Last month, Mercy for Animals Canada, a new national organization based in Toronto, released their second undercover investigation into a Canadian factory farm.
This time, it was at Burnbrae Farms—McDonald’s Canada’s egg supplier—in Alberta, where egg-laying hens face daily violence and confinement, restricting birds from performing any of their natural habits.
Approximately 700 million animals suffer in factory farms in Canada each year. Egg-laying hens are often de-beaked with a hot blade, confined in battery cages and male chicks are often ground alive, as they are useless to the industry.
Most pigs raised for food in this country live their entire lives in gestation crates, unable to turn around and are castrated, usually without anesthesia.
Chickens raised for meat are packed into small sheds and often suffer from injuries as a result of being bred to grow as quickly as possible.
Dairy cows, too, are usually confined in small stalls, some of their calfs are taken at birth to contribute to the veal industry, and they are kept continuously impregnated by artificial insemination.
This investigation into Burnbrae Farms, and others like it, help to dispel the common myth that this is not a Canadian issue. In fact, virtually all animals raised for food live on intensive farms, indoors for nearly their entire lives.
Factory farming is the most efficient way to raise animals for food and these practices go widely unregulated. In fact, the Criminal Code’s animal cruelty provisions have gone mostly unchanged since 1892.
In both Canada and the United States, these practices are standard, hardly regulated, and hidden from public scrutiny.
While most, upon finding out about factory farming, become saddened by the realities of the production of animal-based food products, many will feel that this is not something that we can or should spend time concerned with.
Yes, there are many injustices happening in the world, and some of them will seem more pressing to some people than the issue of factory farming. However, factory farming hurts all of us.
The pollution and health hazards which come from dispelling large amounts of manure from farms, deforestation across the globe to make way for industrial farms and animal feed, and the inefficient use of grains and water to feed large amounts of animals for food, are a few of the detrimental outcomes of the global phenomenon of factory farming.
Animal welfare aside, industrial farming is of pressing concern.
Cutting back on animal products is becoming easier every day. Vegan and vegetarian options are basically anywhere you look, here on campus, and in Ottawa.
You can go to Auntie Loo’s Treats for a vegan cupcake or whoopie pie, and even enjoy vegan poutine at Zen Kitchen.
Making vegetarian choices is very inexpensive, as well. While the meat and dairy substitutes can sometimes be a little pricey, they are a great occasional treat and a healthy, delicious vegan diet is possible without them.
When learning about global injustices, it is often difficult to feel empowered to help the cause. As students, we often lack the time and money to have the capacity to make big changes in the world around us, especially those occuring far away.
Factory farming is in our own backyard and is something that we all have the power to educate ourselves about and choose alternatives.
Even by cutting out meat and other animal products for a few days a week, or trying “Meatless Monday,” each individual has the ability to reduce the suffering of animals.
Each time we sit down to a meal, we have the power to say to the factory farming industry and to say to one another: I will not accept this.
