In Canada, there are four establishments federally licensed to slaughter horses — two in Alberta and two in Quebec. Thousands of live horses are loaded onto airplanes annually and flown thousands of kilometres away, where they are fattened up for slaughter. Luckily for those rescue groups, things do appear to be changing. Looking at data from 2012 to 2016, an average of 137,000 American horses were trucked over our borders each year to slaughter facilities in Mexico and Canada. W While the number of slaughterhouses may seem small, Canada’s horse slaughter industry has been characterized as one of the largest in the world; ranking among the top ten producers of horse meat internationally. Watch “Flight Animals” Saturday at 7pm on W5. A year before the last U.S. horse plant shut down in 2007, Canada slaughtered about 50,000 horses. Equine domestication is believed to have begun to raise horses for human consumption. “These days, I end up with almost everything that’s salvageable that goes to auction in the Lower Mainland,” MacMillan notes. “Ever. They can't stretch out. Their destination is 9,000 kilometres away in Kumamoto Prefecture, western Japan. But no matter how many years have gone by, for MacMillan the mission remains the same as it was in 1995: take it slowly. J&M’s website is filled with success stories from those who have adopted or donated over the past 20 years and the group’s Facebook page has more than 11,000 likes. Often, there isn't enough headroom. Click "html" to see the spreadsheet through your web browser. “It’s all dollars and cents. Call for the immediate closure of Canada’s horse slaughter plants. 1. (Meat companies now take American horses to plants in Canada … “Some of the rescue groups are a bit overzealous — they’ll be screaming and crying — and as a result, some auctions have banned rescue groups from even attending. That’s nearly 13.8 million kilograms of horse … So from the humane point of view... and the biology of the horse, it does not make it conducive for transportation. Horse Slaughter Abroad. 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Majority of Canadians Oppose Horse Slaughter. It’s so sad. 819-395-4339; Directions; Search nearby; Ferme Orléans. According to the federal agriculture department, 54,147 horses were slaughtered in Canada in 2016 — at least half of those imported from the U.S., and virtually all purchased at livestock auctions by buyers who pay by the pound. All I can do is take it one at a time. They’re farmers. Thousands of live horses are exported each year from Canadian cities (Calgary, Edmonton and Winnipeg) to Japan, where they are slaughtered for a luxury item, raw horsemeat basashi. Jesse Donaldson is an author, journalist, photographer and one of the founding members of The Dependent Magazine. After a horse is bought by a kill buyer, she is shipped to a slaughterhouse in Mexico or Canada. As there are only two government-approved methods of stunning horses in Canada – captive bolt gun and rifle – and both methods have been shown to cause prolonged suffering in numerous horses, we conclude that these animals cannot be slaughtered humanely in todays slaughterhouse assembly lines. Many of these nonprofit groups also operate equine rescue and sanctuary facilities and their websites have horrifying pictures of the process. Many of the 54,000 horses slaughtered in Canada in 2016 were transported from the United States. Not long afterward, she founded J&M Acres, an all-breed horse rescue organization based out of her two-acre Maple Ridge farm. Les Viandes De La Petite-Nation, Inc., also doing business as Les Cerfs du Boileau, located in Saint-Andr√©-Avellin, Quebec. More than 25,000 are slaughtered annually. And over the years, it’s just snowballed more and more and more. On September 12th 2017, for example, there was a delay of several hours and horses spent over 18 hours at the airport (YYC) in crates. “Horses are going to die. 0 have signed. 2 The number of horses slaughtered in Canada also dropped from 113, 334 in 2008 (when the US defunded meat inspectors at horse slaughter plants) to 54,100 in 2016. The meat is frozen and exported, mainly to Japan, France and the U.S. 213 10 rang, Saint-Germain-de-Grantham, QC J0C 1K0 Get directions. Currently, EU regulations prohibit horses that have ever been treated with phenylbutazone from entering the food chain. According to the latest data from Statistics Canada, 2,800 horses were shipped in 2019. They should not be slaughtered an ocean away and put through the misery of transport.”, International standards set by the World Organization for Animal Health stipulate that large horses be segregated during transport and that the top of their head not touch the top of the crate. New regulatory changes announced by the EU are going to put a big dent in U.S. imports. Horse meat is a delicacy in Japan. The raw horse meat is called “basashi” and customers will pay as much as 8,000 yen or about $100 dollars a serving, in line with what Canadians pay for high-grade steak. Canada has one of the largest horse slaughter industries in the world, slaughtering between 70,000 and 115,000 horses every year for the last six years. “Like most people, I had no idea it even happened.”. Slaughter horse shipments require veterinary inspection by the CFIA at the border. And if you deal with them in a civilized fashion, and you pay for these horses, they’re happy for them to go to a good home.”. Abattoir Centre Du Québec 2015. With a regulatory framework that’s essentially based on the honour system, those documents are routinely doctored or incomplete and CFIA’s drug testing is grossly inadequate. March 29, 2010. If you have concerns related to your privacy please contact us at info@thetyee.ca. Unfortunately, we have seen the reality: a predatory industry that doesn’t cover for human health, let alone animal welfare.”. The B.C. Killing horses for human consumption is legal in most states, but slaughterhouses are currently nonexistent in the United States. The CFIA trusts the plant operators to be honest, and in turn the plant operators must trust that feedlot operators are being above board with their practices. How many Horse Slaughter Facilities are in Canada? “You don’t name a thing and have it trust you, and take your kids for rides, and then sell it by the pound. The horses aren’t [at auction] for families. In fact, most were either pets or retired race or trail-riding horses. 38% of the horses that are brought to a horse rescue operation are turned away. They’re there for meat. There are now four equine slaughter plants in Canada, two in Quebec and two in Alberta. 