha: Yeah. I think that makes sense ’cause if you are adopting from a shelter, you see that the shelter is a place where companion animals find good homes and, you know, that you’ve, you have adopted yourself.

And so it also makes sense then to surrender to a shelter because that animal will have a better home than you’re giving it. And so it is actually quite an altruistic type of activity potentially.

Chantelle: Thanks for that perspective. You also mentioned earlier specifically the group of people who were experiencing behaviour issues with their pets or a behaviour incompatibility in their home.

And I know you mentioned people reaching out for help with behaviour for their new pets as well, but for those pets who had behaviours coming up later on after they were adopted, what can that kind of journey look like for guardians when they’re struggling to address a behaviour from their pet in the home?

Lexis: Yeah. Unfortunately, our study couldn’t tease apart like the nuances of the behaviour concern itself, but we did ask again about their likelihood to seek help. And interestingly, we did find that this group that was experiencing behavioral incompatibilities kind of later in the relationship with their animal were actually the least likely to seek help.

Only about 14% of them said that they tried to seek some sort of support. And to me, I think that this may indicate that there are particular barriers to receiving or accessing behavioral support specifically. Um, so in the qualitative responses, a lot of people did kind of make mention that they were interested or kind of were trying to seek out support by way of trying to contact shelters in the area, but the reason why this failed or they weren’t able to do that was often due to cost of training or limited access.

Some people said that the trainer that they wanted to go to was just too far or costed too much for multiple sessions, or that these things kind of intersected with their own life related concerns. So for example, there were folks that wanted to continue behaviour training because they really needed to ensure that their animal could stay in, like, a doggie daycare, for example, so that they could continue to work.

And then when all these things weren’t possible, they also weren’t able to… Like, when they weren’t able to get more behavioural support, they weren’t able to keep their animal in the doggie daycare, and then they had to figure out something else to do with their animal. So again, even though we see kind of from the data side that it was behavioural concerns that kind of led the person to surrender their animals, it also seems like these behavioural concerns are compounded by the lack of accessibility of behavioural support specifically.

Rethinking “ownership”, community care & the path forward

Amy: Yeah. I imagine you’re sharing a bit about this concept of, like, the binary sort of responsible pet owners versus irresponsible pet owners, and I know we have a lot of keyboard warriors out there on the internet having strong opinions about all sorts of things. How do you hope that this study and your communication around it changes the way people are actually talking about surrender?

Sasha: Yeah. Maybe the answer is yet again more broadly. I think throughout the journey that Lexis has been leading in this research that I’ve been also very happy to be part of, at one point I remember we had a meeting and we had the question of is surrender an actual problem to solve?

Is it a problem? I don’t want speak to for you, but to me that was a surprise that I had asked myself that question, just because we kind of came around full circle in the sense of, well, if sometimes it is not the right place for that animal to be in that home. And so, in that case, the surrender of that animal is actually in the best interest of both the person and the animal.

For example, there is research out there that shows that guardians of dogs with reactivity issues do have higher rates of anxiety. And as a person who had a reactive dog, I definitely have felt that. And in certain situations, perhaps an animal who, uh, doesn’t have to stay in a crate for 10 hours a day is better off in a different home.

And so occasionally, I think we have to kind of ask ourselves the question of if surrender is a bad thing itself necessarily. And another kind of parallel thought to that is also the way that we just think of ownership generally is a bit questionable, that right now we really think of this one animal belonging- to this one owner.

Whereas in a lot of the world, animals are community animals and they have many guardians, uh, who take care of them. They have maybe neighbors who are feeding the cats maybe or the dogs that are running around. Not necessarily that this is something that could be done, let’s say, in Vancouver, but it’s just a different way of thinking about the relationships that we have with animals that maybe more community type care is something that we could look at.

So, I think the whole question itself becomes interesting, and so that is tied to us labeling someone as irresponsible or responsible. Maybe the whole system is flawed there. 

Lexis: Yeah, I love that thought, and I think that this does kind of relate back to the study because, again, one of the things that kind of surprised me was that the second most common, uh, type of support that people wanted or sought was part-time care, and this is something that is not often offered.

Just generally it’s not very accessible. Like, doggie day cares aren’t necessarily the cheapest thing to, to put your animal into. But people often did talk kind of more so about this aspect of community care of kind of needing people to support with, like, dog walking or feeding their cats or even just to look after their animals for a period of time.

And so I think that there is already, of course, and even in the case of, like, self-re-homing, for example, so re-homing to your family or friends instead of going to a shelter, I think there are all these examples of community care of animals in practice that I think are not necessarily talked about in the conversation of surrender and, like, pet retention just generally because a lot of it kind of comes from the perspective that animal shelters don’t want animals to come to shelters, which I do think is still a concern for sure.

And so I think that from that lens, of course, like, in that case, surrender is kind of a problem that does need to be solved, but it may be then the way that we kind of discuss the problem and then in turn the way that animal shelters position themselves hopefully more so nowadays as community resources can also kind of help shift that towards this idea that shelters are just one part of this broader system that we can use to help everybody who wants to have an animal be able to keep their animals.

Amy: I appreciate that so much. I have a friend dog named Taco who started out his life with a woman living in her van and was traveling around having a great time, and then she ended up finding employment on a boat. And so then at the same time, a friend’s dog lost his companion and was quite lonely, and so he took on this dog.

He lives… So middle life, best friend dog, um, hanging out in the city having a good time. And then after that dog passed away, then it was realized that, okay, both guardians are working, they’re not around very much, and so then he went to another friend’s property on Pender Island and where he’s living his retirement life.

And just, like, what a perfect sort of, like, set of experiences for one dog to have, each of those relationships being very meaningful and him being cared for well. So, certainly I think it’s the case that our lives are made rich by the variety of experiences and relationships that we have. 

Chantelle: I love that story, Amy. 

Amy: So, if you could take one key lesson from your study and use it to make a change tomorrow, what would have the biggest impact about keeping people and pets together? Or maybe in this case, making sure pets’ lives are the central priority. 

Lexis: Oh, gosh. This is like the biggest question of my career.

Tell me like what’s, what’s the big change? What’s like the big impact that can be made? I mean, I think that if I were to make a change, it would just be that like every aspect of our lives has at least like an asterisk for the consideration that, that animals are like a part of it. Like, I’m so lucky that even we have like an office environment where there are dogs, and sometimes people bring in their cats.

Like, it’s just crazy that some people have this privilege to be able to provide all these opportunities for their animals and for themselves because animals are like such an important part of so many people’s lives. And I think that where so many of these tensions come just in our community generally are just where, you know, there just hasn’t been consideration for animals, like in housing or even in healthcare decisions and things like that.

And so I maybe if there was one thing that could change tomorrow, it would be that everybody thinks about animals in every aspect of everybody’s lives. 

Sasha: Yeah, or at least understand that a person who is caring for a companion animal, it’s not a kind of a random fun hobby that you can just toss aside to get medical care.

That it is, is an animal part of the family and is really important for the health of that person. And so I think that exactly what Alexis was saying is that actually it’s obvious for us because I’m sure everyone’s listening and, and us, we’re animal lovers, but I think for the rest of society that to understand that we’re not these, like, weird people.

There’s a lot of us who love our animals and want and need our animals around. 

Chantelle: Yeah, absolutely. Animals are part of the family. 

A girl lies on the floor with a dog

Amy: One thing that comes to mind also is I imagine, um, and I don’t know if the data really spoke to this, but something we see often is people who need to go into treatment or go into the hospital and they ideally would have their pet after they get out of treatment and out of the hospital.

So is, is that an area where, I guess, having more variety of systems and, and not just sort of this idea of its surrender or nothing but that there be options in between. Yeah, what are your thoughts on that?

Lexis: Yeah, this is exactly where kind of the data really, like, spoke to me when the folks were talking about part-time care because it was just something that, like, I hadn’t considered in terms of, like, the breadth of it, in terms of it’s not just, like, that folks might need, you know, emergency boarding services for an emergency that, that, that’s going to be two weeks long or something.

It’s that there are also kind of regular things that happen. And I even think about this when I care for my own cat, is that I’m lucky enough that I have a neighbor friend who lives just downstairs who can come up in at last minute to be able to feed my cat if I need to go away for a weekend. But on top of that is that I have lots of other best friends in my neighborhood who are also able to come by, and so I don’t have to rely on, like, one individual person.

And something that the qualitative responses about part-time care really said was that, um, people are kind of often relying on a wide social network. And when they, people don’t have this wide social network, and we know that this is particularly true of equity deserving groups, like people experiencing homelessness or people who are transient, um, like, it is often the case that these social networks might not be as strong or they might change really often, or it might be that these folks kind of are experiencing own things in their lives that, that stop them from being able to support each other.

And when that kind of social network fails, it, it seems like that is also when the difficult decisions have to be made about whether or not to deal with something like their own personal health or to be able to, to keep their pets. And so I think that the conversation definitely does need to shift almost kind of like it has in the past kind of, you know, 50 to 100 years about, like, childcare.

I think that this concept of childcare being just, like, a huge access issue for caregivers to be able to participate in society. I think that that conversation has shifted a lot, and I think that because of the role of pets in our families being so strong these days, I think that that’s just, like, inevitably a conversation that needs to come up is, like, how do communities already currently, like, leverage their social networks to be able to care for animals?

And how can we continue to leverage those social networks to actually be able to create the kind of community-based solutions to help people, especially people who are the most vulnerable? 

Chantelle: I really appreciate this whole conversation about community connections and the different needs that people have in communities and widening the net to a variety of services that are offered.

And if I can just take a little detour to talk more about one of the projects we’re working on right now. We’re currently launching a collaborative of humane societies across British Columbia called The Humane Societies of BC. It’s a project where seven independent organizations in different places across the province are gathering together as a centralized resource where people can find the kind of tailored solutions for the unique needs of their community, and they’re, because we’re all independent organizations, we can work with our communities and our neighbours and find those needs and help to meet them.

Because we are finding that there are so many pets that are needing to go into the shelter and rescue system, and so it’s overflowing, but there’s also so many pets that are getting surrendered that they have loving homes. The people who are their guardians just need more support and need more access to that support.

So, we’re hoping to make those supports more visible and available across the province. 

Lexis: That’s amazing. Yeah, I think that is a big takeaway that I have not done research on, but I think is important for the future, is that, like, these resources are often available, but potentially not accessible for a number of different reasons.

And I think that one way to increase that accessibility is hopefully, like, collaborative effort to try to support people because ultimately it’s like, it’s all of our communities, I think.

Chantelle: All of our communities, absolutely. Yeah. I really appreciate that. Okay. We really like to end on an action that our audience can take, and I feel like we’ve got so many great learnings from this episode, but is there anything that listeners at home who might work or volunteer with animal organizations can do to help make sure that pet guardians have the support that they need to avoid giving up their pets or to make sure that their pet has the best future possible?

Lexis: Yeah. I mean, maybe one action could be to identify one new community partner that could potentially be helpful. I see this all the time in my other roles as a volunteer at many community-based support services, but I think you’d be surprised at even if you’re continually, like, showing up in the community and, you know, regularly providing services, sometimes people who work for other nonprofits in the area will walk by and be like, “I didn’t know that this thing was a thing. I would love to tell my clients about this.” And so maybe just an action could be to find one new organization to try to share your pet support programs with in hopes that it reaches one more person who might need your support. 

Sasha: And I would suggest that for those of you guys that are volunteering at shelters, for example, and don’t necessarily have organizations of your own to help the community, it may be very worthwhile to meet a neighbour who has a companion animal and befriend that neighbour, befriend that animal, and offer to occasionally babysit or just to provide emotional support. And I think if we all do that, it’ll be better. 

Chantelle: I love that. Those are fantastic actions to take. Thank you so much. This has been just a great and enlightening conversation. I really appreciate both of you being here for it. And thank you also to everyone at home for listening. If you’d like to look at any of the resources that we talked about today, could you let people know where they can find your study?

Lexis: Yes. I bet that the easiest way would just to be to, to search up my name and then maybe Google scholar afterwards. It should be available open access, so you should be able to find it online.

Read the research

Chantelle: And if you want to look at the other resources we’ve talked about, we’re at vancouverhumanesociety.bc.ca, and the collaborative I spoke about earlier is humanesocietiesbc.ca. Well, thank you so much. We hope to see everyone again next month as we talk about more ways that you can be an ally for animals.

Humane Societies of BC

Amy: Thanks everyone. Thank you.

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Podcast: PlantUniversity’s campus advocacy, UBC VegFest, and expanding plant-based eating

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In this episode of The Informed Animal Ally podcast, Vancouver Humane Society Communications Director Chantelle Archambault and co-host, VHS Executive Director Amy Morris, are joined by PlantUniversity Coordinator Matthew Wattier. Together, they discuss the importance of plant-based advocacy on post-secondary campuses, PlantUniversity’s role in organizing the recent UBC VegFest, the challenges involved in coordinating a large-scale campus event, and what’s next for the program.

Note: This written discussion has been edited for length.

Talking campus advocacy with PlantUniversity team

Chantelle: Hi and welcome back to the Informed Animal Ally from the Vancouver Humane Society. I’m Chantelle Archambault, the Communications Director here at the VHS. As always, I’m joined by my cohost, the VHS’s Executive Director Amy Morris. 

Today we’re also joined by a special guest, the VHS’s PlantUniversity Coordinator Matthew Wattier. Matt joined VHS in June 2025 as our plant-based advocacy program, PlantUniversity, pivoted to focus on outreach to post-secondary students. He has a Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration from SFU. He has also worked closely with students and faculty at UBC, first as a coordinator for student-led educational projects for professors, and later as a communications professional for the Faculty of Applied Science.

Matt is passionate about addressing inequities for animals and humans alike, and places a strong focus on effectively campaigning for a transition to a plant-based lifestyle. He is fascinated by the science behind beliefs and persuasion, and hopes to work towards a more equitable society one conversation at a time. Thank you so much for joining us today, Matt.

Matt: Thank you Chantelle, it’s so great to be here! 

Chantelle: Can you start by telling us a bit more about your background and what led you to this role as the PlantUniversity Coordinator for the Vancouver Humane Society?

Matt: Well, I’ve been lucky enough to work on some of the great campuses in the Lower Mainland over the years. I went to SFU for my business degree, and then went through their co-op program. The student-led educational projects were at a place called Emerging Media Lab at UBC. They are a sort of experimental space where students and professors use the latest technologies and see how they can apply them to a classroom setting. An example is utilizing AI to assist law school students in practicing for moot court.

My second co-op was with the Faculty of Applied Science at UBC, where we celebrated all the amazing research that the faculty there were working on. I’ve also been plant-based for over five years now, and have always been so fascinated by why people do what they do, and what causes them to change. That curiosity and familiarity with the campus ecosystem is what led me to this role. 

Amy: Was there a specific moment or experience that first pushed you toward plant-based advocacy? 

Matt: I have to first give credit to my older cousins who were eating plant-based to varying degrees when I was just a kid. When you don’t know anyone who does something unfamiliar, it’s easy to write off that behaviour as odd, but seeing my cousins thrive and advocate for plant-based at that age was a big deal towards normalizing it. I remember having a specific moment where I thought ‘wait- have I even thought about why I am eating meat, or am I just doing what everyone else is?’ That led me down a journey where I learned a lot about factory farming and the unfortunate conditions animals are subjected to for us to eat meat. 

Eventually, I concluded that one of the best ways I could help animals was to limit the animal products I consumed, which quickly led to me going fully plant-based. I love a good-faith debate, and I really care that my actions align with my beliefs, so putting that towards advocacy seemed like a natural fit. I’ve helped a lot of my close friends and family see my perspective about why it’s a good idea to eat more plant-based, so expanding that further to folks I don’t know was the natural next step. 

A history of plant-based advocacy at VHS

Chantelle: I’m so excited to have you on the team working on this project and also to be speaking about our PlantUniversity program again because our plant-based advocacy work is something I’m really passionate about. 

As we’ve spoken about before on this podcast, eating plant-based is probably the best way you can make a personal impact in saving the lives of farmed animals every single day. Just to share a bit more about the program for people who may not be familiar, the VHS has been advocating to make plant-based eating more accessible for more than a decade.

From 2019-2022 we had two separate programs, one called Go Veg encouraging people to eat more plant-based foods and sharing resources to help people choose those animal-free foods more often, and another called Plant-Based Plates that worked on helping institutions like schools and hospitals shift their menus toward more plant-based options, which was an expansion from our work on Meatless Mondays. That work was going on even before Amy and I joined the organization—the Meatless Mondays program work was happening way back in 2015.

Digital screen advertisement in an elevator promoting plant-based eating.

In 2022, we combined those two program areas into one large plant-based advocacy program, PlantUniversity. I’ve been working with the program since then and it’s been very exciting work sharing with people and institutions the benefits of transitioning to more plant-based foods and practical tips to actually do that.

All that background brings us to our pivot last year, when we brought our advocacy work into a more specific scope with the post-secondary campus project. This is exciting because everyone from the VHS who has worked on this project is actually on this call right now—I’ve been leading the strategy with Amy’s support, and Matt has been working on the ground to bring this advocacy work into schools day-to-day. 

Matt, could you share about what PlantUniversity has been trying to achieve with our post-secondary campus project in the 2025-2026 school year?

Matt: So, with PlantUniversity, we’ve been aiming to connect with university students specifically to showcase why they should care about eating more plant-based. This has involved empowering student leaders on campus to advocate with their peers by sharing why they should consider plant-based, but also focusing a lot on how to break down barriers that students have that are preventing them from choosing plants.

We found through research and anecdotal experience that students tend to know that they should be eating a plant-forward diet, but have many reasons that get in the way of that, such as nutrition anxiety or not knowing what to cook. Finding ways to address these barriers, rather than just explaining the why, has been a big part of the PlantUniversity campaign this year. 

Amy: Why are post-secondary students such an important demographic to reach with this kind of advocacy?

Matt: Post-secondary students are a really important demographic for a few reasons. First, they are very interested and engaged with social justice and advocacy, so moving toward plant-based feels like a natural next step as they already want to work towards a better world. These students are our future policymakers, so explaining how important plant-based eating is invests in the future of animal advocacy. Second, for many students, this is the first time in their lives when they are making decisions about what to eat, either by cooking or choosing options at a dining hall. Showing why and how to pick plants at this pivotal moment can shape food choices for a lifetime. 

PlantUniversity at UBC VegFest

UBC VegFest logo

Amy: The program’s biggest event of the year was the first-ever UBC VegFest; you were a lead organizer who made that happen. Can you tell us about that event and who was involved?

Matt: Yes! UBC VegFest was a really exciting event, which was a joint effort between PlantUniversity, the Vegans of UBC club, and the Alma Mater Society at UBC. It was part of Sustainability Week at UBC, and was an opportunity to showcase all of the amazing local brands working towards climate-friendly food solutions for our future. We also had advocacy groups to help students understand the climate impact of animal agriculture, what they can do, and what groups at UBC are already doing. It was a blast to work with so many local brands and school groups and the reception on campus was really great. 

Crowds of students and community members gather outdoors at UBC VegFest, visiting booths and tents hosted by plant-based food brands and advocacy organizations during the campus event.

