Members of animal rights movement in Canada are relentless, possessing the determination of a collection of bulldogs.
Activists are concerned about many things, including the treatment of farm animals, mammals in aquariums, domestic house pets, fish and poultry.
One of their leaders is Liberal MP and lawyer Nathaniel Erskine-Smith.
Earlier this month, Erskine-Smith introduced a petition that he hopes will–at the very least–get people talking about eliminating the abuse of animals in slaughterhouses–abuse that he terms “rampant” and “criminal.”
That abuse, Erskine-Smith says, includes the treatment of animals in the Ryding Regency slaughterhouse in Toronto, which were recently documented by Len Goldberg, Juliana Carpino and Chris McGinn.
The petition, signed by 7,000 people, called on the government to require slaughterhouses and other industrial agribusinesses that raise, transport, or slaughter large numbers of animals to install video surveillance equipment with a feed that can be viewed by Canadian Food Inspection Agency officials.
I spoke to Erskine-Smith by phone about his petition and what is going on in Canadian slaughterhouses.
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