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From R.T. Fitch:
Slaughterhouse Sue Wallis Puts Wild Horses on the Menu
Inspectors Fear Workers Who Slaughter Horses
http://animals.change.org/blog/view/inspectors_fear_workers_who_slaughter_horses
The Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) is supposed to enforce regulations about the handling of animals during slaughter. It has come to light, however, that at horse slaughter facilities, inspectors were actually ordered to stay off the kill floors during slaughter.
Why? According to Bob Kingston, president of the Agriculture Union that represents inspectors, out of fear for their safety. Kingston explained, "Anybody could just walk in, grab a rifle, and start shooting. Basically that's the way it was working. I mean, they had no idea whether the person using the firearms was qualified, was stable, or anything else."
Canadian officials fear inspectors will be injured or killed as workers manhandle and fire guns at horses. There may also be concern that inspectors will suffer post traumatic stress from observing such brutal treatment of animals. So they abandoned regulatory oversight of the slaughter process.
Noble horse is meat for cruel slaughter houses
The Canadian Museum of Civilization has opened its excellent new exhibition called "The Horse." It weaves a fascinating story about man's strong relationship with the noble horse over the centuries. It shows how horse and man have been partners in building civilizations and the enduring bond between them.
Today, we clearly owe the horse a debt of gratitude. We would think then that the horse would continue to command our respect here in Canada. Not so.
The Canadian Horse Defence Coalition has compelling evidence of horse cruelty and suffering as a result of rough handling and poor slaughter practices at Canadian equine slaughter plants. On our website www.defendhorsescanada.org, you can read the article "Chambers of Carnage" (2010). This has also been the subject of two exposés by CBC's The National news. In May, CBC reported on the CHDC's video of inhumane treatment at horse abbatoirs in Quebec and Alberta.
According to Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada statistics, 93,812 horses died in five federally licensed Canadian horse slaughterhouses in 2009. This translates to more than 1,800 horses every week. About half of these horses are now brought in from the U.S. because their citizens, ahead of us, have already fought hard and successfully closed horse slaughter plants in that country.
If these cruel executions are not enough to raise concerns one also needs to understand what drives this massive Canadian slaughter business. There is a lucrative commercial export market for horse meat consumption which still exists in Europe and Asia.
However, the majority of people do not support it and an Ipsos-Reid poll in 2004 revealed that nearly two-thirds of Canadians do not believe in killing horses for human consumption. So, the great service to humanity of generations of horses, so well exhibited at the Canadian Museum of Civilization, is now rewarded here in Canada with the cruel execution of their offspring. All this so that well-off people in faraway lands can dine on their flesh.
There must be a better way. This slaughter must be stopped.
Frank McCarthy,
Ottawa
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