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An Apology for Canada's Treatment of Animals
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. |
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