Chantelle: Absolutely, this was a massive event and truly a group effort to bring it together. Matt mentioned the co-hosts, and we also got support from TMRW Foods, Vegan Supply, and Seeds Sustainability Program at UBC in organizing and promoting the event. And then every single one of the 25 local food brands that attended offered free samples for people to try—that included brands you’ve likely heard of like Daiya, Oat Worthy, and Yoggu, and really exciting local favourites like Nora’s, Bonus Bakery, and Sai Plant Deli. Sai was selling plant-based chicken and they had a lineup around the corner for the entire six-hour event.

We’ll probably be having all these vendors back for future events, so if anyone is in the Vancouver and Okanagan areas and didn’t get a chance to go to the first event, you can follow PlantUniversity.ca and Vancouver Humane Society on social media to make sure you hear when the next ones are coming up.

Gift basket, with items generously donated by Daiya, Oatworthy, Vegan Supply, To Live For, and Herbaland.
The winner of the UBC VegFest early bird draw showed off her gift basket, with items generously donated by Daiya, Oatworthy, Vegan Supply, To Live For, and Herbaland.

Amy: What kind of reach and response did you see from that event?

Matt: We had over 25 local brands showcase their products through samples and sales, and they gave away over 18,000 samples. We estimate that there were around 5,000 guests at the event, which was more than we could have ever imagined. The vendors were so happy to see the turnout, which is very important to show that an event is worth coming to when you are a small business who has to be considerate to where you put your time and energy. The students and other guests we surveyed also had a high opinion of the event, with almost everyone saying it improved their perception and consideration towards plant-based eating. 

Chantelle: We knew it was a successful event based on the huge turnout when folks were there, but those surveys from the vendors and attendees were really exciting to see. Like Matt said, most people said the event changed their views on plant-based eating in a positive way, just 16% were neutral and no one had a negative change. Most people, about 59%, bought something at the event so we know people were interested in taking the food they tried at the event and carrying it into their routines afterwards. And a vast majority said they would recommend the event to a friend, at 96.1%.

We know this was reaching people beyond the vegan community as well so it was a great opportunity to encourage people to change their eating habits and expose them to plant-based foods and compassionate messages in a fun and welcoming way. About two-thirds of the attendees were not vegan. And about three-quarters were students, so the people in our target audience for the program who are in a stage of their lives where they’re forming opinions and habits that will make a difference to what kinds of foods they choose in the future. The rest of the attendees were faculty, staff, and members of the surrounding community.

Amy: For students and other advocates who would like to pull together something similar, what would be the first steps to getting the ball rolling on a VegFest event?

Matt: First, I think you are in a great position if you’re trying to put on an event at your campus! Student groups like your local AMS or Student Society are a great place to start. They often have privileges that make setting up an event easier than an external group. I would check there first and see what the process is for getting an event going. Students tend to love events that offer free food and bring life to campus, so creating a pitch of the event with those things in mind is a good plan. Once you get going there, look into funding opportunities for students. Universities love to promote projects, and often have grant money they’re trying to give to students. Especially if it pertains to sustainability or social justice initiatives, which a VegFest most certainly does!

PlantUniversity also has our own guide for setting up an event at your school, so give that a look first at https://plantuniversity.ca/campus-advocacy

Chantelle: Absolutely, working with clubs, sustainability programs, and student societies is a great way to go because they have a lot of knowledge about how the school community works. You may be able to work with local advocacy organizations, the way the VHS collaborated with the Vegans of UBC, who can help find different funding paths. And there are often grants available through the school, community organizations, or advocacy organizations for events that reach a lot of people and make a high impact like this.

Our campaign guide delves into all those partnerships, how to start reaching out to local businesses that may be willing to offer free samples to get their name out there, and how to market the event to make sure people actually come. Again, you can find all that in the Campus Advocacy section of PlantUniversity.ca

Vegan Supply booth at UBC VegFest

Amy: What were some of the biggest challenges or things to keep in mind as someone is planning an event like this?

Matt: One thing that is important to understand when working with small businesses is that it’s important that you make the event worth the effort for them. They are doing such amazing work and are often running with fewer resources and people than big companies, so creating a way where they can promote their brands without a ton of extra time or effort on their end will get a lot of real interest. There’s also a bit of a chicken-and-egg scenario where a university might want confirmed vendors first, and vendors might want a confirmed space before committing. Being honest with both parties about this scenario and levelling with them is the best way to get the commitment you need from both sides. 

Chantelle: I want to add that I don’t know if this is a challenge, but it’s definitely something you want to keep in mind: You’ll really want to make the event visible.

We were able to hold our VegFest in a very central location on campus where there was a lot of walk-through traffic, and we also had posters up all around campus; SEEDS at UBC helped us get promos for it on all the TV screens promoting upcoming activities around campus, and we had signage up all around the actual event so people knew what was happening. We posted it in all the local Facebook groups for the vegan community and local events and shared it with our email list and on social media. We basically shared it everywhere we could.

You can have an amazing event with the best food and the most impactful advocacy messages, but if people don’t know about it they’re not going to go. So, really making sure you promote the event very heavily and host it in a central and visible location if you can.

Amy: I’m so excited to see what happened with VegFest and really happy that we can share some of these insights with other people who may be starting to do work like this. But VegFest is just one part of a much more expansive project—can you walk us through some of the other advocacy work that happened on campuses this year?

Matt: We were excited to showcase a number of smaller advocacy events where students engaged with their peers, offering recipes, resources, and diving into great conversations about plant-based eating that created buzz around campus. We offered local free food and connected with so many great students, who just as we thought, really care about our message and were happy to have someone help them lean into plant-based more. 

We also connected with students across Canada in the classroom, with guest lectures and talks at schools like SFU and University of Manitoba. We created guides on how to advocate, nutrition information, eating plant-based for cheap, recipe booklets, and more, all of which were showcased in person, on social media, and on our website. We expanded our online presence beyond that with collaborative posts with local brands and universities on social media, and blog posts on our website. 

This all aligns with our goal to meet students in all avenues of student life—in the classroom, online, and around campus. Meeting students outside of just one place is shown to improve advocacy efforts, so we made sure to have a diverse approach.

Chantelle: You touched on this a bit, but how do those smaller outreach activities work together with something larger like VegFest to make change? 

Matt: Smaller outreach activities create a great environment for one-on-one conversations with students. This is one of the best ways to explain your message and to create an open discussion. Making this deeper connection with students is important as it is personal. Combining this more personal approach with the larger, exciting events helps with that diverse advocacy as I mentioned before. 

What’s next for PlantUniversity?

Amy: Can you both share a little bit about what’s next for PlantUniversity?

Matt: With the success of VegFest, we’re looking to do more events at different parts of the year, with more vendors, different advocacy groups, and even new focus areas. Connecting students with programs and guidance on how to handle food security is a big focus with costs rising. We are also looking towards advertising opportunities to the larger public, for big reach on messages and getting more people involved with PlantUniversity. 

Amy: That’s awesome, I know people have loved our billboards and bus ads for many years.

Chantelle: I’m so excited for what’s next for PlantUniversity. We’ve got four years of the program under our belts now, so we’ve really been able to hone our advocacy to reach the most people with the most impactful messages possible and that’s what we’re focusing on for the next year. If you’re not following the Vancouver Humane Society and PlantUniversity.ca on social media already, I would really recommend you do so you can see what we’re up to and get in touch about how you can get involved with this type of advocacy work.

Chantelle: Thanks so much for joining us to share about your experience with the program today, Matt. Before you go, we like to end on an action our listeners can take to help animals that’s related to the topic of the month. So, what is something our listeners can do to make plant-based eating more accessible and normalized on their campus or in their place of work?

Matt: Great idea Chantelle! An easy introduction and the way to everyone’s heart is a good, home-cooked meal. Trying out a recipe at PlantUniversity.ca, or whatever looks exciting to you from another site, and sharing it with friends or colleagues is a great way to start. I find delicious food leads to great conversations and open-mindedness. From there, so many things can happen!

Chantelle: Amazing, thank you so much again to both of you for being here for this conversation. And thank you to everyone at home for listening. If you’d like to learn more about how to save farmed animal lives by advocating for a more plant-forward food system and some more considerations for this advocacy work, you can check out some of our previous episodes: 

As always, we’re so grateful that you were able to join us for this conversation. We hope to see you again next month as we talk about more ways you can be an ally for animals.

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Podcast: Animal advocacy and Vancouver Humane Society’s mission (Vegan Boss Radio)

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The Vancouver Humane Society’s Chantelle Archambault sat down with Shawna Barker from the Vegan Boss Radio podcast about Vancouver Humane Society’s mission, work, and some practical ways that animal allies can make a difference.

Note: This written discussion has been edited for length.

Advocacy and justice for animals

A long-haired Highland cow stands in a grassy field, gently nuzzling a small calf beside her.

Shawna: Hi everyone. Welcome to Vegan Boss Radio. I am your host, Shawna Barker, and I’m so glad you’re here today. Today’s episode is a very important one because we’re talking about animal advocacy, public awareness, and how real change actually happens, not just online, but at the policy and community level.

Today I’m joined by Chantelle Archambault, who has worked as the communications director at the Vancouver Humane Society since 2021. She is deeply passionate about justice for all, both humans and animals, and has spent her career working with nonprofit organizations focused on family services, social justice, advocacy, and creating safer spaces for marginalized communities.

Chantelle’s lifelong commitment to the ethical treatment of animals inspired her to volunteer with the Toronto Humane Society and eventually move across Canada to take on her current role at Vancouver Humane Society. She has appeared in media outlets, including the CBC, CTV, CityNews, and the Daily Hive.

In this conversation, we talk about the work that the Vancouver Humane Society does behind the scenes, including its past and current campaigns, how they raise public awareness around practices like rodeos and horse racing, and why these issues are often misunderstood or even normalized, in many cases.

Chantelle, thank you so much for being here today. I’m wondering what drew you to animal advocacy, and then how did that lead you to working with the Vancouver Humane Society?

Chantelle: Thanks so much for having me today. It’s interesting to be on this side of the question because I love asking this to our guests on the Vancouver Humane Society podcast, Informed Animal Ally, as well. I got into animal advocacy the way that I found a lot of people I speak with do as well. I’ve always been drawn to animals since I was a kid, making my dad wait before he drove to work on rainy days so I could pick up every single worm off the driveway so they wouldn’t get squished. I was putting the spiders out through the window in the classrooms so the other kids wouldn’t step on them.

When I was in university, I volunteered doing feline enrichment at the Toronto Humane Society. I worked at an organization that worked with marginalized communities affected by HIV and then at a Children’s and family organization. Those were both organizations that aligned with my values.

I care about justice for humans for all of the same reasons I care about justice for animals. But I always knew that my dream job would be to work in the animal sector doing communications, telling those stories from the animals because their voices are ignored so often.

Shawna: That’s so incredible. It sounds like it was very much meant to be. Maybe for listeners that are not familiar with the Vancouver Humane Society, could you share a little bit about the mission and the types of work that you do?

Chantelle: Yeah, absolutely. So, the Vancouver Humane Society’s mission is to expose and end animal suffering and exploitation, including supporting individuals, organizations, and governments in caring for the wellbeing of animals. So, we work in five main areas to do that.

There are already a lot of great rescues who do work in taking in pets who really need it. So, our goal is to support the guardians of animals who are loved, but just need some help to keep them cared for at home and out of the shelter rescue system. We offer emergency veterinary support for low-income guardians so that they can get their pets cared for and back home safe rather than having to watch their pets suffer or make the really difficult decision to either euthanize them or give them up to get the care they need. We do a lot of advocacy work around animals in captivity, zoos, aquariums, mobile petting zoos, exotic pets, and animals in entertainment. That includes things like rodeos, horse carriages, horse racing, and wildlife.

Recently, we’ve taken more of a support role on this one for other organizations that focus on wild animals like the fur bearers. But we’ve covered things like, wildlife culls, hunting and fishing, regulations for farming, rodent poisons, and then farmed animals. That is a major area because, I’m sure you know, farmed animal welfare is often considered the greatest animal welfare issue on the planet.

We work in plant-based advocacy to make plant-based eating more accessible and reduce the demand for animals to be farmed for food. And we also advocate for better policies and practices that address the worst harms animals face while they’re currently in the farming system.

Rodeos and horse racing

Three jockeys lean forward as their horses gallop closely together during a horse race.

Shawna: I was scrolling one of the Facebook groups for the Hastings Sunrise neighbourhood and I saw a petition to bring back Hastings horse racing track. How do people not see how much cruelty is involved there? What do you wish more people knew about those industries?

Chantelle: Yeah. There are so many misconceptions about those two industries, and what a lot of it comes down to is lack of choice. The main argument from those industries and their supporters is that those animals love their jobs, but animals aren’t like human athletes because they don’t have a choice.

Animals used in rodeo do the behaviours that rodeo announcers pass off as performing are actually natural fear responses. A racehorse isn’t like a human athlete who gets to go home and do what they want. At the end of the day, their whole life and full routine is controlled by their handlers who decide when they train, when they rest, when and if they get time to run free. Animals also don’t choose to get into those situations. They’re bred for those industries, and if they don’t do what they’re expected, they’re punished for it.

For rodeo and horse racing, we actually did an entire podcast episode just on this topic called Eight Arguments in Support of Rodeo and How to Respond, because there are so many, and we’ve run into them all the time.

For horse racing, the most common argument is that if we take away horse racing, those horses will have nowhere to go and they’ll be sent to slaughter. First of all, this shouldn’t be true anyway. Horses are only able to race for a fraction of their lives because it’s quite hard on their bodies. So, any responsible industry should have a retirement plan in place.

The best outcome is one where horses can spend their days as freely as possible, like in a sanctuary or being therapy horses. We advocated for the BC government to support that transition when Hastings racecourse in Vancouver closed down, as you mentioned. And the other side of that coin is that while the industry is arguing that we have to keep horse racing around, because there are so many racehorses who would have nowhere to go, they have still been breeding more animals into this industry.

Shawna: Have there been campaigns to stop the horse carriage rides in Victoria?

Chantelle: We have worked around the horse carriage rides in Victoria a little bit. Right now, we’re working on a horse carriage campaign in Vancouver. We’re trying to get horse carriages off of busy city streets.

Education for long-term change

An overhead view of a wooden table set with colorful plant-based dishes.

Shawna: Beyond the individual campaigns that VHS works on, are there examples of maybe systems-level work, maybe through getting policies changed, education or outreach to address long-term changes that will benefit animals?

Chantelle: Yeah, absolutely. Education is a really important part of the work we do because the only way we can make change for animals is if people know what the issues are and care enough to help make those changes.

One project I am really excited to share is our plant university program. We originally launched Plant University in 2022 as a home for our ongoing work making plant-based eating more accessible to individuals through personal education, like sharing recipes and also working with institutions.

To improve access to plant-based foods for instance, in the past we’ve worked with school cafeterias to help organize meatless Mondays, and that work has carried on over the past few years. We’ve developed a recipe library and shared reasons and tips to eat more plant-based foods with people all over Canada.

And we’ve also been working with businesses and institutions like long-term care homes more locally to help them transition part of their menus. We’ve also supported change at the government level. A couple years ago, we created a report for the City of Vancouver on how transitioning a percentage of the food they purchased to plant-based could save them money and help meet their environmental goals.

This last year, we transitioned the program to specifically target post-secondary students in the Lower Mainland. A lot of students are making food purchasing decisions on their own for the first time in their lives, and when we share all the benefits of choosing plant-based options along with tips for eating more plant-based foods like recipes and an on-campus food guide, there’s a much better chance we’ll see that translate into new habits these young folks will carry with them through the rest of their lives. So, we’ve been doing things like in-class presentations, outreach events, signage, and posters on campus.

Emotional toll of animal advocacy

A person wearing a cap and denim jacket gently embraces a dog.

Shawna: I know advocacy work can be really kind of emotionally heavy. I mean, you’re seeing and talking about like animals being mistreated all the time. Maybe for yourself or for your team, is there a way that you navigate feeling emotionally burnt out by doing this kind of work and how to stay motivated?

Chantelle: Yeah, it is really tough sometimes. We find different ways to share what’s happening through writing, but that means we need to watch the footage of what animals are going through behind the scenes at rodeos or in slaughterhouses. That does really get to you because you know that you can walk away from seeing this at the end of the day, but for so many animals, this is their whole lives.

I really try to ground myself by recognizing that I’m doing everything I can do to help. I’m doing advocacy, so fewer animals have to go through this. I am vegan, so I’m not directly contributing to animals going through what they go through in the farming system. And then I spend lots of time connecting with the world around me in different ways when I’m not working, talking to my loved ones, talking to my cat, taking my cat out into the backyard so she can live the best life that she can.

I know if I’m not able to take care of myself and reset, I’m not going to be as effective in actually doing this advocacy. So, taking time for ourselves is part of being a good animal advocate.

The role of public awareness

Close-up of a horse’s face, showing its eyes.

Shawna: You mentioned kind of the role that public awareness plays. Do you feel that the public awareness does play a huge role in actually like changing the laws in these practices?

Chantelle: Yeah, absolutely. Public awareness is huge. We live in a world where companies, for the most part, are going to do what’s most profitable. Governments, for the most part, are going to do what gets them re-elected.

So, when we raise public awareness, people change their behaviours and they speak up and it tells those leaders of companies and governments that compassion is the popular choice, that’s going to be more profitable or it’s going to get more people on their side before the next election. When we do see government representatives connect with an issue on a personal level, it’s often because they’ve heard from individuals in their community, not necessarily from someone who’s representing an organization.

Shawna: For increasing public awareness, what are the best strategies? Would you say on social media you have a good reach or is it door-to-door campaigns with petitions? I’m just wondering what is an effective way to get the word out?

Chantelle: I think there are so many different ways. If someone is individually doing this, I would say play to your strengths.

If you have an audience online, definitely online is a great way to reach people. If you’re out in your community and you’re connecting people one-on-one in groups, that’s a great way to reach people. If you’re at an event and you can bring like a plant-based dish, use that as an opener to talk about animal suffering in the farmed animal system. Like anything that you can do to get people talking and thinking, I think is a great way to educate people about the things animals go through. There are opportunities all the time, all around us.

Shawna: And then for Vancouver Humane Society specifically, are you reaching people in specific neighbourhoods directly or do you feel like a lot of the reach comes from posting videos and articles on social media?

Chantelle: The biggest two routes that we take are through our email list and organic social media posts.

There are people who are really deeply engaged and we have about 16,000 people on our email list. We send out things that they can share on social media, ways that they can take direct action, ways that they can speak up to their elected officials.

Shawna: Someone who maybe isn’t on your email list and deeply cares about animals but feels overwhelmed and is not sure where to start—what would you suggest as a way to support this work?

Chantelle: Yeah, I would say the most basic first step is to find an organization that really aligns with your values and subscribe to their email list.

We have so many quick actions, like emails to decision makers, petitions to sign, campaigns to share around. There are ways to get involved to varying degrees based on how much time you have to spend on advocacy work, from a ten second click to a more in-depth collaborative piece.

In a more general sense, I would advise people to get to know your government representatives at the local, provincial, and federal levels. Your city council members, your members of Legislative Assembly, your members of parliament.

