Here’s a great idea from our friends in Canada. Why not install cameras on factory farms and slaughterhouses? Advocacy group Animal Justice is calling for legislation requiring cameras inside farms and slaughterhouses to improve transparency, accountability and the humane treatment of animals in the agricultural industry. If the animals are not being abused as the meat industry says then they have nothing to worry about.

It’s been said that if slaughter houses had glass walls we’d all be vegetarians. It seems to us that installing cameras is a lot easier than making glass walls.  According to an Animal Justice spokesperson, “Right now, the lives of farmed animals are kept hidden from the public, as animals are mainly housed behind closed doors on private property. Consumers don’t have the right to visit the farms that supply their food, so there is a severe lack of transparency about food production,”

Installing cameras would also reduce the need for animal welfare advocates to surreptitiously document farm animal abuse. Recently, Animal Justice has secretly recorded video exposing shocking abuse on a hog farm. The video, which it says was shot between April and June this year, shows pigs enduring abuse, injuries and neglect.

Animal Justice is calling for legislation requiring cameras inside farms and slaughterhouses to improve transparency, accountability and the humane treatment of animals in the agricultural industry. We think it would also protect workers from abuse. We think this a great idea and wish we could have similar legislation on this side of the border.