Animal Advocacy in Canada (Animal Ask)

Executive summary

Canada is a unique case study exemplifying the effects of industry capture and protectionism. The Canadian animal agriculture industry has been effective at maintaining beneficial agricultural policies and limiting progress towards better welfare and conditions for farmed animals. This makes Canada a country of contradictions, with widespread and growing interest from the public for progress for animals (1) alongside abjectly cruel and unnecessary practices such as seal hunting (2), fur farming (3) and the use of cages in agriculture (4). A lot of work remains to bring animal protection legislation in line with public expectations and the interests of animals.

For Government and Civil society actors striving for change, it is important to focus efforts on the species, campaigns, and policies that will bring about the biggest improvements. With this in mind, we have identified three main priority reforms. All of these asks are high-priority and would potentially make highly impactful campaigns.

1. Ban or limit unnecessary fish stocking: Fish stocking is undertaken for two purposes in Canada, firstly for recreational purposes and secondly for commercial purposes with approximately 40 to 100 million and 370 million stocked each year respectively. Fish are raised for this purpose in hatcheries and then released into the wild, often dying shortly after. Only a tiny percentage are ever recaptured. Although these are intended for conservation, in many cases they have adverse effects on the wild salmon (5); the broader ecological effects are frequently recognized as neutral or even negative, making the practice a vast waste of life and resources. Instead, the net result is, at best, a subsidy for the fishing and angling industry at the cost of the environment and taxpayers.
2. Work on regulatory capture and code reforms: There are strong indications of regulatory capture (undue industry influence) in Canadian animal agriculture. This campaign would challenge the legitimacy of industry self-policing, focusing in particular on the strongest manifestation of this, the industry lead codes of practice.
3. Cage-free campaigns for layer hens: Canada lags behind any comparable country, including the UK, EU and even the US, on its continued use of caged systems (6). The scientific consensus is clear: cage-free systems are “clearly superior to conventional cages and furnished cages even soon after a transition to cage-free environments” (7). Unfortunately, this means such a basic reform remains a high priority for animals in Canada.

We also highlight another promising reform called the Better Chicken Commitment (“BCC”). Which, while a significant improvement, but is less tractable than the main priority reformsIt would still be worth pursuing during particular policy windows or if you are well placed to make progress on this issue.

Ultimately these priorities should be selected and adapted based on the political landscape at the time and the position of the advocate or group. If you are interested in advocating for farmed animal welfare in Canada and none of these campaign opportunities are suitable for your circumstances, then we encourage you to reach out to Animal Ask. We have additional research on a wider variety of options not covered in this report due to their lower priority.