Once you make a connection with them, you’re in a much better position to let them know that you care about animals or what you care about in general when a policy decision comes up that they’re involved with. You don’t need to be an expert, it can really just be about going to them and saying, hey, I care about animals, we are a community that loves animals. I really hope you’ll vote for better animal welfare when the opportunity comes up.

Shawna: And if someone wants to engage with anything that VHS is working on and but they don’t live in Vancouver or even British Columbia, are there ways to get involved or do you suggest they find other local humane societies?

Chantelle: I definitely suggest you always find local organizations that you can make a difference locally on issues that are near you, and likely near and dear to your heart. But you absolutely don’t need to live in Vancouver to get involved with our campaigns. We cover a whole range of campaigns from local issues to issues of national importance. Most of our quick actions can be taken by anyone in Canada and sometimes beyond.

I’d recommend you go to our website, vancouverhumane.ca and sign up for our email list to get all the updates. You can also follow us at Vancouver Humane Society on Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, or Blue Sky. Any of those ways is going to be a great first route to get involved.

Shawna: Okay. Amazing. Well, Chantelle, I want to thank you so much for sharing everything that Vancouver Humane Society is working on, and ways for people to get involved. I know you really are emphasizing people getting involved with their local officials and I think that is such an important way to help shed light and address some of the injustices going on towards animals in your community. Did you have any final thoughts or anything you wanted to share with our listeners?

Chantelle: I just wanted to thank you so much for having me on today and giving me the opportunity to share about this. I think this is a great podcast and it was a really great conversation and I am glad that we had the chance to talk today.

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Podcast: A look back at The Informed Animal Ally Season 3

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A look back at The Informed Animal Ally Season 3

In this month’s episode of The Informed Animal Ally, we look back through some of the topics the VHS covers in our programs like our plant-based advocacy work, advocacy around inhumane rodeo events, emergency veterinary care for pets through our McVitie Fund, and handling burnout as an animal ally, which we cover more in-depth in our trauma-informed training program.

Will plant-based become the norm?

Bowl of plant-based salad

The first episode of this series, Will plant-based become the norm?, was released in July 2023. In this episode of The Informed Animal Ally, we look into a VHS project examining what people in British Columbia’s Lower Mainland think about plant-based eating and sharing its benefits.

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Are rodeos obsolete?

Close-up view of a horse’s legs and hooves

The second episode in this series, Are rodeos obsolete?, was released in August 2023. The episode discusses how animals are impacted by rodeo, public responses to rodeo events, and the future of rodeo.

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Is it easy to go vegan?

Young pig in a grassy field at an animal sanctuary

The third episode in this series, Is It Easy to Go Vegan?, was released in September 2023. This episode examines healthism and ableism in discussions around plant-based eating, as well as ways to make plant-based diets more accessible to everyone.

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Caring for pets in a financial crisis

Dog and their guardian during a veterinary appointment

The fourth episode in this series, Caring for Pets in a Financial Crisis, was released in September 2023. This episode explores how financial crises can affect many pet guardians, the challenges faced by low-income pet guardians, and the systems in place to support them.

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Coping with burnout as an animal ally

Person resting on a rocky overlook with their dog at sunset

The final episode in this series, Coping with Burnout as an Animal Ally, was released in January 2024. This episode takes a closer look at the emotional toll of encountering and standing up against suffering, as well as strategies and tips for managing the compassion fatigue and burnout that many animal advocates experience.

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Next episode

Please join us next month for an episode shared from Vegan Boss Radio, featuring VHS Communications Director Chantelle Archambault.

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News/Blog

Podcast: Hastings Racecourse announces closure in Vancouver (The Early Edition)

Hastings Racecourse announces closure in Vancouver (The Early Edition)

Chantelle Archambault from the Vancouver Humane Society discusses the closure of Hastings Racecourse in Vancouver, which was announced this past Friday. Originally aired on The Early Edition from CBC News; shared on The Informed Animal Ally podcast.

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On December 5th, Hastings Racecourse announced the immediate end of horse racing at the province’s last track.

The Vancouver Humane Society’s Chantelle Archambault sat down with Stephen Quinn from The Early Edition on CBC Radio to share the VHS’s response, previous advocacy around the racetrack, and what a compassionate retirement for horses would look like. Interview shared with permission.

Call for a safe retirement for horses

Note: This written discussion has been edited for length.

Hastings Racecourse closes: The VHS responds

A close up photo of a horse with a bridle.

Stephen: Thoroughbred horse racing at Vancouver’s Hastings Racecourse is ending after more than a century. In fact, it’s been going there for about 130 years. The operator announced on Friday it will no longer run a racing season at the historic facility.

Great Canadian Entertainment, which operates the site, described the move as an extremely difficult decision. It said the decision was made because of a lack of economic feasibility to move forward with another season of horse racing.

Now, the Vancouver Humane Society released a report earlier this year highlighting the need for public subsidies to remain operational.

And joining us now is Chantelle Archambault. She is the Communications Director of the Vancouver Humane Society. Good morning to you, Chantelle.

Chantelle: Good morning. Thank you so much for having me here.

Stephen: Thanks for being with us. Your reaction to the news on Friday that the race course is shutting down after being operational for well over a century?

Chantelle: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, on on the one hand, we’re so grateful for this step toward a future where animals aren’t bred for use risky entertainment activities like horse racing.

The Vancouver Humane Society has been advocating for an end to horse racing at Hastings for many years, given the animal welfare concerns associated with the industry.

And at the same time, we recognize that it brings quite a lot of uncertainty for those connected to the horse racing industry.

We’re very hopeful that all parties, regardless of their perspective on horse racing, share a common priority of ensuring that every horse currently involved in racing is provided with safe, secure, compassionate retirement.

That’s why we’re encouraging both the provincial government and industry stakeholders to prioritize meaningfully supporting both workers and animals in transitioning away from horse racing,

Report on Hastings Racecourse

Stephen: Your organization commissioned a report earlier this year on the history of the Vancouver Hastings Racecourse. What were some of the key findings of that report?

Chantelle: We looked at both the economic and animal welfare impacts of racing.

We found that there were decades of decline at Vancouver’s Hasting Racecourse, and the track was relying on public subsidies to remain operational.

It outlines that there was decline in attendance, revenue, race days.

  • The race days went down from about 150 a year in the 1980s to about 45 planned for 2025.
  • Attendance has collapsed from about 1.1 million people in 1982 to about 150,000 in 2022.
  • In 2023 and 2024, the horse racing industry received about $9 million from slot machining revenue to keep it running.

So there’s been a heavy reliance on public funds to keep this industry going.

And the report also, of course, highlighted the risks that horses face in racing. At least 14 horses died at Hastings in 2023. In 2024, the fatality rate was 1.78 deaths per 1000 starts, which is well above the industry average and nearly double the rate at tracks that have stronger safety rules.

So given that, the racing industry really no longer aligns with the City of Vancouver’s priorities for public access, sustainability, economic resilience. We were recommending an end to horse racing at Hastings Park when the current operating agreement for the racetrack expires, which would have been in 2026.

Stephen: I’m sure the people who work at the track and work with horses would say that they certainly do their best to ensure the health of horses and to make sure that they stay healthy, do they not?

Chantelle: I absolutely am sure they do. It’s impossible to work with animals and not love them and care for them.

But the reality is that there were so many deaths at this track that it seems like it’s an inevitable, inherent part of the racing industry.

What’s next for the horses?

A white horse running in a fenced area

Stephen: So what will happen then to the horses now that they’re no longer competing at the racetrack?

Chantelle: It’s a great question. A responsible transition plan really means developing clear, transparent retirement pathways for every horce that’s racing.

Horses are only able to race for a fraction of their natural lifespan, so this should be a baked in part of the industry, and we are hopeful that it is. Under normal circumstances, any industry that relies on animals should already have a well-developed safety net and in place for animals who age out of the industry.

From our perspective, a good outcome would be for the horses to move out of the racing industry into an environment where they can have positive experiences, bonds, and the freedom to express their natural behaviors.

So some examples of that would be retiring to a sanctuary or therapy horses, in a setting where they can regularly have time to run free.

Declining public support

Stephen: Chantelle, is this something you see just happening here in the Lower Mainland or in British Columbia, or are we seeing a decline in in horse racing operations across North America?

Chantelle: We really only have been looking very closely at British Columbia, but I have heard whisperings that there there is a wider decline across the industry as a whole.

There’s decreasing public support for this industry. I think it’s clear that people are seeing across multiple industries that use animals and put them at risk like this, that there is a decline in public support as people learn more about animal welfare and animal sentience and learn that animals are beings who can feel pain, feel fear, feel stress, and care about their lives.

Stephen: Chantelle, we’ll leave it there this morning. Thank you so much for taking the time. We appreciate it.

Chantelle: Thank you so much for having me.

Stephen: That is Chantelle Archambault, who is the Communications Director at the Vancouver Humane Society, talking about the end of horse racing at Hastings Park after 130 years, and what will happen to the horses and all of the people who work with those horses as well.

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News/Blog

Podcast: How veterinary social work helps people and pets

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“Veterinary social work is about walking alongside guardians through some of the most stressful and emotional times in their lives.”

In this episode of The Informed Animal Ally, we explore the growing field of veterinary social work — where human services and animal welfare meet. Dawn Campbell, a veterinary social worker with the Vancouver Humane Society, shares how supporting people through their bond with their pets can lead to more compassionate, inclusive systems of care. Together, we discuss how this approach helps ensure no one has to choose between their own wellbeing and their animal’s.

Note: This written discussion has been edited for length.

Veterinary Social Worker, Vancouver Humane Society

Dawn is a registered social worker who joined the Vancouver Humane Society in 2024 as a Veterinary Social Worker for the McVitie Fund. She holds a degree in Social Work from the University of Victoria and has additional specialized training in grief and loss, pet loss support, and counselling. With a wealth of experience in social services and animal care, Dawn is deeply passionate about bridging the gaps between social work and animal services.

The role of reconciliation in social work

A natural landscape

Dawn: I wanted to start by situating myself and acknowledging the land that I work and live on. I am a settler on the unceded territories of the q̓ʷɑ:n̓ƛ̓ən̓ (Kwantlen), q̓ic̓əy̓ (Katzie), Máthxwi (Matsqui), and se’mya’me (Semiahmoo) First Nations.

For me, a land acknowledgement is not about a quick statement at the beginning of a meeting. It’s about accountability. It means recognizing my responsibilities and committing to building daily, respectful and reciprocal relationships with Indigenous peoples.

What this means is looking honestly at my role in my social work profession and how it has played a role in upholding colonial policies and causing deep harm, and as a social worker, having to carry that history with me, and then also having to resist falling into fragility or defensiveness when confronted with it.

For me, that’s about consistent reflexivity, asking how my whiteness shapes the way I show up in spaces, how it impacts my perspective, and how others experience me because of it.

Part of that accountability also includes action, whether that means engaging in mutual aid or continuing to learn about Canada’s colonial past and its ongoing impacts.

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s 94 Calls to Action give us a roadmap and I encourage everyone to read them and find ways to situate themselves in their personal and professional lives.

This isn’t just a recognition, it’s about accountability. It’s about learning, it’s about respect, and it’s about striving to change harmful systems.

Chantelle: I really appreciate that because what we’re gonna be talking about today is a system that’s striving to make things more fair and just and inclusive for all people.

What is veterinary social work?

Chantelle: I would love to start with a backgrounder on the topic of veterinary social work.

For people who aren’t familiar with it, could you tell us what veterinary social work is and how it differs and aligns with other types of social work?

Dawn: Yeah, so essentially it’s social work in animal spaces. But if we wanted to go a little bit deeper, the term veterinary social work was developed by Elizabeth Strand at the University of Tennessee in 2002 when she also founded the first Center for Veterinary Social Work.

The program at the University of Tennessee focuses on four core areas:

  • The link between human and animal violence;
  • Grief and loss;
  • Animal assisted interactions; and
  • Compassion fatigue management.

So that’s the formal scope that veterinary social work focuses on, at least in this specific program.

But I do really like the definition that was brought forward in a webinar that was hosted by the Vancouver Humane Society. Veterinary social work was described as an area of social work practice that attends to the human needs that arise at the intersection of veterinary medicine and social work.

Webinar Replay: Exploring Veterinary Social Work in Animal Services

Watch the enlightening 60-minute webinar on the field of veterinary social work and its transformative impact on the animal services industry, originally held on Wednesday, June 14th! This webinar is hosted by the Vancouver Humane Society and features expert panelists Natalie Cruz from Boundary Bay Veterinary Specialty Hospital, Erin Wasson from University of Saskatchewan, Western College of Veterinary Medicine, and Dillon Dodson from Toronto Humane Society.

I think like that definition really stuck out to me because it was very simple, it was very broad, and that is really where we’re at is at that intersection.

This might look different depending on where it happens. It could be in a veterinary clinic, it could be in a community outreach program. It could be in a humane society. The shape of the work is determined really on the community needs, the setting and even the species involved.

I think that the values at the heart of this work mirror a lot of the social work values: the inherent worth and dignity of all beings, including animals.

And it’s also preventative work, so that could be offering grief support, advocacy, and connection before crises deepen.

Chantelle: Oh, that’s fantastic. I was originally involved with the webinar that we ran in 2023 about veterinary social work. A panelist described it as the same as other types of social work in a different setting.

It sounds like that’s very much in line with how you view it as well.

Dawn: Yeah, for sure. I totally agree. I think that social work can be in any space. So we can label this as veterinary social work, or we could just label it as social work because it’s just social work in an animal space and in an animal related context.

It overlaps with so many things, like I said, including crisis work, counselling, group facilitation, and even forensic (criminal justice) social work.

It’s really just meeting people where they’re at. And with this specifically, it’s when their relationship with their animal is at stake.

A typical day for a veterinary social worker

A person looking away from the camera out a window while speaking on a cell phone

Chantelle: Yeah, absolutely. You work with the McVitie program, so everyone accessing the McVitie program services is basically in a state of very heightened emotional crisis.

People are concerned for the lives of their pets, their family members, their best friends. So they’re coming in, they’re stressed, they’re worried, they’re needing support and help, and they don’t have the funds to meet the needs of their animal that they care so much about.

It’s so important that we can support both the animals and the people who care about them.

I would love to hear about what a typical day looks like for you as a veterinary social worker in this context.

Supporting animal guardians through a pet’s medical emergency

Dawn: Yeah. As mentioned earlier, I work with the Vancouver Humane Society’s McVitie Fund team.

I assist with the operations of that program, and that can look different day to day.

Often, like you mentioned, we’re hearing from pet guardians whose animals are facing life-threatening emergencies. This could be anything from being hit by a car to maybe a cat in diabetic shock or a severe flea infestation. And so they’re already dealing with the stress and emotional toll that comes with seeing their animal in distress.

On top of that, many of these guardians are already navigating financial hardship, housing insecurity, and other barriers.

We’re helping them figure out what we can do funding wise. It is a veterinary assistance fund, but it’s not just about the money that we can provide to them for their animals to get veterinary care. It’s also about supporting the guardian emotionally.

Because this animal is in crisis, the person is too, and they don’t know what the outcome is going to be.

Collaborating with support workers

Dawn: Sometimes it’s not a guardian that reaches out to us directly. It can be a social service worker, it could be an outreach worker, a case manager who is applying for veterinary funds on behalf of their client.

What I’ve done in those cases is collaborating with the staff, resource sharing so that their clients—not only that client that they’re applying for, but for their other clients with pets—what’s in the community that can help for future care, like pet food.

And it’s about offering emotional support to the staff as well. Because I have found, and this is from my own other professional experience of working in the field, that these staff members are deeply attached to these pets also.

And so it’s supporting them through this process as well. You’re holding many hands.

Some days it’s grief support when the outcomes aren’t what they hoped. Other days it’s celebrating when a guardian’s pet gets to come home and they get the care that they need. We get wonderful feedback from people, very appreciative of our time and our resource.

Advocating on behalf of animal guardians

Dawn: So it could be crisis intervention, case management, advocacy.

I’ve advocated on behalf of a client with vet clinics on trying to get our funds spread a little further.

And at the heart of it really, it’s really just listening and recognizing that pets are a part of the family system.

Bridging the gap between human and animal services

An elderly man holds a cat; companion animals are an important part of many Canadian families

Chantelle: You mentioned that a lot of people who access services for their animals are also facing their own complex challenges and they need services or they use other services for themselves as well.

How does veterinary social work help to bridge that gap between animal services and human services, and how does that improve outcomes for the animals?

Dawn: I think there’s a lot of work to be done. There are so many gaps in the system, whether an animal is involved or not.

I think that what I’ve taken away as a veterinary social worker, as well as also having worked in the social services field for quite a while now, is that one of the most powerful things is how pets can be the key to connection.

If you ask them about their dog, everything changes.

Building rapport is not always easy, and people who have experienced trauma who have been excluded or mistreated by systems may not want to engage. But if you ask them about their dog, everything changes. Their face lights up. Their pet is their whole world.

There’s been so many moments where someone wasn’t interested in talking about their situation, but the second you ask about their animal, everything shifts. Even if it’s as simple as helping them get food for their pet.

Once that trust is there, it opens up and you can start discussing about their own needs.

Supporting someone through their bond with their pet can be the foundation of broader healing.

I think that, not only is that what the work of veterinary social workers are doing, it’s something that can be done by people who are working in animal welfare agencies, in vet clinics, in social service agencies.

They can see that is a way in, and I think that can start breaking down the walls that are separating our agencies. And we can start bridging to one another. I think that’s like a good starting point and having conversations like these for sure.

Chantelle: Absolutely.

I feel like that’s such a universal experience for people who work with both animals and humans. That is almost the exact thing that we heard from last month’s guest, Jesse from Atira Women’s Resource Centre. She said that speaking with someone about their pet is such an amazing foot in the door to build a really strong connection with that person, be able to connect with them on other resources for themselves.

Podcast: Bridging the gap between animal and human services

Dawn: Yeah, I mean when you think about it, if you’re out for a walk and who are you more likely to go up? The person who’s walking their dog or the person who doesn’t have a dog?

Billy Bob’s story

Chantelle: Could you walk us through a case where you supported an animal and their guardian?

Dawn: Yeah. This one is always one that will stay with me. Billy Bob is very close to my heart.

I had known this dog, Billy Bob for a few years. He and his guardian had been through quite a bit of hardship living on the street.

This was before I joined the Vancouver Humane Society, and I was working downtown Eastside in a supportive housing building. Billy Bob, a senior dog, had developed a large mass along the left side of his abdomen, just behind his front leg.

It was causing a lot of discomfort and was really affecting his quality of life. You could see that there was a significant change in his energy. Something was wrong.

His guardian, Duffy, had been quite worried for some time and didn’t know what to do. He didn’t have the financial resources to get Billy in.

I had applied for funds through the McVitie program.

I remember the moment, when we get the initial funds were approved. And I remember telling him. The relief in his voice was unforgettable. I remember him saying it was like winning the lottery.

We had that moment and I remember having that moment with my coworkers also about agreeing that, how often do we get to say yes to something?

This is somebody who has been entrenched in homelessness, and stigmatized and discriminated against for it. And to be able to be like, Hey, we’re gonna get, we’re gonna get your dog to the vet. We’re gonna figure out what’s going on.