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As MacMillan quickly discovered, the man was what’s known as a “Kill Buyer” — someone on the front lines of a little-known Canadian industry that brings in more than $80 million in export revenue per year: horse meat. “The potential for fraud is always there, and we have seen it happen on numerous occasions. Born and raised in the British Properties in West Vancouver, MacMillan got her first horse at 13, and “it’s been a love affair ever since.” After years in restaurant management and as a partner in a pub, she recently moved back into serving, in order to make more time for her work with J&M. It’s a gruesome national disgrace. A petition to end the live export of horses has been launched in the House of Commons by Nathaniel Erskine-Smith, the MP for Beaches-East York in Toronto. “To watch horses go to their death. The British Parliament has announced plans to end the export of live animals for slaughter, describing the practice as inhumane. Rescue one horse. All federally registered slaughter facilities in Canada must comply with federal food safety laws. They’re completely blindsided by it.”. In 2007, the State of Illinois enacted a ban on horse slaughter, shutting the slaughterhouse there, the last one operating in the U.S. Failure to pass slaughter ban worsened conditions for horses Today, the slaughter continues with horses being transported to Canada and Mexico for an even more brutal death. There’s much more here. Click on a desired animal class to see the location of plants that specialize in the slaughter of these animals across the province of Ontario. We’re hiring a newsletter specialist, audience development analyst, and office co-ordinator. So I asked other people ‘What the hell is going on here?’”. It’s all done from the heart. I wish I had never seen it. Revenue from horse meat exports decreased from $76 million in 2016 to $31 million in 2018. Ms. Grainger said that while only a small percentage of horses in Canada are sent to the slaughterhouse (about 50,000 annually), there is no need for any of them to end up there. Humans have long consumed horse meat; the oldest known cave art, the 30,000-year-old paintings in France's Chauvet Cave, depict horses with other wild animals hunted by humans. And it’s perfectly legal, although hopefully not for much longer. But unlike other industries, none of these animals were originally raised for meat. Many of the horses destined for slaughter are race or workhorses no longer fit for their former jobs, or unwanted pets. Ever since the U.S banned horse slaughter for human consumption in 2006, the industry headed north to Canada. Let’s get to 300,000! Map of Provincially Licensed Meat Plants Abattoirs . “It’s overbreeding. The horse died. The horses are flown almost weekly out of airports in Calgary, Edmonton and Winnipeg. This country was built on the back of a horse. Ever.”. “I don’t know how she does it,” muses neighbour Cheryl Sterling, who has, to date, adopted seven horses through — or because of — MacMillan. According to a 2014 Global News investigation, between 2010 and 2014 CFIA inspectors tested fewer than 400 samples per year — less than one per cent of all horses slaughtered). Horses are still being sent to slaughter, across our borders into Canada and Mexico, and the number of American horses sent to slaughter has not decreased since domestic plants closed in 2007. In recent years, equine auctions in the Lower Mainland have mostly come to a halt. E-mail addresses are only used for the purposes of Tyee-related correspondence or comment moderation. Reopening slaughterhouses in America is not the answer to ending this form of cruelty. And while the industry is relatively small when compared to beef or poultry ($2.3 billion and $522 million in annual export revenue, respectively), horse meat has been Canada’s top red meat export to Europe. Determined to do something, she raised enough in donations to purchase her first horse, dubbed “Lucky,” at auction later that same year. And that’s a whole lot better than none at a time.”. Canada - and in particular Alberta - is one of the world’s biggest suppliers of horses for meat. MacMillan no longer attends the auctions herself, instead working with auction staff to make horse purchases. There are an estimated 500 people employed across Canada in Canada’s horse meat processing sector. Over 85% of Canada’s horse meat is exported. Published Saturday, February 27, 2021 9:00AM EST, Rise in consumers buying backyard pools during pandemic, 16 Vancouver Canucks players on COVID-19 protocol list, Ask the doctor with disease specialist Dr. Isaac Bogoch, Pornhub: Shocking allegations against a porn empire, Ontario now under provincial shutdown to curb COVID-19, COVID-19 vaccine rollout in pharmacies expands this weekend, Canada surpasses 1 million confirmed COVID-19 cases since start of pandemic, 'Significant' COVID-19 variant outbreak in Alberta announced by Hinshaw Saturday, How Ontario is prioritizing vaccinating essential workers. It’s hard to know how many horses are being exported out of the United States to Canada since the government is trying to cover it up, but what we do know is that Bouvry Exports is a very active and busy company, making millions off of horse slaughter. Canadian veterinarian Judith Samson-French explains why travel is especially difficult for horses: “Horses are not trained or conditioned for transportation. Which I think is a better way to do things. In 2014, a horse described as “agitated” kicked the fuselage of the plane and forced an emergency landing. All information submitted to The Tyee is only available to employees or sub-contractors who are bound by agreement with The Tyee to keep the information private. Horses are still being sent to slaughter, across our borders into Canada and Mexico, and the number of American horses sent to slaughter has not decreased since domestic plants closed in 2007. The average cost to care for one horse per year is $2,300. In fact, even when horse slaughter facilities operated in the United … 2. They do not have a mandate for compliance or enforcement. Host and Managing Editor, W5. Since the boom in the early 2000s, horse meat in Canada has been on the decline (the roughly 54,000 slaughtered in 2016 is a sharp decrease from the nearly 68,000 slaughtered in 2015). Are we horse people or are we this sinister part of agriculture?”.

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