Animal abuse in Canadian lab exposed

[Catherine]

An undercover worker shot video that exposes abuse in a Canadian testing facility.
This facility uses animals of all kinds in great numbers. Many dogs and primates are used and pigs. These animals endure more than enough abuse just being there. The way the technicians treat them is unacceptable.

http://news.google.ca/news/url?sr=1&ct2=...t=1&at=dt0


http://news.google.ca/news/url?sr=1&ct2=...t=1&at=dt0

The actual W5 documentary airs tonight. If you can see it live it would be good. I will try and find a link later.

Exposing the truth is the first step to changing things. I question whether most of these test are even necessary in the first place. We know there are good alternatives to animal testing. Making animals suffer for cosmetics is never acceptable.
Hopefully the video will result in charges against people and the company.
It is a start.

[LPC]

From the first article:
"Canada is the only G8 country that does not have federal government inspectors with the power to enforce rules governing animal treatment in research labs."
Why, Catherine?

[Catherine]

Quote:From the first article:
"Canada is the only G8 country that does not have federal government inspectors with the power to enforce rules governing animal treatment in research labs."
Why, Catherine?

I have no idea why are rules are so poor. We are so used to thinking of ourselves as the good guys who are so polite that we forget that we actually need to act like the good guys we think we are.

I don't know if we can blame this on a particular government. The current government didn't cause this. They just haven't fixed it yet. They have not been in power that long.
We have had some bad Prime Ministers who wouldn't have wanted to fix things. If you go back far enough, nobody had rules either. I think we just haven't done anything to regulate lab animals now that the world is starting to know that we should regulate things.

Bringing the issue to the public will help. Governments respond to public pressure. The private members bill that would have protected animals might have failed because it covered too many areas. People were scared of the possible applications of the bill. It might have been better if it had tried to do less because it could have passed and had a chance to do some good.
We have our work cut out for us.

[LPC]

I understand what you have written, Catherine. But I still find it strange that Canada has no inspectors appointed by the government. In the UK, vivisection has been subject to inspection since 1876. That is nearly 150 years ago! The law has been supported by governments of all political leanings over that period. It is not a party political issue. There is an interesting article here:
https://www.publications.parliament.uk/p.../15004.htm

From that article: "The most recent Home Office report was published in 2001 and relates to the year 2000. It shows that there has been a significant downward trend in the number of animals used in the UK over the last 25 years, so that the number now is only just over half of what it was then." The licensing and inspection procedures - which take up considerable time for labs - has no doubt acted as a spur to develop alternatives without using animals. Tissue culture experiments are now much more popular amongst researchers, as this eliminates the need for animal welfare inspections. Even cancer research is often carried out without animals - e.g. Cancer Research Wales will no longer give money to researchers using animals (although, sadly, Cancer Research UK persists supporting use of animals).

[Catherine]

Clearly the UK sets the standard that the rest of the world must strive to achieve.

I can see the problem with regards to Canada. The movement in the UK started in 1876. Canada was established as a separate country in 1867. We just missed being a part of the movement towards the humane treatment of animals in or out of the lab.

The other problem is a quirk of how Canadian Government works. Things are regulated at three different levels: Federal, Provincial or Municipal. Sometimes there are jurisdictional issues and there is always a fight about who is supposed to pay for things.
Animal welfare laws would have to be passed on a province by province basis.

This is what I could find about Canadian regulations.

https://www.google.ca/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&...Ux0qqXADUQ

It seems that by law we are obligated to test on animals. There is little done to protect those animals.

I don't know if this helps explain the situation.

https://www.google.ca/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&...l_osmuj78g

If I am understanding it, you could get a bigger sentence for giving water to pigs that are dehydrated from transport conditions,
than the sentence you would get if you let the pigs die of thirst.

When it comes to animal protection we have next to nothing. This is why the animal activist groups in Canada are so important.

I am posting a link to a W5 news broadcast. I hope you can play it. I tested it and it plays for me.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PaUwM-7SuS0

W5 refers to who, what, when, where, why. They are a reliable source of information.

[LPC]

Thank you for the clarification. A sad situation, which looks to be difficult to resolve because of the different levels of administration and law.

[Catherine]

Most issues can't be solved by one federal law. Provinces could put laws in place, but they don't have the will to do it. They can ban pit bulls quickly enough, but they can't protect animals from abuse.

I am not sure that labs are not under federal jurisdiction even though the animals they use are a provincial issue. 

If people became aware of the abuse and cared enough to protest the government would pay attention. However with a federal election 2 1/2 years away, they are not going to react.

It is worse at the city level. They debate issues to death and make decisions and then revise them, scrape them and make new decisions and then go back and start the whole thing over again.
Go take a ride on the Scarborough subway, no wait a minute they haven't started building it yet.