The Grotesque Cost of Horsemeat

Canada's horse-slaughter industry is growing fast and to the discredit of our country.

On Oct. 4, demonstrators across Canada demanded an end to Canada’s horse-slaughter industry. These protests followed petitions signed by thousands of people in support of Bill C-544, a private member’s bill tabled by NDP MP Alex Atamanenko. The bill seeks to stop the import of horses from the U.S. to Canada, where they are killed in abattoirs before their flesh is exported to Asia and Europe to be eaten.

Canadians don’t eat much horsemeat, but Canadian livestock dealers and slaughterhouse operators were quick to smell profit after the U.S. banned the slaughter of horses in 2007. Every year, an estimated 50,000 horses are transported to Canada and another 57,000 to Mexico, an increase in the tens of thousands since before the U.S. ban. This business is lucrative for those who seek to profit by circumventing humane initiatives, but those financial gains come at a grotesque price in terms of animal suffering.

In June 2008, CBC TV broadcast undercover video taken at a Saskatchewan slaughterhouse, Natural Valley Farms in Neudorf. The video shows panic-stricken horses struggling to evade their death and slipping on blood-slicked floors. Some are still conscious as they are slaughtered by slitting of the throat, though they are supposed to be rendered completely unconscious with a captive bolt pistol first. This case was not unique – secret footage shot in horse abattoirs in Alberta and Quebec this year revealed similar inhumane treatment.

Added to the terrors each horse experiences at the slaughterhouse are the brutalities of long-distance transport. Given that Canada’s animal-welfare laws are basically the unchanged relics of a previous century, almost anything goes in terms of horse slaughter and transportation, as it does for all other commercial forms of animal exploitation. Industries pretty much set their own standards, and regulation is minimal. As the National Post reported on Sept. 23, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) “cannot say how many inspectors are stationed across the country to make sure animal health rules are followed during the transport of animals destined for dinner plates.”

Discussing the Natural Valley Farms video, Twyla Francois of the Canadian Horse Defence Coalition noted that not one CFIA inspector appeared in the 10 to 12 hours of footage she watched. Of course, since the government sees its role as that of a service provider to industry, the presence or absence of inspectors is of little consequence to the animals processed through what can legitimately be described as torture chambers.

Indeed, the government has clearly stated that it has no interest in these matters. Responding to the protests and to Bill C-544, Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz said, "Unlike the NDP, who think they have the right to tell producers what they are allowed to sell, our government will continue to work to maintain the highest of food-safety standards and the humane treatment of animals." This statement is, of course, nonsense. We have laws that target "producers" of heroin and child pornography, yet any law that mandates the "humane treatment of animals" in meat production – an industry based upon killing animals – is a contradiction in terms.