When we brought him to the vet it was clear that the best course of action was to remove the mass completely. It was very big. It was like the size of a grapefruit, if not bigger, and it was posing a real threat to Billy’s life and it was gonna be a lot more money than $500. And we were able to get additional funding from the McVitie program, and that surgery saved Billy’s life. It really did.

After they had sent tests off for that mass, it had shown that it was a low grade cancer and that added another year and a bit to Billy’s life.

Billy got to be there for Duffy when Duffy passed in the hospital.

We would’ve never have been able to have that if we hadn’t gotten Billy in and taken care of.

For me, that really highlights what veterinary social work is about—what social work or helping people in general is about.

It’s not just about the medical care for an animal, it’s about walking alongside the guardian through what can be one of the most stressful and emotional times in their life.

We thought we were gonna lose Billy, and if we hadn’t gotten that surgery, we would’ve been looking at end of life care.

It also shows that supporting people and their pets happens in old spaces, not just in formal animal welfare settings. And it’s a reminder that being resourceful on behalf of your clients can make a difference between life and death for an animal and hope or despair for their guardian.

The McVitie Fund is a small fund, and being able to access it makes a really huge difference in people’s lives.

Chantelle: Connecting with guardians directly as well, I know people in the program, yourself included, get those stories directly every day.

I remember a conversation where our other colleague Ishtmeet shared in our team group chat she had just got off the phone with a guardian. And she had been able to approve funding for the guardian’s dog. As she was hanging up, the guardian said with a shake in their voice, oh baby, you’re gonna be okay.

It’s such an impactful thing in people’s lives, and I’m so grateful that we have donors who are able to contribute to this fund and make it possible.

Dawn’s journey into veterinary social work

A person outdoors cuddling a brown dog

Chantelle: Can you share a little bit about your own journey into this field and what drew you to the intersection of human and animal wellbeing?

Dawn: I mean, I could go way back to teen years and tell you that I wanted to be a vet tech and I volunteered in a vet clinic. I volunteered for Langley Animal Protection Society. I grew up on a farm. I was like obsessed. I was like, I am going to work with animals. That’s my dream.

And then things changed and I came onto a path of social services and working with people, and then somehow I came back to animals and people.

But I’ll be honest, I didn’t know that veterinary social work existed until I was in my fourth year of my social work degree. By then I was already working in the social services field for quite some time and I kept seeing the same thing over and over again in my work, which was that people with pets were falling through the cracks.

Their pets were rarely considered when supports were put in place.

So when I was doing some research around where I would wanted to do my fourth year of practicum placement and I had no idea, that’s when I stumbled across veterinary social work and started to learn more about it.

After doing some research finding out that there was no placements available in Western Canada, I advocated to create my own.

My field coordinator for the practicum approached the Vancouver Humane Society. And you guys were very open to the idea. That’s how I came into doing a practicum with the Vancouver Humane Society—just the openness and willingness from VHS and from my university to take on an unconventional practicum placement.

And then at the end of the practicum, I was graciously offered a job, and now I’m here and I have so many goals and dreams of how I want to see this expand, how I want to see veterinary social work expand here in Western Canada.

And so that’s the most recent part of the journey, but ultimately it was about seeing the consistent gap in the system of pets and people being left behind basically, and having to choose.

It was really hard to see, and I was just like, there’s something that needs to be done and I’m gonna do it.

Addressing systemic service gaps

A person outside cuddling two dogs

Chantelle: I understand it’s really important to be able to address those gaps and not let people and animals fall through the cracks. How does this approach address systemic service gaps, especially for marginalized communities in their companion animals?

Dawn: What I see happening in social work in these spaces is really addressing policies and procedures through education.

As an example, many shelters and housing programs don’t allow pets, and the ones that do, there’s no policies or procedures in place on how to support people who own pets, and how to handle the pets. And staff are often not trained from a strengths-based approach that addresses both the wellbeing and the safety of the animal and the person.

Because of this, people often avoid accessing services altogether. And I think that is a place where veterinary social work can really come in and address that.

Not only are social workers in general trained in strength-based approaches, but the animal piece of it is working with organizations to create policies, procedures, and training education for staff and so that everyone is supported.

Another way we can address this is acknowledging the fact that people facing hardship and homelessness are especially stigmatized for having a pet.

I’ve had countless conversations where people have been said, if someone can’t house themselves, they shouldn’t have an animal. But hardship does not mean someone can’t be a good guardian. I’ve seen so many people put their animals’ needs before their own.

I also think that it’s important to recognize that neglect and abuse happen in all kinds of settings. It happens in farms, zoos, family homes. Much of it is hidden. Yet when someone living on the street has a pet, people are quick to assume neglect.

What that tells me is that the problem isn’t actually with abuse. It’s with visibility. And when visibility is punished, it becomes discrimination against structurally excluded or disenfranchised population.

And so I think that in veterinary social work, social work in general, we can raise that awareness. We can challenge those belief systems and that stigma and say that everyone is deserving.

I wanted to also mention that veterinary care is very expensive to everyone. We have people applying to our program that have high income, and that just shows how inaccessible veterinary care has become.

And that’s for many reasons. There is a veterinarian shortage happening, the staff shortages are happening in Canada. There’s emotional distress, compassion fatigue, burnout, wages. There’s many things that are contributing to the inaccessibility to veterinary care. It’s not just the cost of it. There’s other factors as well, and so I think that we can address those pieces.

How collaboration makes a difference

Two calmly smiling people talking on a couch

Chantelle: You mentioned earlier some ways that veterinary social work is collaborative with other sectors.

Such an important part of the work is to collaborate with other sectors like public health, social services, other animal services. Can you talk about that kind of collaboration and how working with other sectors approaches a guardian’s challenges and needs in a more holistic way?

Dawn: Social workers in general thrive on collaboration. We are connectors to various stakeholders, including housing providers, social service agencies, healthcare services.

From the lens of a veterinary social worker, we’re looking at connecting with humane societies, with veterinarians, and helping see where pets fit into the bigger picture in how supporting animals also strengthens human wellbeing.

We see this work happening from other organizations, such as Community Veterinary outreach, Paws for Hope, and Atira. They don’t have social workers on staff in those programs per se, but they are practicing social work principles by meeting people where they’re at and supporting both human and animal needs.

And so we’re seeing the collaboration happening and the partnerships being created in community. Continuing that is making sure that we are putting the community’s needs first and coming in from a place of listening and supporting what’s already working.

Chantelle: I love that concept of meeting people where they’re at.

Dawn: It’s a harm reduction approach. It’s such a powerful concept. It’s coming in with putting the person first, not coming in with an agenda. Not coming in with the answers. Not being like, I’m the expert in your life.

They’re the experts in their lives.

Chantelle: Yeah. Everyone’s coming to the program from a different place, and there’s going to be a different solution that makes sense for each person’s situation.

Dawn: Exactly. Just to add onto that piece, animal welfare is moving away from saviorism and charity, and shifting the lens to solidarity and mutual aid. Really recognizing that resilience and love and connection are things that we need to amplify over struggle. Struggle is very important to recognize, but we have to look at these other things as well.

How the field is evolving in Canada

A Canadian flag against a blue sky

Chantelle: As you mentioned, the concept of meeting human service needs and animal service needs together is not at all new.

People have been working with both humans and animals for many decades. Like you said, the term veterinary social work was coined in 2002, so more than two decades ago. How has the field evolved since then, and what’s unique about how it’s growing in Canada today?

Dawn: I think that, like we’d mentioned earlier in the US veterinary social work became more established through the University of Tennessee’s program, whereas in Canada, we’re still shaping what it looks like.

As I mentioned, that there are organizations who are leading the way in this, and they’re doing the work that’s deeply aligned with social work practice, and really addressing housing and health needs alongside animal care.

We’re also seeing, on an academic level, veterinary colleges offering veterinary social work services. This is introducing veterinary students to social work early in their training.

And it means clients and staff and teaching hospitals are being supported.

We’re seeing organizations like the Toronto Humane Society, who has developed a structured social work program and offers a social work practicum placement there, and their team provides crisis support, grief processing, service navigation, advocacy and leadership.

On a national level, Humane Canada is doing incredible work to integrate one health and one welfare approaches. These frameworks recognize that human health, animal health, and environmental health that are interconnected.

We’re building something unique that reflects what our own communities and systems and priorities.

Chantelle: You mentioned so many of the organizations that I wanted to flag as well. We both brought up the veterinary social work webinar a while ago that the VHS put on in 2023.

We had three different veterinary social workers on that panel that are from other organizations and clinics that are leading the way. Natalie Cruz from the webinar was the first veterinary social worker in BC at Boundary Bay Veterinary Specialty Hospital.

We had on Erin Wasson from the Western College of Veterinary Medicine who’s been such a trailblazer getting this field on the radar in Canada and introduced veterinary social work into the school in Saskatchewan.

We had Dylan Dodson from the Toronto Humane Society. As you mentioned, they’re doing great work.

Where veterinary social work is heading

A close up photo of a person holding and kissing a dog

Chantelle: This is such a subjective question, but I’d love to get your take on it. Where do you see the field heading in the next five to ten years, and what is needed to support that growth?

Dawn: I see it playing a major role in shaping policy and training across social service sectors.

As I mentioned before, there’s not a lot of guidance on how staff in the social services sector can support their clients who have pets. I think that partnerships with social service agencies are a real tipping point. I think that when housing programs, food banks, and health services integrate pets into their models, we’ll start to really see systemic change.

I also see this field adopting a true social model of care for animals just like we do with humans, and recognizing structural barriers, not just individual failures.

I think that anti-racism and cultural humility is also very crucial. Veterinary colleges are already embedding equity into their training, raising awareness about the human-animal bond and the importance of inclusion.

I think that we are starting to reframe how we support staff. So instead of relying only on compassion fatigue, we need to recognize empathetic distress, which is a very real emotional toll of caring deeply, day after day. I see that in the animal welfare field and in the social services field, where there’s this push for self-care.

Burnout and compassion fatigue are considered an individual problem when in reality it’s a structural problem. It’s a systemic problem. So shifting that to better support staff in both sectors. I think that work is being done; we’re recognizing it and it’s happening.

I think that we’ll see more support in remote and northern communities and Indigenous communities in ways that are sustainable and culturally safe. That means not coming in and telling communities what to do, but really coming in and listening and allowing knowledge keepers and community members to identify what their need is. And our role is to stand alongside them and support sustainably and build solutions together.

Some of the most transformative organizations are already modeling this approach. And I believe this is where some of the most transformative work will happen in the next decade.

One last piece would be dismantling the silos that we’re currently in on both sides. I think that we are treating both sectors as separate worlds, and we’re not; we are overlapping every day. I think that the future of veterinary social work is breaking down those walls and creating integrated, holistic systems of care.

How you can help

Chantelle: We always like to end off by giving our audience something that they can do to take action.

Say if someone works or volunteers with animals, where would you recommend that they get started to learn about resources like a veterinary social work program that may be available in their community, which they could refer people to?

Dawn: That’s a really great question, because I think the resources are out there, but they’re still very few and far between.

A good educational piece on learning more about the field or becoming more involved is watching the webinars like the one that the Vancouver Humane Society did, as well as the Canadian Association of Social Work. They did a webinar back at the beginning of this year on the expanding role of veterinary social work in Canada.

Canadian Association of Social Work webinar (members only)

Looking into what Humane Canada is doing and going to their conferences is a really great way to not only network, but learn more about what everyone is doing.

There’s this thought that you have to get specialized training to be a veterinary social worker. You don’t. Like I said at the beginning, this is social work in animal spaces. If you’re a registered social worker and you have a passion to work with animals and to support people and their pets, that’s it.

International Association of Veterinary Social Workers

There’s courses. I took an animal welfare certificate course through the Thompson Rivers University. It’s an online certificate. I really liked the course.

Additional course: Animal Awareness for the Substance Use Workforce

Those are some ways of networking. Or just being persistent, reaching out to organizations and seeing what kind of social work they’re doing, seeing what social work programs they’re running.

As a closing, at the heart of all this is that I believe animal welfare is a social service, and I think it should be funded as such.

We already see animals showing up in family law with custody agreements for pets. We’re seeing how housing policies impact whether people can keep their animals. And we know about the violence link, the clear relationship between animal abuse and interpersonal violence.

These are all social issues.

They’re not separate. Supporting animals is supporting people. If there can be any takeaway today, I think that it would be that it’s a social service. No one should ever have to choose between their own wellbeing and their pet.

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Podcast: Bridging the gap between animal and human services

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Animal services and human services are two sides of the same coin.

Providing resources for humans improves life for the animals they care for, and vice versa. This month’s episode of The Informed Animal Ally welcomes Jesse Smith from the Pet Outreach program at Atira Women’s Resource Society to share some stories about working with the community to support people and their companion animals together.

Note: This written discussion has been edited for length.

Pet Outreach Program Coordinator, Atira Women’s Resource Society

Jesse Smith is a lifelong animal advocate and guardian. In 2021 Jesse developed and currently runs the Pet Outreach program for Atira Women’s Resource Society, a nonprofit housing society for people and their pets in the DTES of Vancouver, B.C. This role allows unhoused community members and residents in low-income housing and shelter facilities to access support for their animal companions.

How the Pet Outreach program came to be

Tents in an outdoor encampment

Chantelle: We have been looking at the wide world of animal advocacy and protection in this series, and today we’ll be diving into one aspect of this work that we’ve touched on before, which is the intersection between animal work and social work/community programs.

To explore this topic with us further, I’m very pleased to welcome Jesse Smith, the Pet Outreach Program Coordinator at Atira Women’s Resource Society in Vancouver. Jesse, thank you so much for joining us today.

To start off, I would love to hear a little bit about the history of the Pet Outreach program.

Was there a moment when you knew that this kind of support was needed in the community?

Jesse: Yeah, so that actually predates my involvement with Atira Women’s Resource Society.

Identifying the need in the community: Veterinary care

Jesse: There were two events that happened that really stuck out with leadership.

The first was that there was a resident who was living in one of the SROs (Single Room Occupancy housing) that we support whose pet had skin allergies and was having flareups all of the time, just chronic issues. He was getting really frustrated because he couldn’t afford vet care, he couldn’t afford to keep her on the prescription hypoallergenic diet and he really didn’t know what resources were available or what to do.

A person in community was just chatting with him one day and said, I happen to know your housing provider. I’m gonna chat and see if there’s something we can do.

He was able to get that care at that time, but then it just kind of was like, he’s not the only one that’s struggling with this and this is a chronic issue. This isn’t something that’s gonna be one time, and then we move on.

Identifying the need in the community: Safety precautions

Jesse: And the second was back when there was an encampment at Strathcona Park. For those of you that are not familiar with Vancouver, Strathcona is a very large central park near the downtown core that after COVID had a very large street encampment. There were many people that were living there with pets.

Unfortunately there was an incident where three dogs broke free from the camper that they had been tethered to, and they attacked a worker in the park.

And so needs for services on how to keep workers and community members safe really kind of came to the forefront.

Developing a pet outreach program: Helping people and animals together

Jesse: And so leadership realized that we have support workers for humans, so why not have support workers whose target is pets and who can kind of work on all of these issues

They interviewed and I saw the posting and was like, this sounds great.

The opportunity was to really create the program because they didn’t know what it should be. They just knew it should exist, and so they really wanted people to be involved that knew the animal world and could kind of bridge that gap between social services and pet services.

Addressing barriers to pet-friendly housing

Amy: That’s so awesome, Jesse.

Just to share another perspective on it, when I was first getting into policy studies, I worked on a paper that looked at the importance of lowering barriers to access to housing. There’s so many barriers people were facing at that time and continue to face for accessing housing.

And one of those is the lack of pet-friendly housing.

And so luckily, as a result of research that was done in the 2008 to 2011 time period, a lot of housing providers started to reduce barriers and make more housing available to pets, which is amazing.

And at the same time, like you’re saying, it comes with a whole host of additional challenges.

So in my mind, your role is the next logical step in terms of how we merge the work that we do and that you do. People and pets are always together.

I’m really excited about your role and I think there’s a lot of opportunity for other housing providers and social service providers to have programming like this.

What a day in the Pet Outreach program looks like

A kitten at a veterinary appointment

Amy: The program certainly has a broad scope ranging from helping people access food and supplies, to directing folks to resources for support with veterinary care and pet boarding. If we were to spend a typical day shadowing you, what would that look like?

From basic needs to critical incidents

Jesse: Well, we’ll start to say that there is no typical. Every day is different, which I love.

The work shifts and flows with the community and what the needs are of that day. So you need to be versatile and you really need to kind of have the ability to triage, starting from getting your phone calls.

So I’ll come in, there’ll be messages. We run a mobile food bank. So a lot of calls are just like, Hey, I’ve run out of food, I’ve run out of litter. Can I come pick up or can you deliver?

So can be anything from really basic to, there might be a critical incident that happened that evening while our phones were off. There may be an injury or like severe illness that’s happened and something that requires immediate vet care.

Accompaniments to vet visits

Jesse: Some days we do have scheduled appointments. So we know where we’re going and what we’re doing, and kind of have to coordinate that time off.

We do a lot of accompaniments to vet visits.

When we first started, we would just kind of book the appointment, give a taxi voucher and say like, okay, good luck. We learned really quickly that that wasn’t what the community needed. And we had folks ask, can you accompany us to vet appointments? We would really love to have an advocate there.

So we drive them. We use that time in the car to kind of figure out what they need during that appointment if they want us to chat for them if they want to just chat and have us kind of as backup.

I’ve had people tell me, even if you don’t say a word, I just feel stronger with you there. I know someone’s not going to treat me different.

And you know, the clinics we work with are great. They know the community that we’re working with. They work with a trauma-informed approach, but that fear of being disrespected in other areas, still, it stays with you. There’s anxiety that comes up, and so we learned really quickly that that was an important piece of the work is to be a physical presence with folks when they’re doing appointments.

Behaviour advice

Jesse: We do behaviour advice. Sometimes we’ll do a basic dog training. A lot of people just wanna talk about their pets and make sure they’re doing the right thing.

We’ll take any call that’s animal related, whether it’s staff calling about, there’s a lot of dog reactivity because there’s a lot of intra-dog aggression that’s happening.

Working with staff in a building to create safety plans for residents. Maybe there’s been a bite incident in a building. Those are starting to be more rare now that we’ve come around. But when we started, there was just a lot of kind of general chaos in some of the buildings, and so having strong pet policies is huge.

Mobile pet food bank

Jesse: But I think the mobile pet food bank is something that’s unique.

We started with just kind of realizing that there were a lot of people in community that couldn’t leave their places, whether that was because of their mobility or due to maybe being entrenched in having heavier substance use days where they just couldn’t make it. There’s a range of reasons why people aren’t able to make food bank times, and so being able to get those supplies to them was huge.

The importance of advocacy and safety plans

Amy: Thank you so much for summarizing all of that and I can really get a picture of what your days look like. I’m really grateful for that work you’re doing accompanying folks to veterinarians.

Because in any case when you have a practitioner who has the knowledge and you have an individual who isn’t an expert, you have a power dynamic that exists automatically there, and then that power dynamic is further reinforced through marginalized identities. There’s often a language barrier.

