#banhorsecarriages #notl

So, maybe you’re a fan of horse racing! Maybe the thought of a fairy tale carriage ride fills you with romantic notions. Maybe you love to watch skill and show of strength with rodeos. There are many ways horses and humans have interacted over the years, but usually it was more of a display of mastery than mutuality; control rather than connection.

Humans have made a definite division between species, with them being at the top of the list, and lesser creatures following, all with their own levels of importance as it relates to humans. (This is an important point. Their level of importance in what humans consider to be the grand scheme of things, not God or a higher power or even nature itself.)

Due to the fact we have this imaginary commodity ladder, we in the west have applied arbitrary rungs of prestige. While it is ok to eat a pig, cow or chicken, eating a dog or cat is taboo. Most of us in the west hold horses to that same class. It would shock us to see horse rump roast in our grocery freezers, and I suspect there would be much wailing and gnashing of teeth as a result. Not so much in Asia or the EU, but guess where they get much of their horsemeat from?

Yep. Canada.

The horsemeat industry in Canada is flourishing. It’s actually a multi-billion dollar industry here which feeds people over there. Quite literally.

More than 54,000 horses were sent to slaughter for horsemeat in Canada in 2016 to the tune of $31 million. Since 2017, Canada has not released any new stats – apparently, the last two slaughter plants functioning are owned by one family, the Bouvry’s, who cite privacy concerns.

The Bouvry’s own multiple feedlots: two in Alberta and one in Montana, at least. There is little governance regarding animal care, and starvation, lack of shelter and illness are rampant and have been well documented over the years at Bouvry’s many sites.

So having established from where the Asian and EU markets receive their horsemeat: Canada – we should examine where the industry gets its horses.

Horses sold and shipped for horsemeat are typically cast offs from other segments of the horse breeding industry. They could be race horses, trail horses, pack horses, circus horses, rodeo horses, family pets, farm horses and carriage horses. Any horse cast out from wherever it was situated, any horse no longer needed, wanted or able to serve its original “purpose” will be auctioned off. Here, horses are displayed and inspected and hemmed and hawed over until a financial agreement is reached, at which point, they are off to their new situation. If they are lucky, they will be forced into a life of servitude elsewhere, if they are not, they are sent to slaughter.

Therefore, oppressive industries such as carriage rides, horse racing, and breeding are direct contributors to the abhorrent horsemeat industry.

When you ride in a horse carriage, you are forcing that horse, that being, to pull you and a 1,000 lb cart through heavy and noisy traffic, in heat and cold, on pavement not meant for hooves, breathing in exhaust, and deafened by blaring horns. All so you can, what….look cool? Feel special? See the sites? Well, now, you can also go about your day knowing you used someone without their permission, of which the physical activity will contribute towards their eventual ill health, which will then result in them going to Alberta to be slaughtered for meat. As a commodity, the owners will want every last drop of value that product has. And you just helped seal that deal.

By riding in the carriage, you are telling the carriage ride owners and all the people around you, horses are not as important as you are. They are deserving of only an existence in servitude, answerable to human superiority only. And eventually, that viewpoint results in that horse’s death – and countless others as well.

You can argue there is no “mistreatment” of the horses pulling carriages, and maybe that’s true. Maybe their “owners” love them, groom them, feed them, and provide veterinarian care regularly – maybe not – but maybe they do. Does that negate the loss of their freedom? Their right to choose how they want to live? Do you think horses PREFER to be hooked up to 1,000 lbs and drag it around all day, to be controlled, told when to move, when not to, yanked around by metal bits in their mouths? Or do you think this life of subservience is tolerated because having been born into this oppressive system, that is all they know? Somewhere in their life they have been taught to disobey is to be disciplined. Much like a beaten dog will grovel to it’s “master”, so will any animal do what is expected of them when the consequences of disobeying have been made clear. And after all this, after years of working in whatever capacity they were in, after years of earning money which the business owners lived on, the final insult is to go to auction, because in the end, they are a commodity and every last penny they can earn must be achieved.

The horse carriage industry is, in and of itself, also a dangerous business. The following is an excerpt from PETA, and is not completely current and is only U.S. related.

