Confined in wooden crates, 99 horses were loaded into an airplane’s cargo hold at the Edmonton International Airport last month.
Like thousands of others before them, the animals were bound for Japan where their meat, served raw, is considered a delicacy.
Horse welfare advocates are hoping the shipment will be one of the last.
“When horses for slaughter are shipped, they are crammed into these crates,” said Sinikka Crosland, president of the Canadian Horse Defence Coalition.
“It’s a horrific journey.”
Live exports are banned in the United States and Britain, and horse advocates who condemn the slaughter have long called on Canada to follow suit. As Ottawa mulls a proposed a ban on live exports for slaughter, horse activists and industry advocates are clashing over whether a ban is justified and the potential consequences.
Canada is among the leading exporters of horsemeat in the world. Thousands of horses — raised solely for slaughter — are shipped out of the country each year. It’s a lucrative but controversial multimillion-dollar business that is now facing an uncertain future.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, in a December 2021 mandate letter to Agriculture Minister Marie-Claude Bibeau, vowed to end exports of live horses for slaughter.
The Prime Minister’s Office is supporting a private member’s bill tabled by Liberal MP Tim Louis in September calling on the government to make good on that promise. Lawrence MacAulay, who took over from Bibeau as Canada’s agriculture minister this summer, has said he takes the issue, and animal welfare, seriously.
The bill calls for a prohibition on the export of horses for slaughter, with fines of up to $250,000 or a two-year jail term for people found guilty of participating in the trade.
Domestic slaughter would be untouched by the proposed legislation.
The food chain
Horsemeat, described as soft and sweet, is considered taboo to many North American palates but it’s no stranger to Canadian kitchens.
Especially popular in Quebec, the meat is stocked in grocery stores and butcher shops and can be found on the menus of high-end restaurants across the country.
The vast majority of consumer demand, however, can be found overseas with live exports accounting for the bulk of the Canadian industry.
Horses can be sold into meat production and slaughtered for the domestic market.
Animals destined for live export, however, are purpose-bred and begin their lives on sprawling feedlots.
There are two remaining slaughter plants in Canada — Viande Richelieu in Massueville, Que., and Bouvry Exports Ltd., in southern Alberta. Bouvry operates the largest horse slaughter plant in the country. It’s surrounded by feedlots for the horses that serve its supply chain. The company declined to participate in an interview with CBC.
By the numbers
More than 85 per cent of Canada’s horsemeat is exported. According to the Canadian Meat Council, major markets include Japan, Switzerland, France, Belgium and Kazakhstan.
Horses are shipped by air from Calgary, Edmonton and Winnipeg to Japan where they can fetch up to $9,000 each.
According to Statistics Canada, about 2,600 Canadian horses were exported for slaughter in 2022.
All went to Japan, at a total value of $19 million.
Data collected by Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada shows that between January and March of this year, 899 horses were shipped out of the country.
The Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) says 45,000 horses destined for slaughter were shipped abroad between 2013 and 2023.
The journey
The journey for horses destined for slaughter begins at the feedlot.
Mostly Clydesdales and Percherons, horses are loaded onto trucks and delivered to the airport tarmac where they examined for signs of disease. The animals selected for transport are loaded into wooden crates and packed into the plane’s cargo hold.
After they arrive in Japan, the horses are fattened for at least three months before they are slaughtered. Their meat, served uncooked, is coveted by consumers who pay upwards of $45 per kilogram for the delicacy.
Called basashi, it has earned the nickname “cherry blossom meat” for its unique flavour and texture.
Horses in crates are loaded onto a cargo plane in Winnipeg, bound for Japan. (Provided/Jennifer Woods)
Canadian food export regulations dictate that the animals in transit should spend no more than 28 hours without food, water or rest. Prior to February 2020, the maximum transport time was 36 hours.
The CFIA says it monitors the shipments closely and that strict health checks ensure the welfare of the animals aboard each flight.
Horses spend, on average, 20 to 22 hours in transit, according to the CFIA. Five deaths in transit have been reported to the agency over the past decade. The mortality rate at all stages of transport is 0.011 per cent, the agency said.
