Mr. Speaker, the second petition is signed by thousands of people who are concerned about the importation of macaques from Cambodia.
In 2022, the International Union for Conservation of Nature raised the classification of long-tailed macaques from “vulnerable” to “endangered”, pointing to their exploitation by the experimentation industry as a factor in the species' plummeting numbers and heightened risk of extinction.
In 2023, the U.S. stopped importing monkeys from Cambodia because authorities amassed evidence that permits were falsified. Meanwhile, imports of long-tailed macaques from Cambodia to Canada increased by 350% in just one year.
These thousands of people are calling on Environment Canada and the Minister of Environment and Climate Change to order an immediate suspension of all endangered monkey imports from Cambodia.