A Manitoba truck driver may face jail time for transporting injured and dying horses from Minnesota to a slaughter plant in Alberta.
Geoffrey Giesbrecht, who had already pleaded guilty to violating the Health of Animals Act following an incident at the border crossing near Emerson, Man., Nov. 7, 2007, appeared in court in Winnipeg April 14 for sentencing.
Judge Carena Roller was considering jailing Giesbrecht, the Winnipeg Free Press reported, because 14 of the 22 horses in his truck were either dead or had to be euthanized after he was stopped at the border.
Read Also
First annual Ag in Motion Junior Cattle Show kicks off with a bang
Ag in Motion 2025 had its first annual junior cattle show on July 15. The show hosted more than 20…
Canada Customs officials discovered several live horses trapped under the bodies of dead horses and others that couldn’t stand.
Giesbrecht claimed the horses were injured when he swerved to avoid a parked vehicle on a Minnesota highway, but he didn’t stop to seek help for the animals.
Roller postponed her sentencing decision until Giesbrecht retained a lawyer.
The severe suffering of horses in this case is symptomatic of the ban on horse slaughter in the U.S., said Jim Sacia, a representative in the Illinois House Assembly.
Illinois legislators banned horse slaughter in the state in 2007, thereby shutting down Cavel International in DeKalb, the last operating slaughter plant in the United States.
Since the ban, Sacia has fought to reinstate horse slaughter in Illinois because he believes it’s more humane than trucking animals thousands of kilometres to plants in Canada and Mexico.
“The animal rights groups will refuse to address the fact that we now stuff horses into trailers, ship them 40 hours to the Mexican border … very often with little or no water and food.”
Sacia said he’s not concerned about how animals are killed in Canada, because its standards are similar to the U.S. However, he is worried about horse slaughter practices in Mexico.
He also opposes the proposed federal Prevention of Equine Cruelty Act, which would ban the transport of horses for slaughter.
“That in a word, sir, is a joke,” he said. Such a bill would lead to more horse abandonments and suffering, he added.
Nancy Perry, vice-president of government affairs with the Humane Society of the United States, has a more positive view of the bill.
She said animals were already trucked great distances when the U.S. had three operating horse meat processors: two near Dallas and the one in Illinois.
“Whether you have plants in the U.S., Canada or Mexico … you have long distance transport,” she said.
She also rejects the argument that horse slaughter plants provide an essential service in killing unwanted horses. Of the nine million horses in the U.S., she said, only 90,000 are shipped to slaughter plants in Canada and Mexico.
Owners who want to get rid of a horse take it to an auction, Perry said, which is where kill buyers, representing the slaughter plants, show up to outbid other buyers.
“They (kill buyers) will show up at American horse auctions all over the country,” she said.
“This isn’t an outlet or a service, in some way, for ill, infirm or old horses. This is a predatory side industry that comes in and removes horses from what would’ve been good homes.”
Perry said she is confident the U.S. Congress will pass the Prevention of Equine Cruelty Act.
She estimated that 240 to 280 members of the U.S. House of Representatives support the proposed legislation, which is significantly more than the 218 needed for a majority.
Although Sacia opposes the horse transport bill, he believes it will eventually become law, mainly because horse slaughter is an emotional matter for Americans.
“This issue in our country is absolutely more volatile than abortion.”