Welfare fears
Animal welfare advocates filed a legal complaint with the federal government after a December 2022 shipment of live horses from Winnipeg to Japan exceeded the 28-hour limit.
The complaint, and a petition promoted by Canadian singer-songwriter Jann Arden, have helped throw calls for a ban back into the spotlight.
Crosland, president of the non-profit advocacy group Canadian Horse Defence Coalition, said the conditions in transit are cruel. Horses are prone to panic and don’t cope well with confinement, she said.
The coalition is seeking an outright ban on the horse slaughter but considers live exports particularly problematic.
The group has been monitoring the transports for years, gathering records and capturing video footage of the shipments.
Too often, regulations are broken and time limits on transports exceeded, Crosland said.
“Often, they’re sitting on the tarmac for hours,” she said. “They have no food, water or rest.”
Regulations under scrutiny
Industry advocates say the sector is an important part of Canada’s livestock economy, one that has been unfairly maligned by activists.
Jennifer Woods, a Calgary-based livestock handling expert who conducts animal welfare audits for the transport industry, said exports are strictly regulated and conditions are humane.
Japan doesn’t accept live horse exports from any country other than Canada. The Japanese market is particularly obsessed with quality, Woods said.
“There are so many checks and balances,” she said.
“It really comes down to the end use of the animal. And the end use of an animal should not define what their welfare is during their life.”
More than 45 standards regulating the density of shipping, length of transport and overall animal health are enforced, Woods said.
For example, loading density regulations enforced by the International Air Transport Association require that horses weighing around 725 kilograms be given 1.7 square metres of space when transported in crates that hold three animals.
When they are shipped to Japan, horses are provided with more than two sq. m of space when loaded three to a crate, she said.
Woods said thousands of animals exported from the country every year under similar conditions.
“We export pigs, we export cattle, and we export them all under the same regulations and requirements so I just really struggle with the idea that air transport is only inhumane when it’s export horses bound for Japan’s meat market,” Woods said.
“We don’t all have to agree on whether horses should be consumed for meat. Nobody has to agree on that. But we should agree that regulations and bills are actually based on facts.”
Horses awaiting slaughter stand in a feedlot. The Canadian Horse Defence Coalition describes the conditions for the animals shipped overseas as cruel and inhumane. (The Canadian Horse Defence Coalition)
Bill DesBarres, chair of the Horse Welfare Alliance of Canada, opposes a ban on live exports.
He said the horsemeat industry is no different than any other aspect of the livestock industry, and the sector is being unfairly villainized.
DesBarres spent decades breeding Appaloosas near Medicine Hat, Alta. When his operation was still active, he sold a handful of old horses each year for domestic slaughter. He said he enjoys eating a variety of meat, including horse.
He said the domestic market provides a humane and useful end-of-life option for animals that old or sick.
We raise livestock to provide a source of protein to humans who want to eat it.– Bill DesBarres
“I respect many people who would rather not eat any meat,” he said. “That’s fine. That’s their privilege and their prerogative.
“But we raise livestock to provide a source of protein to humans who want to eat it.”
DesBarres said it’s frustrating to see politics pose a threat to suppliers and breeders across the country. “A lot of people fear for their business and their livelihoods,” he said.
A question of culture?
Dylan Gordon, a Halifax-based anthropologist and food culture researcher, said the proposed ban raises important questions around the politics of food and which animals are considered of value.
When people view animals as companions, the idea of eating them becomes morally abhorrent, he said.
Gordon cautioned, however, that the current debate over the Japanese market’s appetite for raw horsemeat echoes historic, xenophobic beliefs while neglecting other problematic practices within Canada’s meat industry.
He said it’s important that Canadians think critically about their own food choices.
“Don’t demonize other people for not eating the same way you do, because there’s plenty of issues in our own backyard.”
GENEVA (AP) — Lebanon filed a complaint against Israel at the U.N.’s labor organization over the string of deadly attacks involving exploding pagers, saying workers were among those killed and injured, a Lebanese government minister said Wednesday.
