RED DEER – A petition requesting a ban on horse slaughter in Canada has been forwarded to the federal government.
The petition, bearing signatures from residents of Ontario’s Dufferin County, asks Ontario Conservative MP David Tilson to introduce a private member’s bill in the House of Commons to ban horse slaughter for human consumption and the export of horses for the same purpose.
Telephone calls to Tilson and federal agriculture minister Gerry Ritz’s office were not returned.
Canada processes horses at six federally inspected plants and continues to accept them from the United States, where slaughter was banned in 2007.
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Susan Church of Alberta Farm Animal Care (AFAC) said 250,000 to 300,000 horses from the U.S. are trucked into Canada each year.
Many horses that arrive in Canada for slaughter were subjected to neglect, Church said at the annual AFAC meeting in Red Deer March 27. Alberta slaughters 50,000 Canadian and American born horse a year.
Bill des Barres, chair of the Horse Welfare Alliance of Canada, said this latest petition demonstrates continued pressure from activists who want to stop horse slaughter.
The HWAC was formed last summer and comprises provincial and national horse organizations.
“Animal rights groups are trying to stir the pot in Canada,” said des Barres. “The horse welfare alliance are staunch supporters that we are responsible horse owners during their life and at the time of their passing.”
The horse industry received a black eye last year when videos were shown on CBC and the internet of unfit horses being poorly handled at Canadian plants.
“The videos were not accurate as they purported to be, not even close,” des Barres said.
“There are problems and the problem for the most part is in the transport of horses coming from the United States.”
Canada has regulations on the humane handling of livestock during transport, including horses. Des Barres said these regulations need to be enforced because injured horses still arrive in Canada.
There are nine million horses in the U.S. and 400,000 are considered unwanted. Until the 2007 ban, 75,000 to 100,000 horses were slaughtered in the U.S. and another 10,000 to 20,000 were shipped to Canada. Mexican export figures are unknown. Canada has about 900,000 horses and a third of them are in Alberta.
A conference in the U.S. last June looked at the problem of unwanted horses.
Speakers said when the U.S. Congress passed the bill to ban horse slaughter, it made no provision for the fate of horses that normally went to slaughter.
However, some groups argued horse slaughter is not the answer to the problem of mismatched horses and owners.
