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Update (November 1, 2024): The Senate’s agriculture committee has amended the bill so that it no longer targets animal advocates. The bill has also been changed so that it ensures that farm operators who cause disease outbreaks can be held accountable for failing to protect animals against biosecurity risks. This amendment is great progress, but the bill isn’t dead yet. Please continue to share this alert with friends and family in Canada, and contact your lawmakers in other ways.
Original post:
Bill C-275, the amendment that Parliament snuck into an existing “animal health” law to punish activists with up to six months in jail and fines of up to $50,000 for entering a factory farm to document cruelty or provide aid to suffering animals has passed the House of Commons Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food and is now with the Senate for further study. Please urge your senators to vote NO on Bill C-275.
This vote comes on the heels of PETA’s latest investigation into the Ontario Water Buffalo Company, which was prompted by a whistleblower complaint. The whistleblower reported that animals had been left to suffer from various ailments and denied adequate care or an end to their suffering and that a blind calf who couldn’t stand languished for two weeks before he died. PETA’s investigation into the facility revealed long-term neglect and mistreatment of buffaloes. Animals were found confined to fly-ridden pens packed with feces, and according to the whistleblower, some had prolapsed uteruses and open wounds and some calves suffocated in feces. Bill C-275 would likely have deterred this whistleblower from coming forward and speaking out about the horrible things they witnessed on this farm.
Other common industry practices allowed in Canada include killing unwanted piglets by swinging them by their legs and bashing their heads on the floor and gassing or shredding alive unwanted male chicks, who are useless to the egg industry. There are no known cases of a disease outbreak resulting from an undercover investigation. If lawmakers really want to address animal health, they should crack down on common industry practices that make farmed animals sick, not people who are working to expose unsafe and unsanitary conditions.
Please, sign below to urge your senators to vote “no” on Bill C-275.