When Manitobans dig into their Sunday pork roast, pepperoni pizza or ham sandwich, how many spare a thought for the animal farmed and slaughtered for their momentary meal?
Likely very few, as there is a broad assumption that here in the “bacon capital of Canada,” pigs farmed for food are treated humanely. Canada has animal welfare laws, animal transport laws and humane slaughter laws to protect animals from cruelty, right? Not exactly.
Many Manitoban meat-eaters will surely be shocked to learn that in this province — one of the top pig producers in the country, with over 8.6 million sold in 2023 — we still cram around half of all females (sows) into tiny gestation crates. While captive in these cruel contraptions, animals can’t as much as turn around, causing them to suffer chronic deprivation and stress.
Perhaps equally concerning, though, is that while the hog industry vowed over a decade ago to end this nasty practice by July 1, 2024, here we are, well past that deadline with sows still being confined.
Over 25 years ago, as more Manitobans began to learn about how sows are kept in gestation stalls, public pressure began to weigh on the hog industry.
After many years of meetings and consultations, the industry agreed to enshrine the cessation of gestation stall use by 2024 into the national Code of Practice for Pigs. Hog producers were given more than ten years to shift their practices.
That day has come and gone. Instead, the industry has simply granted itself a five-year extension. This means that sows will continue to be kept in stalls approximately two feet by seven feet — the tiniest space in which to perform all of life’s functions (eating, sleeping, urinating, defecating, giving birth and nursing their young) while being unable to move.
This also all happens above manure pits that release toxic gases of hydrogen sulphide, methane, carbon dioxide and ammonia into the air. Without mechanical ventilation systems, the pigs would suffocate and die within mere hours.
Where does the law come into play with all this? Well in many ways, it doesn’t. This is an industry that essentially polices itself, via voluntary, industry-created codes of practice known as the National Farm Animal Care Counsel, or NFACC codes. These codes determine what treatment of animals can be exempt from the Manitoba Animal Care Act, as “accepted activities,” which include farming practices.
However, if it is considered unlawful to cause an animal “unnecessary” distress under the Act, outside of those “accepted activities,” shouldn’t that mean that gestation crate confinement, which is no longer considered an accepted activity, be considered unlawful as it clearly causes distress?
As thousands of pigs remain torturously confined in this province as we speak, no charges of cruelty have been laid by our provincial veterinarian. This lack of enforcement sends a message to the owners of industrial hog factories, that they are above the law.
Around the world, abhorrence toward the use of gestation stalls has been growing. Sweden was the first country in 1994 to introduce a ban on gestation crates, followed by the UK in 1999. In 2010, New Zealand committed to phasing out their use by 2015, and several states in the U.S. have banned the practice. California and Massachusetts have even banned the sale of any pork that originated from sows kept in gestation stalls.
Recently, 40 scientists from various fields, including evolutionary biology, neural science and psychology came together to issue The New York Declaration on Animal Consciousness.
They are promoting the idea that non-human animals are actually conscious, a concept that the majority of Canadians, and many people around the world, have believed for many years. But as Gwynne Dyer recently wrote for the Free Press: “If you are in the process of reducing most other animal life on the planet to subservience, as we were doing when we built our civilization, this [idea that animals are not conscious] is a comforting opinion to hold. What we are doing to the animals does not hurt them, because there’s no ‘I’ inside them that can feel pain or fear or loss.”
But of course, there is an “I” in each and every animal farmed for food on this planet. Yet here in Manitoba, we seem to be conveniently ignoring this fact, in order to confine sows to tiny crates, exploit their reproduction, before trucking them for up to 28 hours to slaughter, all for a sandwich.
It is long past due that our government step up and put an end to the systemic cruelty inherent in intense confinement, as it’s clear the industry is in no rush to do so.
Vicki Burns is a former executive director of the Winnipeg Humane Society and a founding member of Hog Watch Manitoba. Jessica Scott-Reid is a freelance journalist, animal advocate and sits on the board of directors of WHS.