The wave of remotely triggered explosions that hit pagers and walkie-talkies carried by Hezbollah members in mid-September were widely blamed on Israel, which has neither confirmed nor denied involvement. The blasts which went off in grocery stores, homes and on streets killed at least 37 people, including two children, and wounded around 3,000 people, according to Lebanese authorities, deeply unsettling even Lebanese who have no Hezbollah affiliation.
In addition to fighters, the detonating devices hit workers in Hezbollah’s civilian institutions, including its health care and media operations.
Lebanese Labor Minister Moustafa Bayram and other officials said he traveled to Geneva and formally filed the complaint Tuesday against Israel at the International Labor Organization, a sprawling U.N. agency that brings together governments, businesses and workers.
“This method of warfare and conflicts may open the way for many who are evading international humanitarian law to adopt this method of warfare,” he told reporters at the U.N. compound in Geneva.
“It’s a very dangerous precedent, if not condemned,” he said. “We are in a situation where ordinary objects — objects used in daily life — become dangerous and lethal.”
Speaking in Arabic, Bayram insisted that ILO conventions guarantee the safety and security of workers, who “were in their workplace and had their pagers or walkies-talkies exploding all of a sudden,” according to an interpreter.
“I do not know where the outcome (of the complaint) will go, but at least we raised our voices to say and warn against this dangerous approach that strikes at human relations and leads to more conflicts,” he added.
An ILO spokeswoman said she was not immediately aware of the complaint or what redress might be possible through it.
NEW YORK (AP) — Shares of Tesla soared Wednesday as investors bet that the electric vehicle maker and its CEO Elon Musk will benefit from Donald Trump’s return to the White House.
Tesla stands to make significant gains under a Trump administration with the threat of diminished subsidies for alternative energy and electric vehicles doing the most harm to smaller competitors. Trump’s plans for extensive tariffs on Chinese imports make it less likely that Chinese EVs will be sold in bulk in the U.S. anytime soon.
“Tesla has the scale and scope that is unmatched,” said Wedbush analyst Dan Ives, in a note to investors. “This dynamic could give Musk and Tesla a clear competitive advantage in a non-EV subsidy environment, coupled by likely higher China tariffs that would continue to push away cheaper Chinese EV players.”
Tesla shares jumped 14.8% Wednesday while shares of rival electric vehicle makers tumbled. Nio, based in Shanghai, fell 5.3%. Shares of electric truck maker Rivian dropped 8.3% and Lucid Group fell 5.3%.
Tesla dominates sales of electric vehicles in the U.S, with 48.9% in market share through the middle of 2024, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
Subsidies for clean energy are part of the Inflation Reduction Act, signed into law by President Joe Biden in 2022. It included tax credits for manufacturing, along with tax credits for consumers of electric vehicles.
Musk was one of Trump’s biggest donors, spending at least $119 million mobilizing Trump’s supporters to back the Republican nominee. He also pledged to give away $1 million a day to voters signing a petition for his political action committee.
In some ways, it has been a rocky year for Tesla, with sales and profit declining through the first half of the year. Profit did rise 17.3% in the third quarter.
The U.S. opened an investigation into the company’s “Full Self-Driving” system after reports of crashes in low-visibility conditions, including one that killed a pedestrian. The investigation covers roughly 2.4 million Teslas from the 2016 through 2024 model years.
And investors sent company shares tumbling last month after Tesla unveiled its long-awaited robotaxi at a Hollywood studio Thursday night, seeing not much progress at Tesla on autonomous vehicles while other companies have been making notable progress.
TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) — The first time China faced Donald Trump in the White House, there was a trade war, a breach of protocol involving Taiwan’s former leader, and a president-to-president bromance that turned sour.
Perhaps the biggest consequence for China — if Trump stays true to his campaign promises — is his threat to slap blanket 60% tariffs on all Chinese exports to the U.S.
Tariffs like that would be a blow to China’s already unstable economy, which is suffering from high youth unemployment, a lengthy property slump and government debt. A 60% duty on Chinese imports could shave off 2.5 percentage points, or about half, of China’s projected economic growth, according to an analysis published earlier this year by UBS.
