Okay, great. Thank you so much.
Thank you, Mr. Chair and committee members, for the invitation to speak today.
I’m the farming campaign manager at World Animal Protection. We're an international animal welfare charity. We work collaboratively with stakeholders to improve farm animal welfare, and we are also a member of the National Farm Animal Care Council.
We're here today to talk about the requirements as they relate to the transport of live animals and their welfare during transport. As Ms. Cartwright said, transport is, no doubt, one of the most stressful periods experienced by farm animals during their lifetime.
While we agree with the industry concerns about ensuring that animal welfare is not compromised by a strict adherence to the rules and would support exceptions for certain reasons, such as an unexpected delay due to weather, we are also concerned that flexibility in the requirements will be used as an excuse to extend already lengthy journey times rather than address a system that is broken and in need of repair.
What I mean by that is the centralized slaughter system in Canada—which is controlled by two companies, JBS and Cargill—means that there are limited local slaughter facilities, necessitating lengthy journeys for animals, animals being sold through auctions, and long lineups at slaughter plants. In Canada, it is common for animals to be shipped across the country or to the U.S. for slaughter. The lack of local slaughter options has been identified as a problem by small-scale farmers in several provinces.
World Animal Protection’s recent report highlighting the poor treatment of fragile dairy cows, which was based on CFIA inspection reports and research from the University of Guelph and UBC, shows that cows may be in the system for several days before reaching their destinations. On average, it's three and a half days but sometimes as long as seven to 10 days. Obviously, they will deteriorate substantially along the way. In addition, limited inspections mean that the minimum standards under the health of animals regulations are not always met or enforced.
The examples of long lines at slaughter plants or having to load large numbers of animals at auctions are not appropriate exceptions to the maximum transport times. These issues are sometimes predictable and systemic in nature, and they must be addressed as such. Extending journey times for day-to-day situations should not qualify as animal welfare emergencies, as Canada already has some of the longest allowable transport times in the world.
Thank you.