July 19, 2020/Charleston, SC: A horse
pulling a carriage for the Old South Carriage
Company took off running and sustained
serious injuries. He was euthanized.
February 29, 2020/New York, New York:
A horse was euthanized after collapsing in
Central Park.
February 4, 2020/New York, New York:
According to NYCLASS, a horse took off
running after stepping on an electrical plate
and receiving a shock. The horse ran for
several blocks before crashing into a pole
and collapsing.
February 2020/New York, New York:
According to news reports, a pedestrian
witnessed a carriage horse running loose
for several blocks before crashing into a poll
and collapsing. The horse had apparently
stepped on an electrical plate and the driver
lost control.
December 27, 2019/Charleston, South
Carolina: Two horses pulling a carriage for
the Palmetto Carriage Works company took
off and damaged several cars. One
passenger jumped out of the carriage.
December 24, 2019/Aspen, Colorado: The
driver of a horse-drawn carriage, who was
standing outside the rig, sustained a broken
leg after an SUV ran into her and the
carriage.
December 14, 2019/Highland Park,
Texas: A driver reported that he was
attempting to get between two parked cars
when a horse-drawn carriage carrying eight
to 10 people tried to do the same and they
struck each other.
In a separate incident, a woman reported
that two horses pulling a carriage took off
running and slammed into a concrete wall.
One of the horses reportedly sustained a
fractured skull and a broken back.
December 1, 2019/Riverside, California:
Two horses pulling a carriage at the city’s
Festival of Lights became unhitched, ran
“full speed” down the street, and hit waterfilled plastic street barricades. Both horses
incurred “road rash.”
August 11, 2019/Clinton, Maine: A
carriage crashed after one of the horses
pulling it apparently became agitated when
bitten by an insect. The carriage hit a
telephone pole, a car, and then another
telephone pole before coming to a stop. All
four passengers were injured, and one was
airlifted to a hospital in critical condition.

Niagara on the Lake, ON is no exception. Although accidents have been less frequent than in larger cities, there is still an inherent danger to horses being in traffic, no matter the size of the town.

This particular accident was considered minor, with no charges laid, and yet, the potential for serious injury and death was there. However, rather than questioning the unviability of having horses pulling carts in the 21st Century in a busy tourist area, rather than recognizing not only the dangers but the moral ethics of horses still pulling carriages in this day and age, rather, questions were raised about removing vehicular traffic from tourist areas, in order to prevent future accidents.

Nobody had the forethought to consider “maybe we shouldn’t have these beautiful beings pulling lazy tourists around to see the sights” in all weathers and traffic conditions. Nobody wondered if maybe having horses in our city streets – in any streets – was even a sensible idea in the first place. Nobody thought of the horses’ well-being at all.

Niagara-on-the-Lake is a tourist area rich in history, architecture, and landscaped beauty. With the titanic Lake Ontario beachfront area, parks, hotels, shops, the traffic is dense during tourist season. At that time, it is not reflective of the slow pace of a small town. It is as chaotic and bustling as any large city’s downtown core. No traffic lights mar the old-timey façade, rather a series of 4-ways graces the main street, depending entirely on an individual’s sense of timing. With so many things to see, so much hustle and bustle, so many pedestrians, a proliferation of old and antique cars honking and blaring music, the potential for a missed cue is great, and it’s only a matter of time before an accident causing death occurs.

Let’s put horses where they belong: in pastures, and leave the streets to the vehicle traffic, for which these streets were designed. The options for alternate means of a quaint and enjoyable sight-seeing tour are endless: electric carriages, bicycles, pedal carriages. All viable and sustainable options which free horses from their archaic roles, respecting their life and individual needs as we like ours to be respected.

Let’s stop supporting these oppressive industries so the bank of available horses for the horsemeat trade is also depleted. If you ride horse-drawn carriages, you are a direct contributor to the horsemeat trade.

Do you want that on your conscience?

“Get A Job!”

It’s a cry I hear frequently while protesting. It’s directed at those of us who are taking time out of busy schedules to bear witness to the suffering and cruelty of the animal agriculture system and other forms of speciesist control and oppression.

And I wonder: why do these people think we don’t have jobs? Why do they assume we are all dirty hippie layabouts, who do not contribute to society and don’t pay taxes? I mean do they think we mooch off of society, hanging out in our communes wearing Jesus sandals and dashikis, clouds of questionable smoke wafting around our heads?

Time management: heard of it?

Sure, we are obviously not at work at that moment in time; some have days off, some have later shifts. Some of us are retired, having spent our lives working, contributing and paying taxes (and still are) and are now enjoying free time but choosing to do something positive with it. But there we stand, at our corners, with our signs, peacefully bearing witness to beings destined to end up at slaughter mere moments later, and all around us the hue and cry “Get a job!” echoes around us continuously.

I saw comments on a thread on Facebook a few days ago, and someone posted the “get a job” remark, to which I replied, “Why do you assume they don’t have jobs?” And you know what he said? He replied, “Well they obviously they have too much time on they’re hands.” (sic)

So there it is, peeps. If you have spare time after work, and decide to do something constructive with your time, such as exercise your Canadian Charter Rights and Freedoms, then YOU HAVE TOO MUCH TIME ON YOUR HANDS.

