In 2020, nearly 19 million live animals were exported from Canada to 55 countries worldwide. While Canadians spent much of the year in lockdown because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the shipment of live animals from Canada continued virtually unabated. Setting aside the inherently cruel practice of shipping animals in long, harsh journeys on livestock trucks, […]

An industrial fur farm in British Columbia’s Fraser Valley is selling thousands of mink cages. It’s unclear if this factory farm is closing its operations, reducing its size, or selling off old cages to buy new ones. These empty mink cages are relics of a horrific nightmare. No more screams, no more suffering. Decades upon […]

On December 6, 2020, much of Canada learned that the country has a fur farm industry. The Fraser Health Authority announced a COVID-19 outbreak on a British Columbia mink farm. 8 people linked to the farm tested positive for COVID-19. 5 days later, it was discovered that mink had become infected with the coronavirus. Out […]

In 2014, the National Farm Animal Care Council (NFACC) updated their industry guidelines for pig welfare and recommended that the pork industry end the use of gestation crates (or sow stalls) by 2024. This statement is taken from NFACC’s website under the heading, What The Science Says: [T]here are scientifically supported negative welfare aspects of […]

On August 4, 2020, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) laid charges against Hylife Foods. The CFIA notification reads: “It is alleged that on September 18, 2018, Hylife Foods Inc. and Hylife Foods LP handled hogs and used equipment in Neepawa, Manitoba in a manner that caused the animals avoidable distress or pain, thereby committing […]

Going vegan is an important first step in the fight for animal liberation. But it’s not enough. Individualizing the problem of animal exploitation to consumers absolves them from taking any additional, meaningful steps to dismantle the oppressive system of animal agriculture. By not eating animal products, there exists a fallacious assumption that by purchasing only […]

Exporting Live Animals out of Canada – Origins The top provincial exporter of live animals in 2019 was Ontario with 12,265,947 animals being sent abroad, while Manitoba followed with 6,826,272 animals. Part of the reason that Manitoba claims the second spot, as the CBC writes, is that “the province is Canada’s biggest piglet-producer and ships large […]

In June 2020, Ontario passed Bill 156, becoming the second province in Canada to pass an ag-gag law. Ontario’s Minister of Agriculture, Ernie Hardeman, said the following in support of his ag-gag bill: “We want everyone to know that animal welfare is a top priority for our government.” Ignoring the political doublespeak of uttering a […]

During the initial months of the coronavirus pandemic, we tracked COVID-19 outbreaks in Canadian slaughterhouses. Along with long-term care homes, slaughterhouses quickly became COVID-19 hotspots, with the Cargill slaughterhouse in High River, Alberta being the centre of Canada’s largest COVID-19 outbreak, with over 950 workers contracting the virus. Tragically, 3 people died because of that […]

On April 13, 2020, there were 38 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in a High River, Alberta slaughterhouse that is operated by Cargill, a company based in Minnesota, US. Just four days later, Alberta Health Services announced that there were now 358 COVID-19 cases linked to this slaughterhouse. This is the latest in a series of […]