During Trump’s previous term in office, the U.S. imposed tariffs on more than $360 billion of Chinese products. That brought Beijing to the negotiating table, and in 2020 the two sides signed a trade deal in which China committed to improve intellectual property rights and buy an extra $200 billion of American goods. A research group a couple of years later showed China had bought essentially none of the goods it had promised.
President Joe Biden retained most of those tariffs and added fresh duties this year on imports including steel, solar cells and electric vehicles.
Like last time, tariffs could serve as a tool to force Beijing back to the negotiating table, said Henry Gao, a law professor at Singapore Management University who focuses on international trade.
“Given the weak economic position of China this time, I think there will be more willingness to talk,” he said. “Thus, while the tariff might have some short-term effects on the Chinese economy, the situation might improve once they reach a deal.”
Factoring into the trade talks could be Trump’s appeals to Chinese President Xi Jinping to help negotiate a resolution to the Ukraine war, which Trump has boasted he’ll be able to do quickly, without saying how.
Trump previously sought Xi’s help in dealing with North Korea’s rogue leader Kim Jong Un. That dynamic could repeat itself, with Trump weighing trade grievances against seeking China’s support in global crises, according to Wang Huiyao, founder of the Beijing-based think tank Center for China and Globalization.
“China is the largest trading partner of both Russia and Ukraine,” Wang wrote in a recent commentary. “These close economic ties give China a unique opportunity to play a greater role in peace-making efforts.”
Willing to go ‘crazy’ over Taiwan
There is one scenario in which Trump has threatened to impose even higher tariffs — 150% to 200% — on Chinese goods: if China invades Taiwan, a self-ruled democracy that Beijing claims as its own.
The U.S. does not recognize Taiwan as a country, but is its strongest backer and biggest arms provider.
Trump angered Beijing in December 2016 by taking a congratulatory call from Taiwan’s then-president Tsai Ing-wen in a breach of diplomatic protocol. No U.S. president had spoken directly to a Taiwanese leader since Washington and Beijing established ties in 1979.
Trump’s move created anxiety in China-watching circles, but ultimately, he stuck to supporting the status quo in relations between Taipei and Beijing.
China expects him to continue to do so, said Zhu Feng, dean of the School of International Relations at Nanjing University.
“Will (he) want to turn to support Taiwan independence? It is unlikely,” he said.
As for China’s repeated threats to annex Taiwan, Trump told The Wall Street Journal last month that he would not have to use military force to prevent a blockade of Taiwan because Xi “respects me and he knows I’m (expletive) crazy.”
On the campaign trail, Trump sometimes talked up his personal connection with Xi, which started exuberantly during his first term but soured over disputes about trade and the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Trump has purposely maintained a sense of uncertainty in his relationship with China, said Da Wei, director of the Center for International Security and Strategy at Tsinghua University in Beijing.
“We are clear about the challenges,” he said. “As for opportunities, we are yet to see them clearly.”
Disputes over chips
During his first term, Trump began targeting Chinese technology firms over security concerns, focusing on large companies like the telecoms giant Huawei. Biden continued in that direction by placing curbs on China’s access to advanced semiconductors, which are needed to develop strategic industries such as artificial intelligence.
But Trump has criticized Biden’s CHIPS and Science Act, a bipartisan bill that earmarked $53 billion to build up domestic manufacturing of semiconductors. Currently, Taiwan produces nearly 90% of the world’s supply of the most advanced chips.
The island’s largest semiconductor manufacturer, TSMC, expanded production in Arizona, partly to respond to the CHIPS Act, and to be prepared to withstand any other protectionist policies in the U.S., said Shihoko Goto, director of the Indo-Pacific Program at the Wilson Center.
Trump has promised to do away with the CHIPS Act, though critics say that would undermine his campaign to reindustrialize the U.S. The president-elect has also accused Taiwan of “stealing” the chip industry from the U.S. decades ago.
“Rather than providing a silicon shield, Taiwan’s dominance in the chip industry could actually be the source of tension between Taipei and Trump, as Taiwan’s successes in the chip sector may be seen as having only been possible as a result of the United States being taken advantage of,” Goto said.
