Last month, the Montreal SPCA published a manifesto signed by more than thirty public figures from different walks of life, including several renowned scientists and researchers, demanding that the living conditions of animals raised for consumption be finally regulated. in Quebec, as is the case in many countries around the world. Since then, more than 28,000 Quebecers have supported the Montreal SPCA’s request on its website. On the sidelines of this massive public support, the voice of the industry has also been heard, alleging that the SPCA’s campaign is “exaggerated” and “far-fetched”.
Even if, since 2015, thanks to an initiative led by the Montreal SPCA, Quebec civil law has recognized that animals — without exception — are not property, but sentient beings, not all animals are equal in the face of the law. Far from there. On one side are our cats, dogs and other pets, which are subject to relatively strict legal protection. On the other side are piled up the animals intended for consumption, which are raised and killed by the millions in Quebec behind the closed doors of industry, without the State caring about it.
The reason is simple: the Animal Welfare and Safety Act excludes farm animals from the main protections – however minimal – that are granted to other animals, provided that the industry treats them according to the “rules generally recognized”… by the industry.
It is therefore the industry itself that has the power to determine the legality or illegality of the practices to which farmed animals are subjected. Among these practices is in particular the castration of breeding piglets without anesthesia, an act which, because of the pain it generates, could not be carried out with regard to a dog or a cat without its author s exposes you to criminal prosecution and fines, or even imprisonment.
A clear conflict of interest
In response to these criticisms, the industry generally brandishes the codes of practice of the National Farm Animal Care Council, a private entity that oversees the development and periodic review of guidelines for the care and handling of farm animals. ‘breeding. Referring to these codes of practice, the general manager of the Union des producteurs agricole, Charles-Félix Ross, declared to The Canadian Press that it was “wrong to say that there is no supervision, recourse or supervision in our farms”. Let’s put things in their proper perspective.
First, unlike the situation in some provinces, these codes do not have the force of law in Quebec — they are optional. In addition, they are mainly developed by industry players, who are in the majority on the development committees. But above all, these codes allow for several painful practices that are strictly prohibited elsewhere in the world. Consider, in particular, the confinement of sows in gestation cages, a practice prohibited in Sweden and in a dozen American states, and the castration of piglets without anesthesia, a procedure prohibited in Switzerland since 2010.
In our country, in the rare cases where the codes provide for the gradual elimination of certain particularly problematic practices, the industry sets long deadlines spread over periods of up to ten years… which it will hasten to extend once the term has arrived. One example among many: while there has been talk since 2014 of transitioning to group housing for sows, the industry is now pushing to postpone the planned term from 2024 to 2029.
In some sectors, the industry boasts of requiring producers to fully adhere to codes of practice. Even if this were indeed the case, the problem of the regulation of industry practices by the industry itself remains unresolved. First, audits to ensure compliance of practices are not the responsibility of the state, as is the case with government regulations, but of industry. The conflict of interest is obvious.
What is more, the penalties applied in the event of breaches are also determined by the industry. Finally, since it is a private surveillance system, it is not subject to the same transparency and accountability requirements as a public surveillance system. It is therefore impossible for citizens to have access to inspection reports.
Such self-regulation would be considered unacceptable in other sectors. Never, for example, would the oil industry be given the power to determine for itself what constitutes too high a level of pollution. This would be seen as an unacceptable abdication of government responsibility. Yet this is what we tolerate in Quebec with regard to farm animals. It is high time for the state to reclaim what it should never have left in the hands of industry.