When any guardian’s at the vet, they are in a heightened state of stress, including myself. I don’t remember half of what’s said, and then after I’m trying to figure it all out, and so I’m just so grateful that your program is offering that.

And as well, thinking about those interactions in buildings. I know any building, if you have an elevator, you’ve got an elevator door that opens and suddenly there’s two dogs face to face and everyone’s like, What do we do?

So just knowing that that’s the reality and building systems and communication can help so much in reducing conflicts and creating a language of animal behaviour that’s positive and connecting between guardians, which I think helps build community.

Jesse: I want credit one of the buildings that we work with. The residents there were the ones that taught me the best safety plan. It’s really cool that you get to go to all these different buildings and you get to learn from the community itself on what’s worked for them and bring that knowledge to another building that might not have it.

So while maybe I’m credited with sharing that knowledge, I didn’t create the system. There’s already these people in community that are doing similar work.

Avoiding dog conflict in shared stairwells

Jesse: A lot of these buildings, they’re a hundred year old rooming houses, right? They’re old. The stairwells are very narrow. So if, like you say, the elevator opens and you’re face-to-face with another dog, it’s the same in the stairwell except you’re kind of cornered.

So a lot of people like have learned to like holler when they’re coming, “DOG IN STAIRWELL” and just alert community that they’re coming and it kind of goes down the stairs if other people hear them.

These little things make a huge impact in those spaces.

Chantelle: What a wonderful resource to be able to share that information between buildings and between communities.

Resources to run a Pet Outreach program

A person outside cuddling two dogs

Chantelle: You do so much, and I’m wondering what resources it takes to run a program like this and how many animal guardians you support.

Partnerships with Vancouver organizations

Jesse: I mean, like all program, money is helpful for sure, but we started with $0 in our budget and managed to make that work for a little while.

We’re really lucky in Vancouver that there is a plethora of really cool external resources for us to pick from.

The Vancouver Humane Society with the McVitie program is huge. It benefits a wide population. We’ve reached out many times for clients.

There’s the BC SPCA, they have great food banks. Their vet clinic is awesome.

Community Vet Outreach. Does really cool clinics at least four times a year. They’ve also started doing a couple spay/neuter days.

Paws for Hope has a really great low barrier foster program.

Without all of these external resources, I wouldn’t be able to operate the way that we have been.

Pet Outreach team collaborates with community

Jesse: In terms of our internal resources, it definitely takes staff that are able to really meet the community where they’re at. Not having your own ideas of what people need or what should be done.

You’re not coming in with an attitude to save pets. These pets are fine! They’re doing great. They have loving homes. Their owners just may need a little bit of support in other areas.

And I think that’s been like kind of the biggest one for me. You know, when I talk to external folks that aren’t really in this sort of work, they say, it’s so great that you’re in there saving those animals. It’s not really what I’m doing.

We’re working with the people and they’re doing that work, and we’re just here to just be community mutual aid. We’re definitely not coming in rescuing animals.

Supporting pets in 30 buildings (and growing!)

Amy: That’s awesome. How many animals do you think you help out each year?

Jesse: That’s a hard one. With 30 buildings that we’re supporting, those buildings range from, I think our smallest has about 20 units, and then the largest has 120 units.

Not all folks have pets, but all of our buildings that we work with are pet-friendly, which means folks can have up to two dogs or two cats.

There’s some people that we assist maybe one time, and then there’s others that we work with on a weekly basis. So it’s really dependent.

Amy: That sounds like a big community that you’re working with.

Jesse: Yeah, Atira is going through some changes as well. And so we are hoping to expand our programming to go outside of our buildings.

The organization has let some buildings go and they’ve gone to other organizations like PHS or community buildings, and we are still working with clients that are in those buildings. So we’re not saying, Hey, you’re no longer with our organization as the housing provider. We’re not gonna offer you services anymore. We learned really quickly that that wasn’t fair to community.

And so we are still servicing those buildings and those residents.

Amy: Oh wow. And so how many people are on your team?

Jesse: Two, myself and Jill Morisset.

How partnerships help animals

Downtown Vancouver from above

Amy: You spoke about some of the organizations that you partner with. Do you have any stories of animals that you’ve provided services to that stand out with that involved partnership?

Jesse: I think that a lot of the ones that stand out for me are sad. I really get kind of enmeshed in the end of life care.

We truly believe that there should be dignity in death and that animals and people deserve to have the space and time that they need to have those appointments go the way that they should.

A lot of our partnerships have really involved other organizations taking that time to allow us to have extra appointments to go through that.

How a spay surgery helped a dog and her guardian find better housing

Jesse: I do have another one, which is, there was this dog who used to live at Crab Park.

She lived there for a lot of years. She had a lot of puppies. So you’ll actually see a lot of dogs in community and you can tell, oh, that’s her baby. She has a long lineage. Her kids have had kids, that sort of thing.

Her guardian rehomed her to a friend who was living in one of our supportive housing buildings, and she came on our radar a bit stronger than she had been before. We had been providing food here and there, but nothing really major.

We got in touch with her there because she was pregnant, and so staff are really worried, Hey, there’s this new dog in the building. She’s pregnant, she’s about to have puppies any day. What do we do?

The guardian really did not want to connect with us at all. We would knock on her door, Hey, we have puppy food. Does your dog needs puppy food while she’s going through this? We’d just hand her stuff through the door. We didn’t make any connection. We didn’t push anything. We just handed her food through the door.

We were able to get supplies from the BC SPCA’s Charlie’s Food Bank. They really helped us out with getting a pen. They helped us out with getting pee pads when we needed them. Just kind of filled us up on puppy stuff.

A neighbour downstairs who is a good friend of hers vouched for us and helped us get our foot in the door and make a better connection with her.

And then it became more open door, and then we were able to meet the puppies. We were able to talk to her. Our relationship really grew from just being able to kind hand her things and back off and leave.

And then after the puppies were gone, we had talked to her about maybe getting the dog spayed. She wasn’t really interested. That’s okay.

But as they needed to move, some of the other buildings around had more rigid pet policies. So if you’re going in with the dog, they need to be spayed or neutered.

She was missing out on other opportunities for housing and said, I’m ready.

Community Vet Outreach had had her on a list for spay neuter clinic that she didn’t take previously. And then they said, if this will get her better housing, we can book it through our regular clinic, and took her outside of one of their clinic days and just got it done on a day that worked for her.

She was able to move into a really nice suite and unit.

And that wouldn’t have happened if there wasn’t these external organizations that we already had strong relationships with that we were able to just kind of call and say, I need help today or tomorrow. They can’t wait.

You have to build those relationships with those external partners and so I’m really, really grateful to everyone that we work with that I’m able to just pick up the phone and say like, Hey, I have someone. They need this thing tomorrow, can we do it?

And often the answer is yes and it blows my mind every time the answer’s yes.

Amy: Oh, I got goosebumps.

Chantelle: That’s so fantastic that you have those connections. I’m so glad that she was able to get housing that fit her needs.

Jesse: I would like to say that anytime a building is being closed, people are offered like housing that’s the same or better.

And so for her, she always had housing options, but to get that step up, to have her own bathroom in her unit is life changing So she got to do that and it was because of a dog spay.

Amy: Yeah. And from our side, we see so many pyometra issues or late stage mammary cancers and such. So from the dog’s perspective, she got a improvement on her life as well, knowing that she won’t run into those situations in the future.

Challenges faced by people in supportive programs

A dog in a post-surgery vest cuddling a stuffed toy

Chantelle: What are some of the challenges that the people you serve who share their lives with pets can face?

Jesse: I would say the same as any of us that have struggled with not having income. I know when I was younger, I struggled myself with affording my vet bills.

When we started, it was important for me to not go into the work assuming what the issues of the community were. We really did a lot of just knocking on doors and saying hi, I’m here. What can we help you with? What are your challenges?

I was pretty amazed at how open the community was. I don’t know if you’ve ever had someone knock on your door, but I’m usually pretty closed off if someone knocks at my door. And so it was really cool that I was knocking on all these doors and having people be like, yeah, come on in, come meet Charlie. I wanna talk to you about my pet.

The top needs that we found that people were having challenges with were:

  • food insecurity,
  • access to spay and neuter,
  • health concerns.

We did see a lot of UTIs, ear infections, skin infections, chronic allergies.

We saw some behaviour concerns, cats peeing outside of the litter box. You know, the behaviours that come from being an intact male or female cat.

We saw some safety concerns. People were worried about how to go through the hallways if their dog was reactive or if other dogs were reactive to them.

And then we also had a lot of people that brought up the concerns of who would look after their pet if they needed to go to the hospital, or if they were in arrested, or if they wanted to go to detox.

You know, people found that was a huge barrier in their lives: either daycare, short-term foster, long-term foster.

How Pet Outreach strengthens the community

A cat hissing

Amy: I’m curious how the program work that you’re doing strengthens the rest of the work Atira does and the communities you serve.

Jesse: I think pets open the door for a lot of people. If you want to talk to someone and you ask them about their pet, people are really open about chatting with you about their pet.

And once you have that connection, you’re more likely to share other things and other aspects of your life that maybe you’re struggling with or challenges you have.

I am really lucky Atira is a big organization. I have so many colleagues who are experts in their fields. So if someone is struggling with their mental health, I can pull in someone from somewhere else and say meet my friend, they’re great. If they need help with housing, I have a person for that.

I find that pets just open those doors, and then I don’t take that place of social work. You know, I’ll listen to someone when they talk to me, but I will tell them, I’m not a social worker, I’m not a nurse. I don’t have that expertise. But I can help you find the right person and I won’t just forget about you.

Like I will find them. I’ll bring them, I’ll come with you. We’ll do an intro together. But I’m really lucky in that we’re able to provide this wraparound care for folks.

Amy: I love that term, wraparound care.

Chantelle: That’s wonderful to hear people care so much about their pets. It’s a wonderful first step to reach out to somebody.

How animals make a difference for their guardians

A person outdoors cuddling a brown dog

Chantelle: Could you tell us more about the bonds between the people you serve and the animals that they have in their care, and what role those animals play in their guardian’s lives and wellbeing?

Jesse: I think anyone that’s shared their life with a pet can relate. You know, what does your pet mean to you?

I know for me, my dog is everything. She’s the first being that I interact with in the day, and she’s the last one that I interact with at night. She comes bed with me. It’s just such a comfort.

It’s the same for the folks that I’m connected with. We all have that bond with our pets.

I will say I don’t ever wanna speak for the community that I’m working with, and I will say every relationship is different.

Recently one of my clients that I’ve been working with quite closely lost her dog, who was her best friend, and this dog had been her best friend’s dog.

And then her best friend died and she took in her dog, and then her dog had cancer. And it was a really long process for us to kind of go through these appointments together, coming to terms with, when are we going to make this appointment?

She said to me, her dog is the only one that’s never done anything wrong to her. That really stuck with me.

I was like, that’s how I feel about my dog. My dog has never done anything to wrong me. Ever. And that’s such an important relationship.

Amy: Oh yeah. I really appreciate you saying that you don’t wanna speak on behalf of the folks that you’re serving. And I know I personally have struggled with mental health challenges and I can speak on behalf of myself too, to say my dog is the one who gets me out of bed, she’s the one who gets me outside.

And certainly I think that is echoed very much across the span of people who are marginalized, people who aren’t marginalized, all income levels. There is this like mental health benefit and connection. Thank you so much for speaking to that.

How Pet Outreach improves life for animals

A kitten held by a person

Amy: You spoke to this a bit, but if you have any other thoughts on it, how does this program improve the lives of the pets that you help?

Jesse: Going back to the challenges that folks are having, we aim to break down those barriers and have folks be able to access support for any sort of need that they might have.

Disaster response for pet guardians

Jesse: Another piece on top of that is we’ve created a disaster response, is kind of the best way to put it. It started with the Winters Hotel in Gastown. We realized that there was a need for emergency response on a large scale.

We had a fire back in June on Granville Street that was a building that has about 120 units in it, and we were able to have staff on site within a couple hours with supplies.

People had evacuated with cats without carriers; people had evacuated with their dogs without them being on leash. And we were able to be at the scene and be at the triage center with carriers, with leashes, with pet food, with litter, with temporary things.

How you can help

A dog on a couch

Chantelle: We’ve got a lot of listeners at home who are very keen on helping animals. So is there anything that our listeners could do to help people who are in these vulnerable situations stay with their animal family members?

Become a foster for emergency care

Jesse: Absolutely. Be a foster.

I don’t know if that’s something that you’ve ever considered. Maybe folks are apprehensive about being a foster for a shelter animal because they’re worried about behavioural challenges.

But when you’re a foster for an animal that already has a home, they’re a lot easier. They’re generally a lot more used to being in a home. And so you might not see as many challenges as you would with the shelter dog.

I know Paws For Hope is always looking for fosters; Safekeepers Program through the BC SPCA; as well as For the Homies, which is a new one that’s working out of the Downtown Eastside.

Being a foster home for an already owned animal that has a loving home can save that human’s life.

Maybe they are not going into detox because they’re worried about what’s going to happen to their pet. We see a lot of people with really bad infections that need to go to the hospital for IV treatments. They need to stay in the hospital for a week and they don’t have anyone to take care of their pet. They don’t go or they go when they are absolutely needing to, and then they leave immediately after.

If they have a foster that can look after their dog or cat while they are getting that treatment, they’re more likely to stay and get the care that they need that can save their life.

So if you’ve been contemplating being a foster, if you’re even like considering it, I urge you to be a foster for one of those three programs or if there’s one in your city that’s not Vancouver.

Donate to help animals

Jesse: Donating finances is always helpful. You can donate directly to our program through our website at atira.bc.ca. You just need to specify that it’s for the Pet Outreach program.

I would also urge you to donate to the McVitie program through the Vancouver Humane Society. We have used their resources and their funding so many times. Anyone can access it that is low income in B.C. and needing life-saving veterinary care.

I know that it’s really helped us, especially when we were starting out and we didn’t have any finances of our own to help pets. The Vancouver Humane Society really stepped up and helped us with some of the animals that needed care.

Volunteer to support seniors’ pets in their homes

Amy: Thank you for listing those. One more that I would add is ElderDog. It’s an organization that you can volunteer with and you can walk dogs for people, things like that.

So you don’t actually have to take them into your home. But that makes a huge difference when guardians have to go into hospital or things like that. Their program particularly is helping folks that are elderly.

There’s so many different ways that you can get involved in different levels of commitment.

Next episode

Close up of a dog being cuddled by a veterinarian

Please check out next month’s episode on veterinary social work!

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Podcast: How are laws made in Canada?

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How do bills become law in Canada?

Have you ever seen an action advocating for a new law in Canada and thought, “Didn’t that bill already pass?” The process for introducing a new bill and voting to make it law is long and complex; but knowing how this process works gives us power to make our voices heard.

This episode will break down in simple steps the types of bills in Canada, how a bill becomes law, examples of bills that have passed to improve life for animals, what happens when a bill doesn’t pass, and how you can make a difference at each stage of the process.

Note: This written discussion has been edited for length.

Introduction

A hand stroking the head of a white horse close up

Chantelle: Right now, we’re in the middle of our series looking at a macro view of animal protection: How does advocacy make change and where does Canada stand on the world stage when it comes to animal protection?

This month we’ll be zooming in a little bit on a topic that I think causes a lot of confusion, which is the process of how federal laws in Canada actually come to be.

If you’ve ever seen a headline like: “The Bill to ban live horse exports for slaughter from Canada passes at the House of Commons”, and then later heard about that bill dying before becoming law, and thought to yourself, “Didn’t that bill already pass?” This episode is going to break down the different steps of the process in a way we hope will be engaging and understandable.

We’ll also look at some examples of bills that have passed to improve animal protection and what happens when a bill doesn’t pass in time or is voted down, as well as how you can advocate at each step of the process.

Amy: I’m excited about this one. I think it can be really confusing about what is going on with these bills, and we send out action alerts at many different stages, and I imagine people are like, “What is going on? I’ve already spoken to somebody about this.”

Hopefully this will clarify why it’s so important to advocate at a number of different stages, because the audiences change of who we’re advocating to and who we need to give the thumbs up.

Types of bills

Canadian parliament building interior

Amy: I’ll get us started with the types of bills that we have.

A few types of bills in Canada can be broken down kind of into like a tree diagram.

If you’re following the updates of a bill as it becomes a law, you’ll notice that there’s a code associated with each bill. For instance, the bill to ban captivity of cetaceans like whales and dolphins was commonly called the Free Willy Bill, but the official name was S-203.

If you know the breakdown of the different types of bills, you can actually tell what type of bill it was based on the code.

Public bills vs. private bills

Amy: Overall, there are two main categories of bills in Canada that tell us what type of matter the bill is dealing with. There are public bills (numbered 1 through 1000 in the bill’s code) and private bills (numbered 1001 and beyond)

Private bills have a very specific purpose of granting special powers, benefits, or exemptions to a person or group.

Anything involving animal protection is going to fall into the category of public bills, which is the type of bills that deal with matters of national interests, like budget, industry or social issues.

Public bills: government vs. private members’ bills

Amy: And then you take this category of public bills and you further break that down into a bill that comes out from the government or private member.

That tells us who is introducing the bill and their level of involvement with the government.

Government bills are introduced by a key decision maker in the government; when we say that, that means the party in power. They are bills that are considered a matter of public interest, and they represent the direction the elected party is prioritizing.

The people who can submit a government bill are a parliamentary secretary, the government representative in the Senate, or a cabinet minister. These are all key decision-makers for a government.

A cabinet minister is an elected MP selected by the Prime Minister to be part of the country’s key decision makers. The cabinet is almost always made up of members of the same party of the Prime Minister. I would say in recorded history, that’s the case. And so for instance, our current Prime Minister, Prime Minister Mark Carney is Liberal and the cabinet that he has chosen is all made up of elected MPs from the Liberal party.

An example of a government bill would be a decision to implement budget changes in the country like Bill C-47, a budget change bill from 2023.

Government bills are numbered between 1 and 200.

Private members’ bills (House of Commons) /non-government bills (Senate) are simply public bills that are introduced by a member of Parliament or Senate who is not one of the key decision-makers that we just listed.

This means that this type of bill can be introduced by someone from any party as long as they have a seat on Parliament or in the Senate. Private members’ bills can deal with issues of public concern, but they can’t change taxes or how government funds are spent. They’re numbered from 201 to 1000.

Bills introduced in the House of Commons vs. Senate

Amy: We can have bills that are introduced in the Senate, and those are bills starting with an S, and they have bills that are introduced in the House of Commons, starting with a C.

Even though where they’re introduced is how the bill is labeled, they all need to pass through both the Senate and the House of Commons to become law.

And, and just a reminder, Senate is appointed in Canada and the House of Commons is elected by voters.

How a bill becomes law

A Canadian flag against a blue sky

Chantelle: Thank you so much for that overview, Amy. Every bill does go through both the Senate and the House of Commons, and they all go through several readings at both of those houses. I’ll break down what each of those readings means. When you get updates from us, usually it’s after each stage of the readings at the Senate and the House of Commons.

First reading of a bill in Canada

Chantelle: The first reading just means the bill is being introduced in either the Senat or the House of Commons. It is named and it’s made available to the public.

