Activists push for change

Handle with care | Consumers want to know the meat they buy in the store has come from a farm where the animal was treated well

WINNIPEG — As she leaned forward in her chair, coffee cup clasped in two hands, Vicki Burns listened to a question about her career with the Winnipeg Humane Society.

Burns, who was the bane of Manitoba hog farmers during the 1990s and the 2000s for her tireless efforts to ban sow stalls, leaned back and paused a couple of seconds inside a Winnipeg bakery before she answered the question: are you an extremist?

No, she responded, with a slight shake of the head, explaining she grew up in a middle class home in Winnipeg with middle class values. She also led a normal life as an adult, working as a social worker for two decades before serving as Winnipeg Humane Society executive director for 14 years.

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“I’ve never chained myself to the legislature,” she said.

“I think that (extremist) is an easy label for people to (use) so they don’t actually have to pay attention.”

Burns left her position with the humane society several years ago, but dozens of livestock producers in Manitoba still think of her as an enemy of animal agriculture.

However, Burns, who remains involved in animal issues as president of the Canadian Federation of Humane Societies, isn’t troubled by her notoriety.

“If farmers want to be mad at me, that’s fine,” she said.

“But try and listen to some of the things I’m saying…. It’s important for us to have animal agriculture in Canada, but it’s important we listen to signals from consumers around the world and start doing it in a way that is more sustainable.”

Burns’ journey to become either an animal welfare advocate or enemy of livestock agriculture, depending on who you ask, began in the 1990s when she applied for a job she knew little about.

Trained as a social worker, Burns spent the 1970s and 1980s assisting people with developmental challenges. That segment of her career helped define her approach to people and society.

“Respect was a very big issue in that field. It was important to treat everybody, no matter what their intellectual abilities, with respect,” she said.

“A lot of the work in my whole working career has revolved around respect. Respect for individuals, respect for the environment, respect for the needs of animals.”

Bill McDonald, who replaced Burns at the Winnipeg Humane Society, described her as a person with quiet passions.

“She brought the passion to the table about the concern for different animals, but in my opinion she was reasonable about it at all times,” he said, noting Burns also led campaigns against pregnant mares’ urine barns in Manitoba.

“She might have been labelled as a radical or an activist … but I never saw that.”

Searching for a career change in the 1990s, Burns applied for the position of executive director of the Winnipeg Humane Society because she loved cats and dogs.

“I had no idea about the rest of the world of animals,” she said. “I didn’t have a clue about the hog industry, or anything.”

Soon after she took her new job, Burns starting getting calls from Manitobans concerned about sow stalls. The province’s hog industry was booming in the late 1980s and early 1990s as new barns popped up across the landscape.

To educate herself, Burns talked to Manitoba Pork Council representatives and animal science professors at the University of Manitoba. She also visited several hog barns to get a first-hand look at sow stalls.

After seeing the sows, which were unable to turn around in their confined stalls, Burns was convinced this wasn’t the right way to raise livestock.

“I just had this really strong sense that what we were doing to farm animals … I just didn’t feel it was right,” said Burns, who locks eyes with her conversation partner to drive home a point.

“And we, as a society, were allowing this to happen.”

Melissa Matlow’s career as an animal welfare advocate was solidified after she witnessed what she perceived to be animal abuse inside a slaughterhouse in Ontario.

Matlow, campaigns manager for humane and sustainable agriculture for the World Society for the Protection of Animals (WSPA) in Toronto, was touring a hog plant in the late 1990s when she saw a downer pig.

A piece of machinery was dragging the pig across the floor, but the plant tour guide assured Matlow it was dead. When the visit was nearly over, Matlow saw the pig move and she realized it was alive.

Slaughterhouse staff whisked her out of the area, but the experience hardened the views of a young woman who was already questioning the ethics of the livestock industry.

Like most kids, Matlow was fascinated by animals as a child. Her parents grew up on farms: her father near Winnipegosis, Man., and her mother near Tamworth, Ont.

Her curiosity about farm animals led her to the University of Guelph, where she studied environmental science and then completed a masters degree in industrialized agriculture.

