The Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA) of Montreal is launching a campaign on Tuesday to demand the implementation of more legal protections to regulate the welfare of farm animals.
The SPCA invites the population to sign a manifesto, which has already received the support of some thirty public figures, including director Xavier Dolan, singer-songwriter Stéphanie Boulay, lawyer Anne-France Goldwater, singer Paul Piché, host and actress Marina Orsini, comedian Jean-François Mercier and cardiologist Martin Juneau.
The text, launched as part of the provincial campaign “It is not because they are going to die that they do not deserve to be protected”, is published today in the Debates section of The Press.
“We have an agricultural lobby that is very powerful in Quebec, that’s why we’re asking the population to come forward,” explains Ms.e Sophie Gaillard, Acting Executive Director of the Montreal SPCA and Director of Animal Advocacy and Legal Affairs for the organization. “We know that the population is behind us, but it seems that it is blocking at the government level,” she added.
The SPCA commissioned a survey from the firm Léger last March. The survey, conducted among 1,062 respondents, indicates that 92% of them agree that a law or regulation should govern how animals intended for consumption can be treated on farms in Quebec.
We are not pointing the finger at producers as individuals, but at the system in which they find themselves caught with production methods that do not respect animal welfare and a complete lack of regulation.
Me Sophie Gaillard, Acting Executive Director of the Montreal SPCA
A “two-speed” law
In Quebec, the Animal Welfare Act was adopted in 2015. It recognizes that animals are sentient. Previously, animals were considered “movable property”.
The Montreal SPCA deplores the fact that farmed animals intended for food are excluded from the “main protections” offered by this law. Me Gaillard describes the situation as a “two-tier system” for pets and farm animals.
She cites as an example the fact that piglets can be castrated without anesthesia whereas the same gesture towards a cat or a dog would be liable to a sanction which could go as far as imprisonment.
“The castration of calves and lambs, as well as the docking of the tail of lambs and the partial amputation of the beak of laying hens: all these practices are carried out without analgesia or anesthesia, whereas the Canadian Association of Medical veterinarians consider these practices painful, which should be subject to adequate pain control, in particular by anesthesia”, she underlines.
In Canada, animal welfare standards are governed by codes of practice that are developed by the National Farm Animal Care Council. The fact that players in the agri-food industry sit alongside government representatives to develop them is problematic, in the eyes of the Montreal SPCA.
“They do not have the force of law in Quebec, they are not mandatory,” she says.