There’s no debate at this stage and there’s no vote. It’s just being introduced.

Second reading of a bill

Chantelle: At the second reading, now that the rest of the MPs or Senators have been introduced to the bill and they have had a chance to read it, they also now have a chance to debate it.

Even though it’s called a second reading stage, this can happen over multiple sessions if there’s no decision made.

There can be a vote to reject the bill at this stage or at any stage after this, or a vote to move the bill to the next stage. So it can technically move right to a third reading, but it’s usually first moved to a committee to study it and make amendments.

Committee stage of a bill

Chantelle: At the committee stage, a smaller group from the House of Commons or Senate will take a closer look at the bill.

It’s usually referred to a standing committee that has a specific focus in the bill’s subject matter. So for example, if it’s a bill about farmed animals, it would go through the Committee of Agriculture and AgriFood at the House of Commons and the Committee of Agriculture and Forestry at Senate. But some bills can go to a legislative committee instead, which is just a group created to consider a specific law.

The committee goes through the whole text of the bill and they propose amendments to specific clauses of the bill if they choose to.

After they decide what changes to make to the bill, if any, they vote on the bill as a whole. The committee cannot reject the bill outright, but if they don’t like it and they don’t want it to move forward, they can choose to recommend that the bill be dropped at the next stage during the reporting stage.

Reporting stage

Chantelle: The reporting stage is when the committee reports back to the larger group on their recommendations.

If it’s in the House of Commons, the other MPs can suggest additional changes here. The Senate can suggest additional changes at the third reading.

After the report, the house votes on the changes if there are any, and finalizes the bill for the third reading, which is the last step in the house.

Third reading of a bill

Chantelle: The third reading is the final debate on the finalized text of the bill. The House of Commons or the Senate decides if they want the bill to be adopted. If they choose to have the bill adopted and they vote yes, the bill moves on to the next house to go through this whole process again.

Or, if it’s already been through both houses, then it moves on to the the final stage of royal ascent. The houses have to talk to each other if they have made amendments to the bill; they can’t just make amendments and not speak to each other afterwards. If a bill was introduced at the House of Commons and it passed by our elected officials, and then the Senate wants to make more amendments, they have to reach back out to the House of Commons until they can agree between the two on what the final text of the bill is that they want to use.

How a bill becomes law in Canada: Royal Assent

Once both houses pass the bill, it moves on to receive Royal Assent. Canada is a Commonwealth nation, so the bill is signed by the Governor General or one of their deputies who represent the King of the UK in Canada.

In theory, the law could get stopped at this stage, but it won’t in practice, because that would violate constitutional conventions by interfering with the decisions of elected officials.

It’s really just a formality, but it is necessary for a bill to become law.

That was a lot of information and it was kind of abstract, but we’d love to share a few examples of what this has looked like in practice for different animal protection bills.

Amy: Yeah, it’s so interesting. I mean, even the reality that if changes get made in one place, then the other team has to approve those changes. I imagine there can be a lot of back and forth that happens even in that. So it’s amazing anything gets passed.

Certainly it has to do with how many people are in favour of a certain way of thinking.

We could call it a party, but it’s even beyond that. When we think about the Senate being appointed, what is the general sort of attitude of the Senate? Even if a party is elected into the House, if the Senate has a different leaning of how they think things should be done, they could consistently hold up bills from being passed.

I don’t think they necessarily do, but it’s interesting to think about how our political system kind of like chugs along.

Chantelle: Yeah. And it does kind of explain why it takes so long to make progress in this country when we look at how long the process actually is.

Amy: Yeah, absolutely.

Bill S-203: The “Free Willy” bill

Amy: I briefly mentioned earlier about Bill S-203, also known as the Ending the Captivity of Whales and Dolphins Act, or more commonly as the “Free Willy” bill.

This one is a really interesting one for me because I got to sit on a Senate committee hearing and I was in the room with all of the Senators talking about it. I even witnessed one of the Senators getting text messages from folks who maybe were on the opposing side of the bill and reading out those text messages, which is kind of questionable activity.

And so this one’s personal for me. So you can tell by the code that this was a non-government bill and that was introduced by the Senate because it started with an S.

Like a lot of non-government bills, it was introduced because of pressure from the public. Many individuals across Canada had been speaking out about how whales and dolphins were suffering in captivity. The knowledge of the sentience of cetaceans was irrefutable.

It could no longer be justified to keep these animals for entertainment, so organizations including the Vancouver Humane Society, Humane Canada, Animal Justice and World Animal Protection ran advocacy campaigns on this both locally in individual jurisdictions like Vancouver and Toronto, and also at a national level.

Humane Canada worked with Senator Wilfred P. Moore in 2015, just an incredible Senator. I recommend looking into that individual and some of their quotes.

It took three years from 2015 to 2018 for the bill to move through all the stages at Senate. Then luckily it did move fairly quickly through the House of Commons between October 2018 and June 2019, and received Royal Assent just 11 days later.

It’s quite a bit easier to advocate for a bill to pass at the House of Commons, especially for something like that, having widespread public support because the MPs are accountable to their constituents who voted them in, and they’re generally hoping to be reelected.

The reason that this bill did move through was really consistent internal advocacy between Wilfred P. Moore and other Senators, and really recognizing the value of these beautiful animals. It can’t be understated how important the internal advocacy is in these stages of the processes.

And certainly, although Senators are appointed, they can still be contacted by members of the public, and so advocacy makes such an impact to keep these things moving, especially with politicians or Senators who are on the fence. Hearing from people makes it less intellectual and more of demonstrating the public demand.

The final text of the bill that we’re talking about makes it illegal to capture or keep whales, dolphins, and porpoises in captivity, except those that were already in captivity when the law came into effect, and a few other exceptions, like research with a license from the province and rehabilitation.

This is one we were really grateful for.

Chantelle: Yeah, absolutely. This was a huge victory that really shows that when we come together and keep pushing for change, we can really motivate a government to make it happen.

Of course, there are still many other animals being kept in captivity at zoos and aquariums who, like cetaceans, aren’t suited to have a good full life in human care, and we keep advocating for better protections across all wild and exotic species.

But this was a huge win for cetaceans.

Amy: Absolutely.

Bill C-47: Budget bill bans cosmetic animal testing

New Zealand white rabbits in a testing lab
Roger Kingbird / We Animals.

Amy: Another example of a win for animals that used a completely different approach is the ban on cosmetic testing on animals, which passed as part of a big omnibus bill, which was C-47.

And for a bit of history of this, the ban on cosmetic animal testing was a private bill at one point that essentially died and then it got revived again.

Once it was revived, it became a government bill. There were enough lobbying efforts that recognized that this bill shouldn’t have died, that it should have gone through. And so the government was willing to take it on, which is amazing.

It was introduced in the House of Commons as they were implementing changes to the budget, so it did represent a major part of the government’s plan and priorities.

Something to note of why the government took this on is that there were people from the cosmetic industry that wanted this bill to pass, so there wasn’t opposition to it the way that there can be with some bills because the cosmetics industries were saying, “Yes, please pass this bill.” There was no one really opposed to it.

Some of the changes that were looped into the bill were amendments to the Food and Drug Act, and one of those was essentially a ban on animal testing.

A mix of things went into this strong advocacy from organizations across Canada to include a ban on animal testing in this bill.

As I shared, it’s a relatively uncontroversial issue. Stakeholders from the beauty industry were on board as well as the public and animal protection groups. And the Liberal party even made a campaign promise to end cosmetic testing on animals as soon as 2023. So it made sense to include it as part of one of their government bills.

That ban went through the same process as many bills do, and took effect in December, 2023 once it was passed by both the House and the Senate.

Chantelle: It’s so interesting to see the different paths that we can take to improve federal policies because those are two successful bills that did become law that took such different paths.

I am really grateful that they did end up both passing. But not all bills make it that far.

What happens if a bill doesn’t pass?

A person looking away from the camera out a window while speaking on a cell phone

Chantelle: Unfortunately, if a bill is voted down at any stage, or if it doesn’t make it all the way through the process and receive Royal Assent before an election is called, and Parliament is dissolved for the session, then that bill dies and it stops moving through the process.

If people want to reintroduce it, it needs to start again from the beginning.

Bill C-355: Banning horse exports for slaughter

Several horses packed in a wooden crate at an airport to be shipped for slaughter
Photo: Canadian Horse Defence Coalition

Chantelle: One example of this that we’ve spoken a lot about is Bill C-355, which was the bill to ban the export of live horses from Canada for slaughter overseas.

Banning this industry was a campaign promise from the Liberal government in 2021, and it was also included in a mandate letter from former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to the Minister of Agriculture at the time, Marie-Claude Bibeau.

So, in theory, it could have been included as part of a government bill. It was an election promise, just as ending cosmetic animal testing was. But instead it was brought forward as a private members’ bill, which can pass, but they have a relatively lower rate of success.

Amy: One of the reasons for that is the way time is allocated in the House is that government bills always get the first order of business, and then essentially the private members’ bills get the last little bit of time, and there’s lots of them, and they get selected at random.

So there’s just like basically drawing a number out of a hat: Okay, you get to do your bill today. But with so many of them, it often takes months for a bill to even get first reading, second reading, et cetera. And so that limits significantly the funnel of private members’ bills ever being passed.

Chantelle: That’s a great point. Any private members’ bill passing is a huge feat and this one simply didn’t.

Why is Canada still exporting horses for slaughter?

Chantelle: Bill C-355 was introduced by Liberal MP Tim Lewis. And it did actually end up passing through all the stages at the House of Commons. So our elected officials said, “Yes, we agree with Canadians. This is an industry that is cruel and should end.”

But when it got to the second reading at the Senate, when it’s put to a vote, it kept getting stalled. It was debated in May 2024, and then it was not picked up again until November.

There was a lot of public pressure in between those two debates. And there were certain Senators essentially dragging their feet on this bill, questioning the integrity of advocates and muddying the waters with unrelated issues.

A few things came up in debates, and you can actually read the debates if you look up Bill C-355. It’s all public information. If you look through the process, you can see the transcripts of what was said in Senate.

The first time it went to debate, one Senator brought up how the bill might affect lobster fishing in Atlantic Canada.

Then over the summer and early fall, two exposes came out from Animal Justice and advocates from Japan who revealed what happens on the receiving end of horse exports. They found most horse shipments actually exceed the legal limit of 28 hours without food, water, or rest that our regulators allow by the time they make it to their final destination; because we really only track until they make it onto the tarmac on the other side. But by the time they actually make it to where they’re going to be staying and they receive that food, water, rest, it’s usually over 28 hours.

And they also found that horse deaths on these flights were being vastly under-reported by Canadian regulators.

In the follow-up debates, there was a Senator who kept questioning if those reports could be trusted. Senator Don Plett was very vocal about this, and after Parliament was prorogued, he even wrote an op-ed that made a lot of misleading claims about horse exports.

So again, this is a small number of Senators who were appointed, not elected, who were holding up a bill that would save thousands of lives, and that about two thirds of Canadians agree with.

How “getting in the weeds” distracts from the big picture

Amy: One of the other things that’s really interesting about this is it gets into so much of the weeds to say, “Are those reports that it’s beyond 28 hours accurate,” when what we’re talking about are animals that are being subjected to a really horrifying series of steps.

Of being transported, put in tiny crates, flown on a plane still in tiny crates, brought to a slaughterhouse, and then slaughtered. The amount of stress that they go through is enormous. Whether that’s 27 or 28 or 29 or 40 hours, the horses are still suffering significantly. That was the main point.

So what ends up happening is you have these sort of industry-supported senators, like Senator Don Plett, who take the opportunity to break an argument down into tiny distracting steps that then take away from the overall concerns.

And to be fair, in what I mentioned earlier from S-203, Don Plett was the same senator who was receiving texts from Marineland during the Senate committee hearings.

So there’s also a pattern that was with this individual of supporting industry, whatever it is, in causing harm to animals. And I’ve learned recently that this senator is retired, so that’s good news and hopefully we see more kind of animal-aware and thoughtful senators taking leadership in the Senate as we move forward.

Chantelle: You’ll see this both in Senate and anywhere you’re talking about important issues.

One of the really common methods that people will use to try and counter your argument is breaking it down into a lot of minute counter-arguments. They’ll say them all back to back and they’ll make a lot of claims. Some of them may be true, some of them not true.

That’s called a “Gish gallop”, and it has been used historically by people who are debating in bad faith. It ensures that if you were to, one by one, accurately and thoughtfully address each one of those claims, you would run out of time.

So you can’t address all of their claims and all of the falsehoods that they’ve brought forward and say what is misleading and what is not. And then a lot of people will then come back and say, “Well you didn’t address this part of my argument.” That is why it’s a bad faith kind of argument.

Delays mean ban on horse exports for slaughter will need to start from the beginning

Chantelle: The bill went through four debates in its second reading, and then Parliament was dissolved before the election, which means that it will need to be reintroduced and it will need to start the process from the beginning.

How to advocate at each stage of the law process

Two calmly smiling people talking on a couch

Another way to advocate: Work with the ministries

Amy: And certainly, there are a lot of different ways to go about making change with government.

Working with the elected officials and appointed officials is one step.

Another way of making change is working directly with the ministries. The ministries are putting research and information together that works its way up into the government as recommendations to the ministers, who then can put them forward as government bills.

And so when you do that, you’re essentially avoiding all the plagues that come with a private members’ bill.

That’s the strategy that Humane Canada, who represents animal protection organizations across the country, will be focusing on with this new cycle, is how do we get information into the ministries themselves so that the ministries then put that forward into government bills and it’s much more likely to pass. So that’s something to stay tuned.

We as citizens can also contact the ministries. We’re not limited to contacting elected officials, and so that’s also something to consider when doing advocacy is what is the best avenue for getting change across.

Step 1 of engaging with the law process: Get to know your MP

Amy: And just to share a little bit more ways that any individual citizen can engage with this whole process. The first one is just get to know your MP, because no matter where they lie on the political spectrum, they are tasked with representing you once they’re elected.

You can give them a call or send them an email and share the issues that are important to you that you’ve learned about.

And that can be a number of issues. That doesn’t have to be all animal related. It’s just a way of saying, “Here’s what I care about and I’m one of your constituents.”

Find my MP

Introduce a parliamentary petition

Amy: If you want to get a bill forward on the agenda, you can work with an MP to introduce a parliamentary petition, and so you can create one or you can sign one on the Parliament of Canada website.

If an online petition gets at least 500 valid signatures, the government has to respond to it within 45 days. They do a written response, which is pretty ideal in that it becomes an issue that the government now considers something that is important.

It’s a great way to get an issue on a decision makers’ radar. Petitions that get a lot of support from Canadians are more likely to lead to policy proposals.

Current animal petitions in Parliament

When a bill is introduced: Contact your MP or Senators from your province

Amy: Once a bill is introduced, if it’s in the House of Commons, you can contact your MP to share why you do or don’t agree with bill, and ask them to vote in alignment with their constituents’ values.

If it’s in the Senate, you can also contact the Senators from your province.

Canadian Senators

See how your MP voted at each stage and follow up

Amy: You can also follow along with the progress of a bill if you’re on the Vancouver Humane Society’s mailing list. We often share updates on relevant animal welfare bills. Anything that’s happening nationally, we want to make sure you’re aware of in addition to all the local work that we’re doing.

And then after each stage of the bill, you can see how your MP voted and you can even reach out to them and thank them or share why you feel they should change their position for the next voting opportunity.

Subscribe to VHS mailing list

Chantelle: Yes, absolutely. And you can look up any bill name, as I said before, on the Parliament of Canada website.

And in the details of the bill, you can see the results of the recorded votes, so you can see what your MP voted on the bill. You can sort those results by province or by political affiliation and see all the people that voted yay or nay. The MPs usually vote along party lines, and I certainly look at that data for important issues to me to see which parties are voting in alignment with my values.

See how your MP has voted on past issues

Amy: You can look up your specific MP to see how they voted on past issues to inform how you engage with them, recognizing that some issues they may be more willing to engage with than others.

Find my MP
Screenshot from MP page: Step 1: work and step 2: Chamber votes
On your MP’s page, go to the “Work” tab and select “Chamber Votes”.

Follow along with Humane Canada

Amy: It’s good to stay involved with Humane Canada’s messaging because they are that national body doing national work, and there’s a number of bills that didn’t make it through in the last session. They’ll be working on getting policy change on those.

Certainly one of them is related to housing of exotic animals. That one’s called the Jane Goodall bill. A lot of work was done on that one before an election was called, and so they’ll be coming up with a new strategy for how to get that through.

Honestly, the most important part is having individuals write in and show that they care If it’s just organizations that are representing individuals, the response from elected officials is far less engaged than if they’re hearing from many different supporters.

Humane Canada

Takeaways

A long shot of the Canadian Parliament building in Ottawa

Chantelle: To sum up today’s conversation, I think it’s safe to say policy change is a long game, but change is certainly possible and we are making progress.

We are most effective when we’re strategic about:

  • What change is possible right now?
  • How do we bring people together to put public pressure on decision makers?
  • The timing of making those changes: What commitments have been made by the government in power or what is happening in the world to bring attention to these issues?

Next episode

A close up photo of a person holding and kissing a dog

Please join us again next month as we talk about about the ways animal advocacy intersects with social justice and community care, and how those sectors can work together to make a kinder world for both people and animals.

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Podcast: Failing our animals? Canada’s D grade on welfare explained

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How does Canada stack up against other countries’ animal protection policies?

This month’s episode of the Informed Animal Ally welcomes Melissa Matlow of World Animal Protection to discuss the Animal Protection Index (API). The API ranks 50 countries around the globe based on their animal protection policies, giving them a letter grade from A to G.

Animal Protection Index

Note: This written discussion has been edited for length.

Canadian Campaign Director, World Animal Protection

Melissa Matlow is the Canadian Campaign Director at World Animal Protection. She has been leading successful animal welfare and environmental advocacy campaigns for more than 20 years. As the Campaign Director she oversees the organization’s Canadian campaigns to change government legislation, corporate and financial institution policies, and people’s behaviour to improve protection for animals in Canada and globally.

Introduction

Chantelle: This month we’re so excited to introduce Melissa Matlow, the campaign Director of World Animal Protection, to talk about her organization’s Animal Protection Index. Melissa, thank you so much for joining us.

To start off, I would love to hear more about your role at World Animal Protection and what led you to get involved in animal advocacy and your history in this work.

Melissa: Sure. So I’m the Campaign Director. I oversee our wildlife and farming campaigns in Canada. We’re an international organization, so our Canadian campaigns align with our international strategy.

What led me to animal advocacy was that I grew up in the Niagara region not far from a place called Marineland, and that was my first place that I picked up a placard and protested.

I met a local grassroots organization called Niagara Action for Animals. And I started volunteering with them. I invited them into my classroom in high school to start talking about animal welfare issues, and I thought they were gonna talk about circuses and zoos and all the issues I understood as a young, compassionate animal lover. They talked about farming and that transformed me. Everything that I did with them really led to where I am today.

Amy: I was expecting you to say they talked about like, cats and dogs or shelters. That’s pretty amazing that they did talk about farming and you got to learn about those issues at that time.

Melissa: It was quite interesting. I was not expecting it. I thought we’d talk about cosmetic testing. I remember not eating my lunch that day at school. I remember feeling very uncomfortable about what I was learning as well.

