It is nearly 2023. So . . . ?
Came across this Opinion piece entitled, “Canada needs to stop live exports for overseas slaughter“, published by the Daily Hive, dated 16 December 2022. It was written for the Daily Hive by Chantelle Archambault of the Vancouver Humane Society. Ms Archbault tell us:
Sunday night on the cold tarmac of Winnipeg Airport, a gentle horse stood in a crate, waiting to be loaded onto an airplane. The horse had no name; he and the thousands of horses like him who are shipped out of Canada each year are known only by their identification numbers. He was one of more than 100 horses loaded onto a flight destined for Japan, headed an ocean away to be slaughtered for human consumption.
The flight took off 361 days after Prime Minister Trudeau directed the minister of agriculture to ban the live export of horses for slaughter in a mandate letter on December 16, 2021. Since then, no action has been taken, and the bodies of horses destined for slaughter have continued to pile up.
The flight took off 361 days after Prime Minister Trudeau directed the minister of agriculture to ban the live export of horses for slaughter in a mandate letter on December 16, 2021.
It has now been exactly a year since that letter was sent. Since then, no action has been taken, and the bodies of horses destined for slaughter have continued to pile up.
It’s impossible to know exactly what happened to the horse without a name – the Government of Canada has no jurisdiction over foreign slaughter practices after animals touch down in another country, out of the sight and mind of the many Canadians who consider them to be beloved companions. But we have a general idea of what happened to the horses on his flight.
The journey from a Canadian feedlot where horses are raised to their final destination overseas can take up to 28 hours; a full day in which they are deprived of food, water, and rest. It’s common for three or four horses to make the journey cramped together in a single wooden crate, with their ears poking through the top slats.
Before 2020, regulations dictated that horses must be shipped in their own crates with adequate head clearance. After the Canadian Horse Defence Coalition (CHDC) took the Minister of Agriculture and the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) to court over illegal breaches of transport regulations, the minister acted swiftly — not by changing the practices to meet animal welfare standards, but by changing the law to fit inhumane conditions.
“It is not acceptable to compromise horse welfare in favour of industry interests,” said CHDC President Sinikka Crosland. “Neither should the law be manipulated in order to meet those interests.”
On noisy airplanes, these gentle herd animals with a strong fight or flight instinct go through a long journey of fear and stress. Some fall down upon takeoff or landing. A 2014 incident report indicated that a horse, who appeared agitated during loading, fell during takeoff and remained down during the flight. The horse thrashed and kicked through the crate, damaging the airplane and forcing an emergency landing. After landing, the horse was found dead in the crate, next to two other horses.
With last year’s mandate letter, our government acknowledged the need to put an end to the live export of horses for slaughter. Yet around 2,000 horses have been exported since the federal minister of agriculture was directed to end the practice.
Every month that the Ministry of Agriculture shirks the commitment outlined in its mandate letter, more horses suffer needlessly.
END QUOTE
• Source full Report here » • PeTA alert »
By the way . . .
“Canada — and in particular Alberta — is one of the world’s biggest suppliers of horses for meat. More than 25,000 are slaughtered annually. The meat is frozen and exported, mainly to Japan, France and the U.S.” [Feb 27, 2021]. — CTV News, by Avery Haines, Host and Managing Editor, W5, “A glimpse inside Canada’s ‘sinister’ horse meat industry.”
Note: The U.S.? Who eats horse meat in the U.S.? Perhaps the horse meat is fed to animals. But it is not cheap meat, so that makes little to no sense. People must be eating it in the U.S.
Featured Image: Slaughterbound horse (not cited).
Tuesday’s Horse
Official Blog of The Fund for Horses
Tuesday's Horse 
Abhorrent animal cruelty.
Putting horses on aeroplanes to be slaughtered is insane. Then the horses are inhumanely treated for about TWENTY-EIGHT (28) hours way up in the sky trapped in a plane. And of course some die during this transport.
I’m ashamed to be a human being.
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Maybe Australians can take the minister /s to court for not abiding by legislation
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Agree Carolyn.
Diners pay a lot of money to eat it too . . . so we have read. Think of the poisons in it. Some eat it from lightly cooked to raw so they are at a high risk.
No point in telling people like that about how cruel it is. They could care less.
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