NEWS
Tuesday, October 14, 2014 5
Undercover Footage Highlights Need for Change
How Factory Farmed Animals are Neglected in the
Canadian Legal System
alexandra pester › contributor
L
ast year, an undercover investigator from
Mercy For Animals Canada released footage revealing that the turkeys in a Hybrid
Turkeys breeding facility in Bright, Ontario
were being clubbed and kicked by employees of the
facility, hit with shovels, left with open wounds, and
being subjected to what can only be classified as egregious cruelty to animals.
The Ontario Society for the Prevention of Cruelty
to Animals (OSPCA) laid eleven charges against the
plant, and five of their employees. This was the first
set of charges under the Ontario SPCA Act against a
factory farm based on footage obtained by undercover
workers from an animal protection organization.
Hybrid Turkeys claims that these instances of brutality against animals are isolated events, but time
and again, animal protection organizations have
opened the door on these companies and shown that
where there are factory farms, there is violence. These
charges are a step in the right direction for animals,
but they beg the following questions: what about the
animal abuse that occurs on farms which do not get
visits from undercover animal protection groups,
or when the undercover footage does not lead to
charges, or where the suffering simply falls under the
scope of what the law considers to be necessary?
In Canadian factory farms, animals are usually
confined in small cages, preventing them from going
outside for nearly their entire lives. This confinement prevents animals from carrying out their natural behaviours, and causes serious injury, distress,
and overall suffering. Egg-laying hens often live out
their whole lives in tiny battery cages, stacked on top
of one another. They have their beaks seared off with
a hot blade. The unnecessary male chicks are often
disposed of, sometimes done by grinding them up
alive. Intensive confinement can subject birds, pigs,
and cows to injuries and filthy conditions. Milk cows
are artificially inseminated, and calves are usually
taken away at birth to veal farms, or stay in the dairy
industry to produce milk. The gruesome conditions of
factory farms, the long hours in tightly-packed transport trucks in brutal weather conditions, the absence
of veterinary care, and a general lack of care for individual animals means many animals do not even
live to reach the slaughter house. This is a very brief
description of only a couple of the species that live out
their lives in horrific conditions on industrial farming facilities.
Under Canadian law, animals are, without any
legal rights of their own, rendered ‘property.’ Because
animals’ interests are not prioritized against economic gain, to say their interests are neglected is an
understatement. Under the criminal law, animal cruelty laws focus on the “unnecessary suffering” of animals, which basically creates a divide between what
acts can and cannot be done to animals like dogs
and cats versus those animals that we use for food
and other products. When we use animals for products, we tend to see their suffering as “necessary.”
Numerous investigations have been released from factory farms, and most of the treatment that has been
exposed has not resulted in any legal repercussion,
until the Hybrid Turkeys case, despite the conditions
being just as shocking in each case.
The content of animal cruelty laws in the Criminal
Code have barely changed since 1892, even though
society has gained considerable interest in and care
fo r t h e we lfare of animals.
Provinces usually
have jurisdiction
over the conditions animals live
in throughout their lives, while federal laws cover
transportation and slaughter. While all provinces
have animal protection statutes, they usually cover
many animals used in a variety of industries, and
these laws are often vague and too widely applicable
to define and prohibit specific activities. Generally,
provincial codes exempt standard practices from
being considered offences, and so intensive confinement, castration, and overall lack of care can
slip under the radar of the law. There are also codes
of conduct to protect animals, but these are usually
voluntary.
Animals generally fall subject to the will of t