Ontario’s livestock industry no fan of ‘ag-gag’ laws

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Dear Bill Mitchell,
It's great that you want to promote transparency and connect consumers with producers.
Why not film the full process of egg production yourselves, and show the complete video, unedited, to the public?

The public should also be made aware of what the full agenda is for groups like Mercy for Animals when it concerns the feather and livestock Agriculture Industries.

They may want to introduce compulsory meditative chants in public schools, force everyone to drive a Prius or to encourage the building of more nuclear reactors till one melts down and produces a nature preserve the size of Pennsylvania. All that matters here is the indisputable cruelties they've revealed and the public's reaction to it. Treat animals with unfailing compassion and you will have thwarted their master plan.

Actually its the Media's reaction to it.Thousands of farmers treat their animals with with profound respect and compassion but that will never make the headlines.
Its been shown over and over that negative headlines sell and generate more response.

As director of legal advocacy for Mercy For Animals Canada, I personally ensured that the Chief Veterinary Office in Manitoba was hand-delivered a full, unedited copy of our footage, contrary to Crystal Mackay's assertion.

The reality is that confining pigs in gestation crates is one of the most inhumane agricultural practices in existence--so inhumane that gestation crates have been banned by the entire European Union, Australia, New Zealand and nine U.S. states. However, the public has no appetite to sit through hours of footage documenting ongoing abuses, which is why an edited version is provided.

I agree that an open-barn policy is best, and encourage the industry itself to provide the public with full, real-time footage of all aspects of their operations, as slaughterhouses in Europe have begun doing.

Anna Pippus

let's call a spade a spade. sows stalls aren't the real issue for mercy for animals canada they want to stop all animal production and everyone switch to being a vegan. farmers can make all the changes you ask for, but you will not be happy until all barns are empty.

I readily admit I, for one, would be delighted to see the end of meat production. I was raised on a farm, killed many an animal before I'd thought it through, but have been happily vegan for many years, now.

But none of that has any bearing on the cruelties shown by MFA and others. Even those who eat meat, generally, do not want those meat animals to suffer, and their concerns, more than those of relatively few, for now, vegans, drive existing humane slaughter laws—which I'm sure you'd like to see done away with—and efforts to expose their violation.

Gestation crates were implemented because sows are AGGRESSIVE, group housing at the time was decreasing animal welfare because the sows were getting injured. In order to protect the welfare of animals, gestation creates were used, but now that the industry has evolved to using electronic feeders, sow aggression is reduced and those animals can be group-housed without killing eachother. The fact of the matter is things cannot be taken out of context. Rather than saying it is the most inhumane practice in existence, animal welfare experts need to work with producers. Technology is constantly evolving and the treatment of animals will continue to evolve with it, but the way that certain groups try to being about changes is NOT the way to do it. Hens are in cages to protect from parasitic infections, hens were put in cages to protect their welfare, but now that we have discovered that hens have a preference for a nest-box to lay their eggs, it is reasonable to ask that egg producers use enriched cages that allow hens access to nest-boxes (which many producers have changed on their own!) No one can expect change overnight and no one should be insulting the current practices because they were all implemented for a reason. There is always room for improvement, but tying people's hands are only going to force people to knuckle under.

If the ag industry in Canada wishes to be transparent, how about 24/7 cameras in each barn, accessible online to anyone. It Wouldn't be expensive. Or are they all talk ?

Ty Savoy
Lake Echo, NS

how about cameras in everyone's house so we can see how every child and pet is treated in this country.

This is the fallacy of the Weak Analogy, an analogy that bears only the most superficial similarity to the matter at hand. Producing meat for sale puts a merchant in the public sphere, required to acquire appropriate licenses and to produce their product in a responsible fashion, in keeping with the public good. There is no equivalence in putting a camera in my home, unless you plan to buy my cat and eat him. The fact that you imply factory farms should be as private as our homes suggests you believe the public has no right to know what's going on in them, a concept our society has already rejected.

There are cameras where we work there are cameras where we shop there are cameras in our streets so why is it so hard to put cameras in farms and slaughter houses if you have nothing to hide the camera should not be a problem to the employees or to the owner of the place. Don't make a big deal out of something that is fairly easy to have some control over it.

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