I should add that my parents came from farming backgrounds, so it was difficult in our home to talk about this. I think that’s how I started learning how to advocate and lobby is through my family, because it was a very uncomfortable conversation for all of us and I had to figure out how not to offend them, but to see it the way I did and they of course shared how they saw it.

And, you know, farming was very different when they were on the farm than it is today.

Amy: That resonates with me as well. My family’s not in farming, but the experience of learning to be an advocate at a young age through conversations and still loving your family. Thank you for sharing that.

What is the Animal Protection Index?

Amy: So today we’re going to talk about the Animal Protection Index. I understand it to be an ambitious project that evaluates the laws and policy commitments of 50 different countries. Can you tell us more about this initiative and why it’s so important?

Melissa: Yeah, it ranked 50 countries, as you said, from A to G: A being the highest score to G being the weakest. It was on government policy and legislation that protects animals and improves their welfare.

There were a number of categories covered: farm animals, wildlife, companion animals, animals used for work and recreation, and scientific research.

The first ranking was done in 2014. We produced a second edition in 2020 with the methodology refined slightly. And it was really meant to be a tool to inspire conversations and influence countries to improve their animal protection legislation.

It is an ambitious project. It took a while just to do the report and to ensure that there was enough in-depth information about each country, but also consistent and fair for the ranking.

And we also sent the reports before we launched them to the Chief Veterinary Officers for all the countries to invite their feedback as well, which did help us tweak the methodology in the second edition. So it was meant as well to start a conversation with them about how we should be measuring progress on animal welfare.

Amy: That’s amazing. I’m curious how many different people ended up reviewing the laws.

Melissa: For the 50 countries, I do know that we actually had great legal support pro bono from DLA Piper. And then the country campaign teams would review and provide feedback and other information that they wouldn’t necessarily know. Because sometimes you don’t know about policy commitments from reading legislation as well, or the intention behind it. And there’s other things we wanted to raise.

I know there was one project manager for all 50 and then DLA Piper and then all our offices in 12 countries. And probably some consultants in other countries where we don’t have staff.

Amy: That’s an amazing undertaking.

Melissa: It was, and I should say while World Animal Protection led on this, there was a steering group of other animal protection organizations that helped. IFAW and HSI, which is now Humane World for Animals, Compassion in World Farming, and RSPCA were part of this advisory group that helped us with the methodology to begin with in 2014, and then we took it forward.

Highest scoring countries

Chantelle: What an amazing project. I was going through this report and there’s so much incredible data to sift through and explore. I was thinking we could just go over some important highlights for people today.

Which countries scored the highest in terms of animal welfare?

Top countries for animal welfare: UK, Switzerland, Austria, Sweden, Netherlands, and Denmark

Melissa: No country received an A, but the UK, Switzerland, Austria, Sweden, Netherlands, and Denmark, all received a B. So they did the best.

I think A was given in 2014 to New Zealand. I’m not sure why their ranking dropped. But that might have been a refinement of the strategy as well.

And it just shows how difficult and complex it is. It is really a benchmark. There might be things that some countries find unfair. But I think that the increase in number of countries at the B level probably is a good sign of progress.

Animal protection laws aren’t always enforced

Amy: It’s so interesting that you bring up New Zealand because I went to New Zealand in 2016. I went there on purpose because I knew that their laws were quite good and I wanted to see firsthand what it looked like on the farms.

So I ended up doing kind of like workaway or WWOOFing type things, where you work in exchange for room and food.

I was on a number of different farms that were smaller scale. Some of them more commercial than others. And I witnessed harms to animals. Some more than others and varying in type and scale.

And it was really interesting and it stuck with me. I asked one farmer, are you aware of these codes of practice that exist? And, he was like, no, I don’t know what you’re talking about.

So it’s interesting because we have scale of laws, and then there’s also the whole side of implementation, which is a difficult to evaluate.

Melissa: Yeah, enforcement wasn’t ranked in terms of capabilities and implementation. We are ranking the legislation for how they look on paper and how they consider animal sentience, but there’s a whole other level of changing attitudes and enforcement that needs to go along with it.

What can we learn from top performers?

Photo: Jo-Anne McArthur / We Animals Media

Amy: What are the key lessons we can learn from the countries that do get high ratings in terms of their policies and best practices?

Canada doesn’t have national animal welfare legislation

Melissa: Well, Sweden I think ranked highly because they have a national animal welfare law, for instance. And I think many listeners might be shocked to know that Canada doesn’t have national animal welfare legislation. We have animal cruelty provisions under the Criminal Code to react to animal cruelty, but no proactive legislation to raise the standards for animal welfare for all animals nationally in a broad sense.

The UK has banned fur farming and has legislation that goes beyond EU requirements for banning sow stalls. And there has been progress a year after we launched the report in 2020, the UK passed legislation formally recognizing sentient beings in domestic law and an action plan for animal welfare.

So these are all types of legal progress that we wanted the Animal Protection Index (API) to inspire.

And then I would say Netherlands is a great example for wildlife because they take a very precautionary approach to mitigating the risk of keeping certain animals, particularly wild animals, as pets through the positive list approach versus a negative list.

So in different categories, different countries really are leading the way. I would say Netherlands and Belgium are leading on the positive list approach to try to phase out the exotic pet trade.

Amy: And for those who are listening who aren’t sure of what Canada has, we certainly do not have a national law declaring the sentience of animals.

And in fact, animals are not protected under our Constitution. They’re protected under other laws, but really there’s this sense that they’re only protected because they fall under the dominion of people and not protected in of their own rights.

And then when it comes to this positive list that the Netherlands has, this is something that we talk about all the time at VHS and we’re advocating at the provincial level because the animal laws are broken up into provinces and so it’s difficult to get this national approach, but it’s even more difficult to even get a provincial approach.

We haven’t made a lot of progress with it, but we keep at it.

Melissa: That’s right. There’s this patchwork of different legislations across municipal bylaws, provincial laws, and we really need the federal leadership to really harmonize and raise the bar.

How to ace animal welfare legislation

Chantelle: Absolutely. So as you said, Melissa, there aren’t any countries that have an A score, but I was curious what a country would need to do if we were to work ambitiously to receive an A score on the index.

Melissa: A country would need to:

  • Formally recognize animal sentience in national legislation;
  • Have one sufficiently resourced, accountable government body leading on animal welfare;
  • Have strong laws to prohibit animal suffering, including through neglect and abandonment;
  • Have specific laws in animal welfare standards for the various ways animals are used—because those require different standards, whether animals are on farms or in captivity;
  • Phase out inhumane and unnecessary industries;
  • And be supportive of international animal welfare standards through the World Organization for Animal Health.

So to check off all those boxes would get a country an A. So it’s ambitious, but not impossible. As we see some countries are leading in some areas, showing that it can be done.

Amy: Also very reasonable. We’re not asking for the moon here. I think we’re asking for something that, with all of our technology and knowledge, could be put into place within one season of a political power essentially.

Chantelle: And there’s also organizations working towards all of these things in Canada.

Melissa: Absolutely. It’s a no-brainer that animals should be protected because they think and feel in love and are sentient, and it is a longstanding campaign of many animal organizations to get there.

I think the hardest part has been to get one ministry to lead on this.

And you know, we talked about it in the National Animal Protection debate that we co-hosted with Vancouver Humane Society and other organizations: how do we reconcile the conflict of interest where animal welfare is primarily under the Ministry of Agriculture’s domain federally? Getting that decision and having a different ministry lead on it is probably the hardest thing. And then once we have that, to me that’s a very important incremental step for Canada.

Canada gets a D grade in animal welfare

Amy: Absolutely, and I think that feeds into the next question; how does Canada compare to the other countries analyzed?

Melissa: This probably doesn’t surprise you both, but Canada received a D. We sit on the lower half of the ranking. We ranked below India, the Philippines, Brazil, Australia and most of Europe. And we ranked alongside countries like Kenya, South Africa, Columbia, Peru, countries with much lower GDPs. So it means there’s substantial room for improvement.

I think that might have been a surprise for many people who don’t follow animal welfare legislation. People tend to think of Canada as being more progressive on that, maybe because we have been progressive on other issues, but not necessarily on animal welfare.

Amy: And just for context, what does the scale go down to? What’s the lowest grade you can receive?

Melissa: The lowest grade was a G.

Amy: Thank you for sharing that. I certainly we’re lucky we’re not at a G, but that’s still good enough.

Chantelle: Canada has a great reputation for being polite and a kind country, but our laws are really not that kind to animals.

Where Canada performs well

Chantelle: Among the categories the index evaluates, where does Canada perform well? Where do we perform the best?

Melissa: This might surprise you, but in the provincial laws against animal suffering—and I know that’s not good enough and there’s so much room for improvement there—we have seen steady progress with provinces improving their animal cruelty laws.

And I suppose when you think of the public response to an egregious animal cruelty case, it’s understandable that governments would be persuaded to address that better with stronger enforcement and stronger tools to convict people. Again, we lack that forward thinking and raising the bar for animal welfare in the ways that society still finds it acceptable to use animals.

Progress in Canada on animal captivity

Melissa: We have made a lot of progress with the ban on keeping whales in captivity. So, we receive some good marks for that, but it’s only for whales, dolphins, and porpoises. Canada would need to extend that protection to other wildlife species to have a higher grade.

And fortunately we have seen progress in the last Parliament with the Jane Goodall Bill to increase protection for more species. That bill, of course, died when the parliament prorogued and then the election was called.

But we have seen a commitment under Prime Minister Carney and the Liberals to build on that progress, which is great.

Canada bans cosmetic animal testing

Melissa: While we received a failing grade of E in our 2020 report for not protecting animals in scientific research, I have to add that we’re going to have a better mark in the next edition (if there is one, and I hope there is) for banning cosmetic testing.

So a lot of progress actually came after our 2020 report was launched. That ban took effect December, 2023, so we probably will go from worst to first in that category. It just shows how quickly things can evolve.

I would say the strongest area was the animal cruelty laws in provinces. So we did look at provincial jurisdiction where provincial jurisdiction made sense. It wasn’t just federal laws, but of course we wanna see the federal government play a leadership role and strengthening laws where provinces are still falling behind.

Chantelle: Absolutely. That’s so important. And then we can have some consistency.

Room for improvement in Canada’s animal laws

Piglets on a slatted floor
Jo-Anne McArthur/We Animals

Amy: So on the flip side of all of that, where would you say Canada has the most room for improvement?

Melissa: I would say farm animal welfare. There’s still not enough legal protections for farm animals on the farm. There are the codes of practice that are voluntary.

There’s been some progress on strengthening transport regulations, but still not enough. Particularly for such a large country like Canada, our regulations still allow animals to be transported long distances before they are required to be fed and given water and rest.

I think there’s still so much more to do for animals caught up in the wildlife trade for exotic pets and zoos.

Canada did show leadership through the whale and dolphin ban through Bill S203, and so that’s a great opportunity for us to expand on that for other species.

Canada should have a Ministry of Animal Welfare

Melissa: Lastly, we need overarching national animal welfare legislation and one ministry to take the leadership role. Whether we can get that Minister of Animal Welfare, or at least make this under a ministry where there is no conflict of interest with objectives for growing the industry, like a Ministry of Agriculture has. And of course there’s so many other species to look at besides farm animals. So it doesn’t really make sense under agriculture either for that reason.

So those would be the biggest areas of improvement, I would say. But there’s plenty of room everywhere.

Amy: I appreciate you bringing that up—the idea that agriculture can’t police itself.

That’s something I’ve noticed at the provincial level. There are a number of bodies that do the work and then there are secondary bodies that observe the work that is done.

And that happens in child welfare; that happens in privacy. And there’s essentially this like intentional role of an ombuds person or ombuds ministry that is making sure that the ministry is accountable.

When I found that out that that was possible, I thought, what a lovely thing to have is checks and balances within a government. Because so often government is this end all be all. And the idea of having accountability built in builds so much more public trust.

Melissa: It’s so important. And also I think the beauty of animal welfare is it’s so intersectional. It’s a solution to so many other issues, whether it’s public health, disease spread, climate change, biodiversity loss, antimicrobial resistance. It deserves its own place because it can support other goals and other ministries related to those issues as well.

And you know, it’s for a long time been neglected in agriculture and really no home elsewhere. Even with the whale bill with that falling under the Ministry of Environment, there was a discomfort with staff because they didn’t see it as an environmental issue and they didn’t see animal welfare as part of their expertise or mandate.

It needs its own place really.

Chantelle: That’s a great point. We’re bringing up animal agriculture so much because that’s one of our main areas of focus as an organization and on this show. It’s got such massive suffering associated with it on an enormous, unimaginable scale of animal lives.

But I do know that now that Canada is moving away from the United States as a trade partner, we have trade opportunities with other countries and we do have trade of products that come from animal bodies. So there might be a natural evolution towards the standards that these other countries have.

Melissa: Yes, that would be a good thing out of all the tension and challenges we have in our country today. We see that from the political parties encouraging this shift towards finding new trading partners, and that could help us raise the bar for animal welfare in order to trade with them to get these markets.

Amy: It’s certainly how New Zealand has put as much attention as they have, is because their ministry related to animals falls within what’s called their Department of Primary Industries. There’s only a few things that fit within that department, and they’re essentially the things that have the most export and bring the country the most money. And then as a result they see the public risk.

They had a few high profile incidences of animals being transported to other countries and it not going well. And so that led to quite a few changes within their ministry.

Opportunities for Canadian policy makers

Chantelle: Melissa, what changes would you like to see in Canada’s animal protection policies?

Reintroduce the Jane Goodall Bill on captivity

Melissa: So many changes, but if I were to think of where we are right now and where we could go next, I would like to see Canada reintroduce the Jane Goodall Bill and really work to end captive wildlife entertainment. There was strong support among animal protection organizations including the top zoos in Canada.

There is an opportunity to really phase out those roadside zoos and raise the bar for zoos to have a purpose.

We have collaborated with the Toronto Zoo. Some people might be surprised by that, because we don’t agree with captivity unless it’s a last resort that serves the animal’s best interest.

And we have to remind people, sanctuaries are still captivity. It’s not the best thing we can hope for for those animals, because they can’t be released in the wild. We support it if you’re rehabilitating and releasing an animal into the wild and it serves a conservation benefit.

That’s what the Jane Goodall Bill is meant to do, it’s meant to raise that bar and really restrict the breeding of these animals unless there is that purpose. And I think that’s really important and it’s really exciting to see Canada actually lead in this area.

If we could ban elephant and great ape captivity, we’d be the first country to do so.

Restrict the wildlife trade

Melissa: And I think we can also build on restrictions to the wildlife trade. We saw that in the Liberal platform that there is a commitment to address the illegal wildlife trade through modernizing our system at the border.

I think we can build on the data we collect at the border through a better system to show where the risks are because the legal trade is massive. It’s not sustainable and we just need to show where all these animals are coming from, what the purpose is.

Another benefit risk analysis, like whose livelihoods are benefiting from this? Where are these animals coming from? Are they at risk of becoming endangered?

We know their animal welfare would be poor in these systems, and there’s a lot of disease risk. So I think that’s another area I’d like to move on. Given the platform commitment, it’s a great opportunity.

Introduce minimum welfare standards in legislation

Melissa: And then definitely it’d be great to have minimal animal welfare standards in legislation. The codes of practice have moved the needle a bit on farm animal welfare, but we need legislation to protect these animals too.

Amy: Absolutely, and I think many of our listeners know, right now the way the codes of practice are incorporated into law actually serve as a protection for the farmers rather than a protection for the animals.

So even though we have these standards that are being developed collaboratively—and I would say they’re minimum standards—they still aren’t serving a purpose of protection at this point in time.

How you can help

Amy: We like to leave our listeners with an action that they take. What can people do to help improve animal protection policies?

Melissa: You know, I think one of the most important things to do is to develop a relationship with your local MLA or Member of Parliament, your provincial or federal representative. Build a relationship, listen to them and their interests, share your interests, but really work together on where you can make a difference.

That is one of the most powerful places of influence we have, is through voting for our MP. And a lot of people don’t know that they’re open to these ideas.

Look at how big the Animal Protection Index is. It covers a range of issues. I would hope that any MP would find something in there they agree with, that they could work towards.

A member of Parliament can introduce a private member’s bill. They can introduce petitions in the House of Commons.That is not only a free PSA in the House of Commons to all MPs when they read it, but the highest performing petitions do stand out to the Ministers responsible and they can act on it.

So I would say that’s number one.

There’s many things you could do, but you really want to use your influence. And so if listeners have other areas of influence; maybe they’re involved in financial investments, they can work that way to change policy. But I think working with local elected officials is a great way to do it.

Chantelle: Absolutely. That’s vadvice. Thank you so for coming here and sharing all of your expertise on this topic. Is there anything else that you would like to share with our audience with regard to this or any of your other work?

Melissa: No, I think we covered so much. Thank you for all the questions that pulled out what I would want to share. Do you have anything that stood out in the Animal Protection Index?

Chantelle: I think it’s just very telling to see how far down on the list Canada really is. I think a lot of people see the laws as protections for animals that are strong enough. And they think, for instance, purchasing animal products doesn’t really make that big of an impact because there are protections in place for the animals that are farms or in slaughterhouses. And really what we end up seeing is that those protections are not really there for animals. One of the biggest impacts we can make is shifting away from purchasing those animal products and consuming them.

Melissa: Definitely.

Amy: I think the other thing is taking this guide and sharing it with your MLA or MP. I think many MLAs and MPs don’t know anything about animal protection laws. And so it can be an eye-opening experience to say, Hey, look, this guide exists and this is how we are ranked. To show that that is a little bit embarrassing for the country.

And I think shame can be a not great tool, but in this case, when you’re not directing it at a person, but you’re directing it at a country, it can be a motivator for politicians to go, we could do better.

I would just really recommend sharing this guide as much as possible with people that you want to influence.

Melissa: That’s a great idea. We’ve seen the Animal Protection Index referenced by MPs when they’ve introduced their own private members’ bills in Parliament. So that’s another thing to raise in your meeting with your MP and inspire them to consider doing a bill.

Even if it doesn’t pass, it still gets on the agenda and facilitates a debate, which is really important.

And the more these issues are discussed in Parliament, the more likely the ministers, the government of the day are likely to move on it with their own bill or regulations.

I am encouraged by how much Canada has done since we launched the Animal Protection Index:

  • Banned whale and dolphin captivity;
  • Banned the elephant ivory and rhino horn trade;
  • Banned cosmetic testing.

I know sometimes we take a few steps forward and then there’s a few steps backward with the ag gag bills and certain provinces. So it’s always a shift forward and a shift backward.

But we are inching forward and I think we can do so much more. I think that comment you made, Chantelle, about farm animals and how many there are and how it’s a focus for Vancouver Humane Society. What if the next Animal Protection Index was ranked according to laws based on the number of animals impacted?

Because where we have seen progress, let’s face it, it is smaller number of animals impacted. And it’s been very hard to move the needle in the industries where massive number of animals are impacted. It’s really systemic cruelty to animals, isn’t it?

Or, you know, it goes under the radar because it’s just seen as generally accepted practices. Business as usual.

