Your appetite doesn’t make cruelty okay.
Canada is lagging behind many other countries in its treatment of some animals bred for food.
It’s no secret that factory farms are not a pleasant place for animals. The simple fact is our country will never end its love affair with meat and other animal products.
The problem arises when one looks at the Canadian government’s treatment of specific practices that make the lives of some animals especially unpleasant.
Just last month, controversy erupted when Montreal chef Martin Picard was asked by the National Capital Commission to omit foie gras from the menu of Winterlude’s opening gala after activists voiced their disapproval of the food item.
Foie gras is fattened duck liver, often created by something called gavage-based feeding. This type of feeding entails a tube being inserted down the duck’s esophagus, forcing food into its body sometimes via pneumatic pump.
It doesn’t take an expert to realize that this type of feeding is inhumane, and yet, foodies the world over insist that their palates take precedence over cruelty.
Canada is one of the top five producers of foie gras. Force -feeding animals, as is often the case in the production of foie gras, is banned in Turkey, Israel, parts of the European Union and the United States. There is a reason for this. The force-feeding practices used to put foie gras on Canadian plates can cause scratches on ducks' esophaguses and make their livers so fat it makes it hard for the ducks to breathe. A study by a European Union committee also found that ducks and geese display avoidance behaviors when it comes to these feeding procedures. These practices are not humane and should not be legal.
Canada doesn’t stop there. We also have yet to follow other areas of the world, including the E.U., in their banning of things like veal crates. It’s time to realize that Canada is supporting cruelty.
Veal crates usually give around two feet of space to baby cows, a space so small that their muscles often shrink to the point they cannot turn around or lie down. This is the state that these calves live their entire lives in, sometimes never seeing the sun.
Veal is a byproduct of the dairy industry, as the male calves of dairy cows cannot produce milk and are therefore seen as dispensable by many dairy producers. While our reliance on the dairy industry may mean this will not change anytime soon, the unnecessary veal crates make the practice particularly cruel and unusual. These crates are not humane and should not be legal.
Canada is progressive in many ways and is looked up to as a beacon of kindness and forward thinking by the rest of the world.
It’s time for the government to meet these expectations and reduce the unnecessary cruelty that occurs everyday in the name of our dinner plates.