Ottawa-A proposed ban on the transport of live horses to Japan for slaughter poses no threat to the rest of the Canadian livestock industry, humane specialists have told the Commons agriculture committee.

Barbara Cartwright, CEO of Humane Canada, said that while her organization supports the ban, it does not see it as “the slippery slope that's going to try to end the meat industry, as some over-emotional arguments claim.”

The horses are different than all the other livestock slaughtered for food in Canada, she said. “We're discussing approximately 2,500 horses whose welfare is at risk because they are uniquely shipped by air to the other side of the world to be killed, which does not ensure that the animals' fear, anxiety and pain are kept to an absolute minimum prior to that killing.”

Brittany Semeniuk, Animal Welfare Specialist with the Winnipeg Humane Society, said, “The slippery slope argument that putting an end to live horse exports will lead to ending other animal agricultural industries is nothing more than repetitive fearmongering.”

The process of shipping live horses “via air for slaughter overseas raise many animal welfare concerns and the practice cannot meet the :requirements for a humane death and therefore should be banned.”

Reducing health and welfare risks associated with shipping horses overseas by airplanes would require a total overhaul of the transportation process to an extent that the industry would cease to be feasible or profitable, she said.

Cartwright said Humane Canada works collaboratively with the agrifood sector to improve the standards of care for farmed animals so they are protected from physical and psychological suffering from birth to death.

She said the animal care codes for various farmed species “are the result of years of negotiation between many different parties, all with conflicting views and interests, and that the codes often represent the minimum, not the highest, standards of care. In addition, they are not legally binding across most of the country.

“With regard to transport regulations, while recent amendments do mark a vast improvement, they do not reflect the gold standard of animal welfare, nor were they developed in a vacuum, free from external pressures.”

Erin Martellani, Campaign Manager with the Montreal SPCA, said the scientific evidence indicates the physiological peculiarities of horses make them very ill-suited to transport by plane. “They endure anxiety, pain, fear, exhaustion, thirst, hunger and panic during their long journey by cargo plane from Canada to Japan. As a result, the SPCA believes that it's impossible to export them for slaughter without causing them pain, she said. “The practice is irremediable and must be banned.”

The Canadian Food Inspection Agency should “improve current regulations for all animals transported domestically and exported abroad.”

Cartwright said the care codes developed by the National Farmed Animal Care Council are the product of many groups trying to come to a consensus and, as a result, are not the highest animal welfare codes of practice.

“We continue to collaborate in other ways with industry, because we believe that they are in control of hundreds of millions of farmed animals and their welfare and we want to be in partnership to advance animal welfare in Canada.”

This news item was prepared for National Newswatch