By Dave Pollard
http://blogs.salon.com/0002007/2006/03/05.html#a1456

On behalf of all Canadians of conscience, I apologize to all the
creatures of this world for the disgrace of Canada's treatment of
animals. I apologize for the disgusting and offensive remarks of
Newfoundland and Labrador premier Danny Williams, a colossally dim-
witted man who not only defended the staggering barbarity of the
annual seal hunt that kills 300,000 seals every year in a bloodbath
for fashion that is so unprofitable it is subsidized by the federal
government, but accused the McCartneys, who are campaigning against
this carnage, of being dupes of the IFAW, Greenpeace and PETA, groups
he accused of being "terrorists". I apologize as well for the federal
fisheries minister Loyola Hearn, who has announced that the new
Conservative government fully supports the continuation of over
harvesting policies that have decimated Canada's fisheries, bankrupted
the industry, and wrecked the entire ecosystems of which fish
populations are apart, and has pledged to do everything he can to
block the McCartneys' efforts to end the savagery of the seal hunt.

I apologize, too, for the shameful behaviour of all of Canada's
political parties for their unwillingness to update Canada's feeble
1892 animal welfare laws, despite feverish work over eight long years
to bring perfectly modest, reasonable new legislation to a vote. The
politicians were repeatedly bought off by a selfish and paranoid lobby
of farmers, trappers and animal laboratories working with Big Pharma.
As a consequence, Canada's laws against deliberate cruelty to animals
remain the shame of the Western world, and will inevitably encourage
yet more puppy farms, neglect and abuse of farmed animals, and
barbaric treatment of laboratory animals.

I apologize for the abomination of Western Canadian oil development
(especially the tar sands development which is producing the greatest
environmental devastation in Canada's history), and Western Canadian
logging and mining, which lays waste thousands of square miles of
Canadian wilderness every year, driving wild animals further and
further into the mountains and tundra, all so that mostly foreign-
owned corporations can ship raw logs, coal and other minerals to Asia
to be converted into shoddy manufactured products that are then sold
back to hapless Canadians at a profit.

I apologize for the disgrace of Canada's hydro-electric industry,
which, mostly under government auspices, has flooded hundreds of
thousands of acres of wilderness to allow dams to be built that
produce cheap energy, much of which is exported to the US and which
has delayed investment in the development of renewable energy
technologies and generators.

I apologize for the many Canadian farmers who have sold out family
farms for a quick buck to developers and agribusiness, and for the
politicians who allowed the development and agribusiness and
agricultural chemical lobbies to distort land and food markets so that
the family farm was ludicrously rendered 'uneconomic'. And I apologize
for the farmers who, almost without a thought, will kill thousands or
millions of tightly confined animals at the first sign that this
confinement has produced inevitable disease epidemics, will soak the
confinement areas in toxic chemicals in accordance with government
orders, and will then, a few months later, start buying and breeding
new stocks of animals for confinement so that this mindless carnage
can be repeated again and again.

We live in a country of staggering wealth, one that has the space and
the resources to be a model for the world in the way in which we treat
all life. Instead, the treatment of animals is Canada's shame.

Last month I endorsed David Suzuki's 10-point plan for Sustainability
Within a Generation. I believe this plan needs an 11th point, one that
pledges that all government laws, regulations and policies should
ensure respect for all life on Earth. Suzuki, Canada's leading
spokesman for environmental responsibility, speaks of the need to
strive for a "sacred balance".

We have a long, long way to go.