Canada’s Farmed Animal Welfare Progress In 2023
The Canada Animal Welfare Scorecard is an annual report produced by Mercy For Animals (MFA) that rates Canada’s major food companies on their progress about three key animal welfare issues: keeping laying hens confined in cages, confining mother pigs to crates, and raising and slaughtering chickens for meat.
On each of these issues, MFA evaluated Canadian companies on their public commitment, transparency, and progress throughout their supply chain. Researchers used publicly available information to assess and monitor the brands they’re holding accountable.
Regarding their commitments, nearly a hundred companies had pledged to ban chicken cages as of 2017, and many had pledged to ban pig crates. A smaller number of companies, such as Ikea and Starbucks, also pledged to adopt the Better Chicken Commitment (a set of standards meant to improve chicken welfare practices).
Despite these promises, the authors argue that progress has been either slow or non-existent. They found a serious lack of transparency in many companies, with some, such as Domino’s Pizza, providing no policies, reporting, or roadmaps on how they will address animal welfare for laying hens, broiler chickens, and mother pigs. For the vast majority of brands, public information on these issues was partial or non-existent.
For many companies, this lack of transparency made it difficult for the authors to analyze progress in Canada’s food sector. For example, the Canadian Pork Council estimated in 2019 that it would reduce crate confinement by 50% by 2022. Since then, the authors claim that the Council hasn’t published any public data on this issue. Because of this, the authors believe that their progress was nonexistent. The same problem occurred with companies that pledged to adopt the Better Chicken Commitment but never reported updates.
However, some companies provided enough public data to assess their progress. This was especially the case for caged laying hens. Overall, progress on this issue was extremely low, with just a 1% increase in laying hens raised cage-free in Canada from 2019 to 2022. Over the same period, the U.K. went from 58% cage-free to 75%, Europe from 50% to 60%, and the U.S. from 23% to 34%. In other words, Canada seems to be lagging behind other regions.
The report also found that there are still some companies, such as Whole Foods and Ikea, that are making efforts and showing noteworthy progress. However, these brands seem to be in the minority.
According to the authors, one of the problems is that Canada’s farmed animal industry isn’t regulated by law, leaving companies free to regulate it themselves. As a result, despite increasing profits, companies haven’t invested in these issues, preferring to invest elsewhere.
However, despite the behavior of Canadian companies, the report suggests that consumers care about transparency and animal suffering. These factors play a role in their purchasing decisions and the trust they place in companies. For example, the authors highlight research that shows 8 out of 10 Canadians would be more likely to buy a product from a transparent company. 80% of Canadian consumers also believe that egg-laying hens shouldn’t be confined in cages.
Overall, the report reveals some concerning insights about animal welfare progress in Canada. Based on these findings, advocates in Canada should consider running awareness campaigns and reminding people that despite commitments to animal welfare, some companies aren’t reporting progress or being transparent about their welfare policies. Generating public criticism may pressure the worst offenders into taking action on animal welfare.
https://mercyforanimals.org/canada-scorecard/