Posted on 2010-12-11

Canadian Horse Defence Coalition (CHDC) Responds to Horse Welfare Alliance of Canada (HWAC)

On November 20, 2010, the Horse Welfare Alliance of Canada released its Recommended Handling Guidelines and Animal Welfare Assessment Tool for horses

On November 20, 2010, the Horse Welfare Alliance of Canada (HWAC) released its Recommended Handling Guidelines and Animal Welfare Assessment Tool for horses, along with the Certified Assessor Standards, a 2-page document detailing the 12 tenets for Certified Assessors which was written to provide comprehensive, consistent animal welfare standards for the handling of horses at processing (slaughter).

Although ill-defined, we can interchange "assessor" with "slaughterhouse personnel". Essentially, this document is the closed-shop equivalent of a confidentiality agreement between Bouvry Inc. and their employees. By affiliation, we can also deduce that the Canadian government arm and working partner of HWAC, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA), endorses this document and HWAC's largest partner, Bouvry Exports Ltd., either gave the nod or were the biggest contributor to its content.

Wading through all the hyperbole, it is interesting that while HWAC demands assessors "make findings, conclusions and decisions based on fact and current science based information," HWAC and the CFIA consistently ignore and deny scientific studies such as the Dodman/Blondeau/Marini report on drug contaminants (Association of phenylbutazone usage with horses bought for slaughter: A public health risk; journal Food and Chemical Toxicology).

Historically the CFIA reverts to in-house drug testing instead of using outside drug monitoring that would render the process transparent and largely infallible. Meantime, Claude Boissoneault, CFIA National Specialist, Red Meat Program, indicated to the CHDC in October 2010 that in the past 5 years, 698 samples of equine meat was submitted for phenylbutazone testing. According to Agriculture Canada slaughter numbers, that is 0.18% of 385,339 horses slaughtered in 5 years - an abysmally weak cross section of testing.

And while they demand that their employees "reveal all material facts known to them" in the likelihood "fraudulent practices" are concealed, both HWAC and the CFIA have continually distorted and denied allegations of cruelty and inhumane practices at the Bouvry slaughter houses. Case in point, in February, 2010 with the release of the CHDC footage (and several years ago with the atrocities at the now-defunct plant in Neudorf, Saskatchewan).

HWAC and Bouvry even went so far as to deny the authenticity of the footage, instead calling the cruel practices portrayed as "fabricated" and could not have come from the Alberta Bouvry plant. It has since been proven and acknowledged that the footage was indeed very real and showed real time cruel and ineffective horse slaughter practices at the Bouvry plant.

There is also an intimidating demand for assessors "not to accept anything of value from anyone that would "impair their professional judgment" - the key word here is "value" - are we to interpret this to mean money or bribes from an outside source? Surely, the most valuable commodity is knowledge and the implication is for the assessor to remain not only dumb to the internal workings of the plant but mute as well.

Mystifying is the statement that assessors "not represent their acts or statements in such a way as to lead others to believe that they represent HWAC." They do represent HWAC; they receive certification by HWAC/CFIA. The agreement is to be signed by an 'auditor' and dated. In fact, this statement is tantamount to saying: Although you are a member of our affiliation and you meet our required standards, you do not in any way represent our organization.

If intended to be ambiguous, it is not. This statement is not only a double standard but also precludes HWAC of any future responsibility should their employees deem to represent themselves as, heavens forbid, their employees. Quite a neat loophole that protects HWAC from being held responsible for any actions taken by their certified assessors or any consequences that may arise due to their actions.

Equally mystifying are the demands for the employee to "strive to use their knowledge and expertise to enhance the welfare of animals...and the agriculture industry." What expertise? Slaughter plant workers are a largely unskilled and under-educated work force, with little if any animal husbandry skills. Witness the cruelty of plant personnel exposed time and time again by undercover footage by the CHDC, Canadians for the Ethical Treatment of Food Animals (CETFA) and Animals Angels. Witness the malice and sheer indifference to animal suffering caught on tape ad nauseam and explain what expertise is at play.

Both HWAC and its resource partners, the CFIA and Bouvry Exports, infamously interchange words in their vernacular to put a party dress on the sordidness of horse slaughter. The last point of these Standards refer to the assessor's "responsibility to the profession." This is not a profession. Horse slaughter plants are a de-sensitizing and de-moralizing environment by their very nature and in no way can these jobs be misconstrued as a career choice. With the exception of degree-toting personnel that do not enter the kill floor, the jobs are temporary and are used as a stopgap for employees before they move on.

The Certified Assessor Standards are thinly-veiled rules explicitly intended to exploit, bully, intimidate and cloister slaughter personnel. Considering that most slaughter plant workers are itinerant, untrained blue-collar workers substantially made up of an immigrant population, it is highly unlikely whether they would even grasp the gist of the document.

One would wonder why HWAC would even release this document if for no other reason than to hang out their shingle that it's "business as usual" for horse slaughter in Canada - and to publicly advertise how supposedly stringently controlled it is. This is of little value to the workers and the partners, but perhaps of greater interest to their targeted audience, the European Union (EU). But if the EU is their targeted audience, they are seriously underestimating not only the EU's scope but their integrity and intelligence as well.

We would like to thank you for your continued support both for the CHDC and for the horses that we are trying to save.

Sincerely,

Your friends at the CHDC.

Working to end horse slaughter in Canada forever

"Help us lead Canada's horses away from barbarism . .
and into the protected pastures of a civilized nation."