“I was exposed to the agricultural courses (at Guelph) … and the new research coming out of the farm animal welfare (program),” said Matlow, who grew up in St. Catharine’s, Ont., and now lives in Toronto.

While at university, Matlow made a point of visiting farms and slaughter plants in Ontario to broaden her perspective beyond the internet and the classroom.

“I really do believe it’s all about hearing the different sides of an argument … finding consensus and moving forward together. It’s a philosophy I believe in and take to my work at WSPA,” said Matlow, who graduated in the late 1990s and began working for the WSPA in 2005.

In her work with the WSPA, Matlow has written or helped produce several reports condemning practices in the livestock sector, including a paper this spring looking at the hidden costs of industrialized animal agriculture in Canada.

Matlow’s father, Peter, supports his daughter’s decision to dedicate her career to animal welfare, even though he grew up on a farm with cows, poultry and other livestock. He’s particularly proud of how she advocates for animals.

“She has an outgoing personality,” he said.

“She doesn’t argue with (others) but presents her scientific facts … in a persuasive way.”

Matlow may believe in listening to all sides of an issue, but she chose to change livestock agriculture by working with non-governmental organizations rather than taking a job within the industry.

“I see the need to push things further along. I’ve been impatient with change. (It’s) too slow for me…. Yeah, I’m an activist,” she said, with a laugh.

Nonetheless, an activist is not the same as an extremist, Matlow said.

“No. Absolutely not. I don’t see how ensuring that (animals) are well looked after and highly respected, as they are raised for food … is extreme. It’s something that most Canadians care about and most farmers care about it too.”

Besides the extremist label, Burns and Matlow are familiar with the other stereotype associated with animal welfare advocates, that they’re all vegetarians who want everyone to stop eating meat.

Certainly, there are groups pushing veganism or vegetarianism, Burns said, but the Canadian Federation of Humane Societies advocates for alternative production systems rather than the abolition of animal agriculture.

Similarly, the WSPA isn’t anti-meat, Matlow said. It encourages consumers and producers to make what it calls humane and sustainable choices, such as free-run eggs.

Yet on its website, the WSPA says the current rate of meat consumption in Canada and around the world is environmentally and socially unsustainable.

“Canadians are among the highest meat consumers in the world,” Matlow said. “It’s an uncomfortable topic. But it’s something we have to discuss.”

When asked about their eating habits, both women said they are vegetarians. Burns said she became a vegetarian after visiting hog barns in Manitoba.

“I still cook ham for my family at Easter…. My kids eat meat. I’ve never tried to promote it. I think it’s a very personal decision.”

Matlow became a vegetarian on a fateful day in Grade 12. As part of a class assignment, she invited an animal welfare activist to speak to her class. Matlow was expecting the guest to speak about testing cosmetics on rabbits and related issues. Instead, the speaker shared troubling information about the treatment of farm animals.

“That was my first time being exposed to farm animal welfare problems. I had a meat sandwich in my lunch that day. I just threw it out and never ate meat again.”

Despite their advocacy for ethical treatment of livestock, both women said they wouldn’t eat meat even if animals were raised humanely.

In Burns’ case, she lost interest in eating meat over the last decade. Matlow hasn’t touched meat since the day she threw out her sandwich, so becoming a carnivore again would be difficult.

Burns said it was an uphill task when she began talking to the public about sow stalls in the 1990s. Most Canadians had lost their connection to the farm, and livestock care was not on their minds.

But after two decades of animal welfare protests, newspaper editorials and YouTube videos on the topic, many North Americans now want to know how their pork chop was produced.

“Ask any minister of agriculture and they typically tell you they receive more letters on the treatment on animals … than any other issue in their portfolio,” Matlow said.

Barring a career change, it’s possible Matlow will continue to fight for progressive livestock practices for many more decades.

Burns’ career isn’t over, but she now understands why she fought for more ethical treatment of farm animals.

“I’ve realized what motivates me the most, is knowing that I’m doing something to decrease suffering, whether it’s humans or animals. Some people are going to think that’s sappy. But it’s the truth.”