Good afternoon. Thank you very much for the opportunity to appear before the committee today to speak to this incredibly important issue.
As Canada's leading national animal law organization, Animal Justice wholeheartedly supports Bill C-355, which would end the export of live horses from Canada for slaughter overseas. This is a relatively new practice, which appears to have started less than 20 years ago, when an American company relocated to western Canada.
Exporting live horses to Japan for slaughter causes significant and unnecessary suffering to horses. For this reason, the vast majority of Canadians from all provinces and of all political stripes support a ban on this practice.
Horses shipped to Japan for slaughter endure an extremely long and stressful journey and are subjected to conditions that are much worse than those sport and show horses see when transported to and from events. I've observed these shipments with my own eyes many times at the Winnipeg airport. I have watched as workers jab horses with poles to get them off the trucks and have seen them loaded into small wooden crates barely larger than their bodies. Once they're in these open-sided crates, they wait on the noisy airport tarmac to be loaded onto the planes, even during frigid winter temperatures.
In contrast, Air Canada's equine transport service ships a maximum of 18 horses per flight, ensuring spacious conditions and humane conditions for transport. Horses transported for slaughter are often loaded onto flights that carry 100 horses—or even more—at a time. You heard a lot this morning about how the rules are the same, but in practice the conditions are different.
The committee has before it clear and compelling scientific evidence showing that the way horses are exported for slaughter, the way they are treated, is completely unacceptable and puts them at risk of fear, panic, extreme thirst, hunger, fatigue, injury and illness. Some have even died en route.
Tragic incidents of horses dying during transport or becoming seriously injured are deeply concerning and highlight the dangerous nature of this practice. However, I want to be clear that even when horses survive the journey without any apparent injuries, their welfare can still be severely compromised, as the expert evidence before you clearly shows. These are animals with a high centre of gravity, highly sensitive hearing and strong flight instincts. Recent scientific research shows that even short road trips of three or more hours can affect horses' endocrine and immune functions.
The time to end this practice is now.
I've heard some committee members suggest that our existing laws are enough to protect horses exported for slaughter, but as an animal protection lawyer, I would like to be absolutely clear that this is not the case. Provincial animal welfare laws and the federal Criminal Code are seldom used in the agricultural context. They are primarily applied when someone is deliberately cruel to an animal, such as beating an animal or starving them. Suffering caused by standard industry practices, including transport overseas, is exempt.
The health of animals regulations prohibit transporting horses for more than 28 hours without food, water and rest, but even that meagre limit is not always enforced. Just this week, Animal Justice was in court in Winnipeg, where a judge agreed to lay a charge against a horse export company for a shipment that went well over the legal limit and during which at least three horses collapsed. The CFIA refused to take enforcement action.
We calculate how long these horses are denied food, water and rest based on when the plane touches down in Japan, as if the second they land they're given food and water and they can immediately rest. Of course, we know that's not the case. The reality is that the horses' journey is far from over at that point. After the dozens of horses are unloaded from the planes and taken out of their crates, they're loaded onto trucks and then transported to quarantine facilities. The fact is, I don't know how long that journey takes. We simply do not know how much longer the journey goes on after the plane touches down, but it raises serious concerns that many of these shipments may actually go over the 28-hour limit.
I urge you to support Bill C-355 and bring our laws in line with the values of Canadians.
Thank you. I look forward to your questions.