Chantelle: Absolutely. Yeah. the hardest places to make changes are where the most people are impacted and the most people, and that is also where the most animal lives are affected.

Animal Protection Index

Next episode

Please join us again next month as we break down the legislative process in Canada and how you can advocate at each stage.

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Podcast: Animals sold in takeout containers? A look at Canada’s wildlife trade

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Animals dying in transport, bred without oversight, and sold in deli containers. What is happening in Canada’s exotic pet trade?

In this month’s episode of the Informed Animal Ally, the Vancouver Humane Society’s Chantelle Archambault and Amy Morris discuss Canada’s exotic pet trade, from breeding or capture to selling and keeping, as well as the laws and loopholes failing to protect animals.

Learn more and take action

Note: This written discussion has been edited for length.

Impacts of the wildlife trade

A tortoise being held in someone's hands

Chantelle: Today we’re going to continue looking at Canada’s place on the world stage of animal protection by delving into a topic that impacts animals, both at home in Canada and around the world: the wildlife trade.

While this term “wildlife trade” can be used to discuss the buying and selling of both live animals and products made from their body parts like elephant ivory, rhino horn, and animal skins, in this episode, we’ll specifically look at the transport, keeping, and breeding of live non-domestic animals for uses like the exotic pet trade and display in events like mobile petting zoos.

Captive non-domestic animals have complex needs like wild animals

Amy: Before we get into what the wildlife trade looks like in Canada, I’d like to give some brief context about why this is such an important topic.

The wildlife trade or exotic pet trade involves animals that are not native to Canada. They’ve not been domesticated, which means they have their wild instincts, including a fear of humans.

They have really big behavioural needs. Those include:

  • exploring large spaces,
  • climbing,
  • accessing the right temperature environments,
  • being able to stretch their bodies out in such a way that feels good for them.

That happens even if they’ve been bred in captivity.

Exotic pets are not “beginner pets”

Amy: A lot of exotic animals like turtles and lizards and snakes are often marketed as beginner pets; and so people aren’t really being told how difficult it is to provide care for these animals.

More than two in five people with exotic pets say that they bought them on impulse, and almost half are saying that they did less than a few hours of research on how to care for the animal that they’re buying (Stratcom, 2018, Exotic Pet Ownership Qualitative Research).

So what that means is they’re essentially being sold to families with young children and people with limited time and resources who don’t really know that these animals have complex needs and typically need much more space than people are providing them.

In reality, animal care ranking systems that actually look at what an animal needs to thrive (we use something called the Emode Pet Score), rate the most commonly kept reptiles like crested geckos, corn snakes, ball pythons, and bearded dragons as difficult or extreme to care for. That means it’s unrealistic or almost impossible to provide appropriate care that meets their needs in captivity. And yet these animals are being kept as pets.

Animals suffer when their complex needs aren’t met

Amy: So because so many animals are being sold to people who can’t adequately care for them, we now have hundreds of thousands of wild animals who are suffering as pets.

According to World Animal Protection, there were about 1.4 million exotic pets being kept in Canada in 2019.

75% of pet snakes, lizards, and tortoises die within their first year in a new home. We know they experience a lot of suffering before they actually die.

Releasing unwanted exotic animals is a welfare and conservation issue

Amy: Some people who can’t care for their exotic pets even release them into the wild, which is harmful for that individual animal’s wellbeing.

And also, released animals become invasive species that are dangerous for our local wildlife populations and for our environment, such as red eared slider turtles.

So it’s really important that people learn about what exotic animals really need so that we can stop the flow of wildlife into homes where their needs can’t be met; move away from breeding exotic animals; and make sure we’re keeping wild animals in the wild.

Breeding vs. capturing wild animals

Close up of an African grey parrot

Chantelle: Now that we have an idea of why this issue is so important, I’d like to share an overview of what this industry actually looks like in Canada.

When we’re looking at exotic pets, there are two ways that animals are being brought into the market to be sold:

  1. The first is they are captured from the wild and imported.
  2. The second is that they’re bred in captivity.

About half of reptiles in the wildlife trade are wild caught according to World Animal Protection. Those figures may be higher for certain species of other types of animals that are difficult to breed in captivity

There are welfare issues for both of these methods.

Problems with capturing animals for the exotic pet trade

Chantelle: More than half of captured wild animals don’t survive transport. They’re being kept in these very small cages to be brought over and it’s really difficult to check on them during transport. Two thirds of African grey parrots that have been poached from the wild die in transit

Taking animals from their homes also threatens wild populations of those species. As many as 21% of endangered wild African grey parrots are taken from the wild each year for the pet trade. Those are already an endangered species in the wild.

Problems with breeding exotic pets in captivity

Chantelle: Meanwhile, animals that are bred in captivity are often housed in small, basic enclosures because people who are really engaging in captive breeding to make a profit are breeding a lot of animals at once. That simple kind of housing makes it a lot easier to feed the animals, clean their cages, and monitor how they are doing.

Breeders will often keep animals in their home without a storefront, so the public has no way of really seeing what’s happening with those animals.

In B.C., as long as a species of animal isn’t prohibited under the Controlled Alien Species list and is under a certain size (snakes under three metres or lizards under two metres), basically anyone can breed those animals without a permit.

Two major problems with that model are:

  1. A lack of transparency. The public has very little way of knowing what’s going on and what the conditions are for the animals.
  2. A lack of regulation. Breeders aren’t being monitored, and there’s not really enforcement happening because someone would need to make a complaint; and who is there to see what’s going on to make a complaint?

Some breeders will also selectively breed for certain traits, like more unique colours and patterns, and that selective breeding can lead to neurological disorders that can have an impact on the animal’s wellbeing.

One example is ball pythons. Ball pythons with the spider gene, which is a genetic mutation that causes a spider web or a splatter pattern on the back of the snake, which some people consider a desirable trait, have the same mutation that causes a condition called wobble head syndrome.

That can make it hard for the snakes to move or feed properly. So depending on the severity of the condition, a snake might have a slight head tilt or they might flip their head upside down and not really realize and just kind of leave it there. They might not be able to move in a straight line. They might not be able to do things that they need to do to hunt and feed on their own, like strike and constrict.

Amy: And you know, this is a very specific thing that happens, but when we think of it on a broad scale, we’re also just facing breeders who breed animals just for volume and they’re not keeping animals in the space that they deserve.

So while we may have some of these cases that are problematic of these kind of genetic abnormalities, when exotic animals are being bred, they generally do not have housing that meets their needs.

How exotic animals are sold

Reptiles displayed in small deli containers at an exotic pet expo

Chantelle: After animals are either bred or imported, they’re sold through a variety of methods.

Selling exotic animals in pet stores

Chantelle: First there are pet stores. If you’ve been into a pet store that sells exotic pets, you’ve likely seen them stacked in a section in quite small cages. They may have spaces to hide, but they’re generally in full view of humans and other animals, which can be very stressful for them, especially for solitary species.

The stores are typically fairly bright during the day when they’re open, and a lot of these animals are nocturnal so their sleeping patterns can be disrupted.

There might be someone on staff who has knowledge about the needs of different exotic animals, but when a store sells such a wide variety of species, it’s unlikely that they have someone on shift who’s knowledgeable about every species all of the time.

Exotic pet fairs and expos

Chantelle: There are also exotic pet expos. These are generally people selling animals with more specialized knowledge, but there are still pets that are difficult to care for being sold as beginner pets with misleading information.

For instance, one of our colleagues was told by a seller at a pet show that a snake could be kept in an opaque container, when we know that they need specialized terrariums with temperature control, they need space to fully stretch out. They need enrichment items and substrate.

Also at these shows, pets are transported around during the day. They’re sold in very small containers, even takeout containers.

Even though there are rules that are supposed to limit how many people can handle the animals, it doesn’t appear those rules are strictly enforced. There have been children handling reptiles in these crowded rooms.

Imagine if a child were to drop, say, a small lizard at an expo when there’s a bunch of people walking around; that could very quickly become a dangerous situation for the animal.

Selling exotic animals online

Chantelle: There’s also animals that are sold online. That involves shipping the animals from a seller’s location, usually also in small containers with temperature packs.

It’s more difficult to tell how an animal is being kept and transported this way. Not all sellers have the same level of care in keeping animals safe during transport. Even though even the best ways of transporting them are not ideal conditions for the animal, there are ones that are significantly worse.

Amy: We think about transport and the animals who die in transport, and these are animals that have been purchased that have kind of like a value assigned to them; they’re still not being transported in ways that are good for the animal.

And we think about the animals that are at a breeder’s house that have not been purchased yet and don’t have the same kind of value attributed to them, you kind of wonder like how many animals are dying in care. We just don’t have any data or numbers on that.

There’s no requirements on registering. For the majority of these animals, there’s no reason for a breeder to disclose anything that’s happening in their home.

We’ve heard from breeders about some of their housing situations and they do not sound like a situation I would want to be in as an animal, that’s for sure.

Chantelle: And regardless of the level of care that the breeder takes, the animals are still typically shipped in a way that it would be either difficult or impossible to monitor how they’re doing while they’re in transit.

They’re put in a box and they’re shipped, and you see how they’re doing when they’re at their original locationand you see how they’re doing at the end destination, but you can’t see how they’re doing in transit.

Animals surviving doesn’t mean they are thriving

There are about 1.4 million exotic pets being kept in Canada as of the most recent count we could find, and again, it’s very difficult to meet the needs of these animals in captivity. Most of them do sadly die far before the end of their natural lifespan.

Even if their basic needs to survive are being met, that doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re getting what they need to thrive.

Rescues struggling to keep up

Amy: We have rescues in Canada and one rescue shares on their website that they have 350 animals in their care. You think about cat or dog rescues, and if you heard the number 350, you would not think that someone could adequately care for all of those cats and dogs.

And when we’re thinking about exotic species, each individual species needs different care and different food and different housing and warmth. And so even thinking about any kind of operation that’s housing this volume of animals is likely going to be challenged to be able to do that.

I personally just feel really frustrated when I’m hearing about these things because it’s hard to imagine a rescue is trying to do their best because these are unwanted animals. They’re sort of like the disposal of an exotic pet industry.

But meanwhile, some organizations are bringing them into classrooms and having people handle them and inviting kids in to handle them as well. And in a way that’s sort of instilling an interest in keeping these animals as pets, even if unintentionally.

And realistically, a rescue does not want to house so many animals. They do want individuals caring for them. And so you end up in this really weird place where just by the exotic pet industry existing, there’s a whole series of ethical dilemmas that come out of it, and in every case, the animals lose.

Laws around exotic pets

A budgie in the wild

Amy: The next thing I’m hoping to cover is the laws around keeping, breeding, and importing exotic animals.

We’ve spoken in depth about captivity laws in Canada. You can find a longer discussion about this topic if you go back to our episode called Animal captivity laws with Rob Laidlaw, the founder of the organization Zoocheck.

Animal captivity laws

To give a brief overview, the laws in this area are a lot like the other laws we’ve talked about on our show. There’s a patchwork of federal and province-specific laws that differ across the country, and then municipal bylaws that branch out even further.

Federal laws around the wildlife trade

Amy: The main thing we look at when we’re talking about federal laws around exotic animals is the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES).

That’s an international agreement that Canada is a signatory to.

CITES is designed to protect endangered species by banning or limiting the international trade of plants and animals and their parts that are endangered. There’s different levels of protection depending on how at risk the species is. That’s fairly limited.

Canada delivers on our commitments to the CITES agreement through something called the Wild Animal and Plant Protection and Regulation of International and Interprovincial Trade Act (WAPPRIITA).

That act controls the import of CITES listed species, plus other species whose trade is banned under other laws like the country of origin or provincial laws.

And really there’s so many exemptions to that, that it’s not a super helpful law when it comes to people keeping wild animals as pets. It really is more around protecting animals in other countries and their parts.

Provincial laws around exotic animals in captivity

Amy: Most of the responsibility for captive wildlife is dedicated to the provinces, and the laws really vary from province to province.

Here in B.C., the keeping breeding transport and release of exotic animals are regulated under the Controlled Alien Species regulation (CAS), and that’s part of the Wildlife Act.

More broadly, under this regulation, we have a list of specific animals that are considered not native to the province, and that pose a risk to the health or safety of people, property, wildlife, or wildlife habitat.

However, once again, this is a short list. And it’s mostly focused on risk to the public and native ecosystems, and it’s not really thinking about the exotic animals and the risks they face.

The CAS tries to list all of the animals that are not allowed. We have so many species in the world, and new species that are being discovered all the time, so this kind of list leaves many gaps.

For instance, kangaroos aren’t listed even though they’re not native to B.C. and they’re considered an invasive species in other places such as New Zealand.

What we know is more effective and what VHS and other organizations have been advocating for is a positive list approach, where only the animals that are allowed to be kept are listed based on knowledge about what species are suitable and can actually thrive under human care in B.C.

Call for a positive list

Unfortunately, while we know that this would be really effective in improving animal welfare, it’s been very difficult to get the ear of the government to have any kind of weight put towards this policy option.

It’s one of those situations where best practice and good policy is kind of put aside because it involves bureaucracy and it impacts people. And if something impacts people, they have to do an assessment. And so sometimes it’s easier to just leave things as they are.

Municipal laws around exotic animals

Amy: There’s so many gaps and inconsistencies at the federal and provincial level, so municipal or regional bylaws try to fill the gaps with their own rules.

While this is nice on a small scale and we really support and encourage those municipalities, there are also some big challenges because it’s such a small scale.

Some of those challenges is that city or town councils don’t have as many resources to find and hire people with expertise to develop these laws.

There’s 161 municipalities in B.C. That’s 161 local governments trying to find experts who understand what reptiles need and putting their limited time and budget toward developing bylaws that meet those needs.

Whereas at the provincial or federal government level, they have much more resources and experts who could develop a comprehensive legislation that would just cover a large land area.

Also, when the bylaws cover a small area, individuals will just move a couple towns over and continue what they’re doing. We’ve seen that happen with breeders quite often, where they’ll just move to an unincorporated area.

So as much as we can appreciate bylaws, things really do need to be done at the provincial and federal level.

How are exotic animal laws enforced?

An image of a Canada sign at an airport

Chantelle: Because the legislation around transporting exotic animals is so complicated, there are a lot of problems with enforcement, even when there are laws.

You have these laws with long lists of species that aren’t allowed into the country or into the province, and they’re coming through border checkpoints where the staff at these checkpoints are not animal experts. It’s almost an impossible ask to have these enforcement agents be able to identify each species that’s coming in and whether or not they’re allowed.

Gaps in documents around animals imported to Canada

Chantelle: World Animal Protection looked at 1.8 million wild animals that were imported into Canada from 2014 to 2020. About half of those animals were imported for the pet trade.

They found that the records around the animals that were coming in had huge data gaps. 84% of animals didn’t have their species named. Rhere was no information available about the animal’s background if they were caught in the wild or bred in captivity.

It’s very difficult to even know if these laws were being followed at the time.

Their organization also noted that since there’s such a convoluted list of which department is responsible for which animals, that almost all species imported for the pet trade aren’t really being looked at.

How you can help

Snakes curled up in deli containers for sale

Amy: The first step to solving a problem is to know what the problem is and to have all the information on it, and then we can start to take action.

Make exotic animals a part of your conversations

Amy: The most important thing that you can do as an individual is really encourage the people around you not to buy exotic animals from sellers or breeders.

That’s easy to say, but hard to do because you don’t even know someone’s considering buying an exotic animal until they get one, and then you’re surprised by it.

So it’s also just finding opportunities in conversation to highlight some of these challenges and have it be a whole mindset where animals are not being brought or traded in private operations.

Encourage adopting, not shopping

Amy: Also, if you know someone who has the time, resources, capacity, and desire to take in an exotic animal, encourage them to adopt a rescue animal.

As I was mentioning earlier, one impact of so many animals being sold to people who don’t have the resources is that when people go to surrender their animals, there’s just so little capacity at legitimate rescue organizations to take those animals in.

And when we’re saying legitimate rescues, we mean organizations that are making decisions based on what’s in the best interest of the animals in their care.

Share information about the exotic pet trade

Amy: You can also share information about this on social media and in local community groups. The VHS has been working on an educational campaign on social media the past few months that you can share the realities of keeping exotic pets, what their needs are, the welfare concerns, and what the impacts are on conservation, the animals’ health, and public health risks.

You can find a carousel of posts to share on Instagram and Facebook, and a link to our Blue Sky account.

Find shareable posts

Speak with pet store managers

Amy: One other way that you can kind of think about taking action is talking to pet stores.

One thing I did when I moved to a new town: I was checking out different pets stores where I would trying to find a place to buy food for my dog.

One of the pet stores was selling betta fishes. And I shared some concerns around that and they shared with me that there’s demand in the town for it. They felt that it was an appropriate animal to keep in captivity.

We kind of went back and forth on it and I said, I would love to buy pet food from here, but I am not comfortable doing so with you selling betta fishes.

I gave them my info and said like, get in touch if you ever decide to stop selling exotic animals and I’d be happy to make your store my primary pet store.

So this is something you can definitely do with smaller scale stores. It is harder with stores that are chains because they may not have as much decision making power.

But you can always ask to speak to a manager and understand what their discretion is and what their choices are.

Approach with curiosity and compassion

Amy: Most of all, you can have some grace when you do encounter people who have exotic animals as pets. Shame and guilt are never the way to change someone’s mind or change someone’s behaviour. They just don’t work and they kind of do the opposite. People dig in their heels and say, no, I’m not changing, I’m not doing anything different. I’m right.

When having conversations about exotic pets or with people who have different thoughts than you on it, it’s so important to genuinely be curious, to be kind, to ask questions, to share your own gaps in knowledge and to really share from a place of care and love and concern.

And I think you can go a long way in the long term of shifting someone’s mindset if you come from that perspective. And also gently say, you know, “I’d love to research this more together. I don’t know a lot about this animal. You seem to know a lot, but I’m really keen to get a sense of what they need and what their environment is like.”

And if you do the research together, maybe there’s a chance that they’ll appreciate your interest and curiosity. And if they find out information about like, oh, they should have a much bigger tank or something like that, then they’ll be more likely to adopt that practice.

Certainly, I would say you can always have a bigger tank than what you have and always have more spaces to hide. Always have, more ability to stretch out, move around.

Work toward a common goal

Chantelle: Especially for something like this, the people who are interested in taking animals into their home are generally people who have like an interest and a love for animals. So we all are coming at this from the same place where we want what’s best for animals. And some people just don’t have the knowledge and the resources to know what is best.

We had a quote on our social media recently, which is from an exotic animal vet named Dr. Alix Wilson, who had said, “Every day I see birds whose owners love them dearly, but aren’t taking proper care of them. They simply don’t know what they’re taking on.” And that was regarding treating grey parrots.

There’s so many people who are taking these animals into their homes and they don’t know what they’re getting into. The length of the life that the animal has naturally, it’s a enormous commitment of time, of resources, of money to be able to take these animals.

Especially buying them from a breeder or a seller. These animals don’t need to be taken out of the wild or bred in captivity.

Next episode

A close up photo of a chicken

Please join us again next month as World Animal Protection joins us to discuss their Animal Protection Index and how Canada’s federal animal laws and regulations stack up against other countries on the world stage..