Apparently, to be a legitimate contributing member of society, you must work all day and night, with only enough time to get a few hours sleep in between shifts. If you have extra time on your hands, and maybe go shopping, or to the library, or lounge in your backyard, or protest something you feel strongly about, then YOU HAVE TOO MUCH TIME ON YOUR HANDS.

I kid you not. This is a thing.

Then I noticed something: the opposition had protesters too. Morning, afternoon, evenings, whenever we were there, they were too. Did they all quit their jobs to keep up with us? They must not realize they now also have TOO MUCH TIME ON THEIR HANDS, and so it might be helpful if we yelled “Get a job!” at them now. I mean, if we are there, and they are there, WHO’S WORKING?? Who is keeping our economy going, paying the taxes, supporting medicare and social programs? Because now we all HAVE TOO MUCH TIME ON OUR HANDS!

I don’t know if our country can ever recover from this.

Basically, the phrase “Get a job!” directed at activists infers our cause is unimportant and should therefore be abandoned in pursuit of more productive tasks. But who is the arbiter of what’s important and what is not? Who decides which task qualifies as important to society and which impedes it’s advancement?

Rosa Parks, MLK Jr in background
Stock Photo

I understand we have opposition: people who disagree with us. Maybe even hate us. There is a fundamental belief out there that those who shake up the status quo are bad, troublemakers, malcontents, maybe even criminals. It appears it has never entered their heads that protesters are the people who bring about change; who bring issues to the forefront of awareness in society. All the things in this world that we have accepted now as the norm were all once issues which were fought over, with many, many dissenters. Emancipation, desegregation, the vote for women, abortion & bodily autonomy, child sexual abuse, Indigenous rights, corporate glass ceilings: all these issues drew blood in society. People died to bring about these changes, and we’re still fighting for them today in many cases. Who are these people who fight for these improvements?

Us. Activists. And it has ever been so since the dawn of time.

And what’s important to realize is we don’t have to be activists to make ourselves heard. There are many ways to bring about change. Activism can be as simple and as quiet as living a certain lifestyle with conviction: no fanfare needed. Lead by example.

But there are some of us who like to make a little noise, shake things up, challenge the “man”, plants seeds and just generally kick society in ass and get some discomfort going to fertilize those seeds of thought. That doesn’t make us bad; it doesn’t make us toxic; it doesn’t make us unemployed layabouts, either. It does however, scare people.

Humans historically feared the unknown.; We burned witches, despite the fact they healed the sick; we oppressed different cultures, even while appropriating goods and actions within their communities – because it was unexplainable. As cave dwellers, we didn’t travel far from our homes – to do so was to challenge our survival. Predators, extreme weather, starvation, murderous rogues from other tribes: these were our enemies and being away from the cave put us in jeopardy. Routine was familiar, safe. Introduction of some new element or being meant things were different, unknown, and it created rampant and widespread fear, because our and our tribe’s safety was dependent on knowing the who, what, when, where, and why’s of our environment. Changes are rarely welcomed with open arms, and even today, that is still typical . Despite all our advancements and technology, we are still animals and we still have a need for security for our survival.

So activists with radical ideas and loud voices threaten not only everything we hold dear, but our very existence! Obviously, most people will oppose the new ideas and are fearful of the strident message: it challenges the margin of safety we have put around ourselves. It introduces elements of the unknown and we sure as heck can’t have that!

One of the arguments against protests I hear from people is that we “disturbed their peaceful, lovely day.” Well, duh. That was our intent! They weren’t going to hear our message magically with feathers and sparkles blown in by a gentle breeze a la Disney stylez. People don’t sit up and take notice of quiet, pretty messages floating by on clouds of inconspicuousness. You send someone a message like that, where does it end up? Still floating – forever and ever. And ever.

Captain Paul Watson, Canadian Citizen and founder of Sea Shepherd Conservation Society

No, the way to catch attention, make people sit up and think, is to be loud and maybe even obnoxious. Activists want to disturb you; they want to interrupt lovely days; they want you to hear their message. It might be the only way you will actually HEAR it. Once you hear it, it stays with you, and you think about it. And you may disagree, in fact, as history as shown, you probably will disagree – emphatically. But eventually, as you continue to hear the message over time, in different ways, some subtle, some not so much, your opinion might change. And that seed of thought, that bud of transformation is how we as society grow and progress from cave dwellers to a civilized society.

We in Canada have an unalienable right to civil disobedience. It’s in our Charter of Rights and Freedoms. We are allowed to gather in public, peacefully – but not necessarily quietly. We are allowed to express our views publicly by any way we choose – yelling, talking, leafleting, creating dramatizations, marches, public spectacles, signage, speeches. We are allowed to disturb your peaceful day. We are allowed to disrupt traffic, to agitate. We are allowed to ROCK YOUR WORLD.

That is our job.

As Ghandi said, “First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.”