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Here is the Green Party of Ontario's 1999 policy regarding Animal Rights and

Food.

 

 

ANIMAL RIGHTS

 

The Ontario Greens affirm that we must live in harmony with the natural world.

Human survival depends on the vitality and health of other plants and animals.

 

All species have the intrinsic right to exist without regard to their usefulness

to humankind. All animals, whether wild or domesticated, have the right to fair

and ethical treatment by human beings.

 

 

Killing for Food and Clothing

 

We acknowledge the tradition of killing animals to provide essentials. Further

consideration must be given to the needs of the aboriginal peoples’ right to

determine their practices on their own lands. Whereas there is an established

Green value of non-violence, we encourage a gradual societal shift towards a

plant source diet because it is more compassionate.

 

 

Hunting and Fishing

 

We would:

- Ban hunting with rifles, trapping with the leg-hold trap, and fishing with

electronic fish finders.

- Advocate a strategy that would re-establish predators such as the wolf and

lynx in southern Ontario. We would eliminate predator bounties.

- Increase funding to conservation officers to stop illegal sport hunting and

poaching, and increase the penalties for poaching.

- Ban the use of hunting dogs province-wide.

- Ban hunting, trapping and fishing in all protected areas, including all

classes of provincial parks, conservation areas and Crown game preserves.

- Ban hunting for sport (as distinguished from hunting for sustenance). This

means banning the killing of wildlife for entertainment, recreation or trophies.

 

 

Animals in Agriculture

 

We would:

- Establish and enforce standards for the care of farm animals.

- Outlaw the use of furs on ornamental, as opposed to survival, clothing.

- Gradually phase out battery farming through stringent measures to favour

free-range husbandry.

- Ban the sale and production of milk fed veal and any other agricultural

practices requiring continuous close confinement.

- Encourage a reduction in meat consumption with an educational campaign.

- Ban the transport of live animals over long distances.

- Ban the use of growth stimulants in animals and the routine use of antibiotics

in animal feeds.

 

 

Animals in Research

 

We would:

- Ban the use of animals for the testing of cosmetics and household products,

for psychological research, and other non-medical research.

- Set up independent, community based committees to review all research projects

using animals.

- Eliminate unnecessary vivisections for educational purposes.

- Fund research into alternatives to animal testing for medical research.

 

 

Animals as Entertainment

 

We would ensure that:

- Animals imported for zoos were born in captivity or are part of projects to

save a threatened species

- No new forms of entertainment using animals (such as dog racing, rodeos,

bullfighting) are introduced .

 

 

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FOOD

 

Greens believe that having sufficient nutritious food is a basic human right. We

recognize that at present we are poorly nourished and overfed. The vitamin and

micro nutrient contents of food has decreased dramatically in the last few

decades. Pesticide residues in food are a constant cause of fear. The present

food system encourages mono-cropping, chemical farming, centralization, over

processing, long distance transportation and the substitution of chemicals for

all manner of ingredients in our food.

 

It is well known that Ontarians suffer greatly from an inordinate amount of

heart disease, strokes and cancer. There is sufficient evidence in the medical

community to advise the public that these and other debilitating and fatal

diseases are preventable through changing to a vegetarian or near-vegetarian

diet. The provincial economy is overburdened by disease care costs that are a

direct consequence of the meat, egg and dairy diet. As well, the provincial

landscape has been denuded of trees in order to produce feed crops to grow

sheep, pigs, chickens, cattle and other animals that are turned into meat, dairy

and egg units for sale and consumption. This lack of trees precipitates soil

erosion.

 

The large numbers of farm animals in Ontario, by virtue of the demand

artificially created by people following the Canada Food Guide (with its

encouragement of dairy, egg and animal flesh consumption), produce dangerous

levels of fecal matter that pollute the water systems of Ontario through

rainwater runoff. the meat, egg and dairy diet is promoted by Health and Welfare

Canada with their Canada Food Guide regardless of the consequences to

the land of Ontario and the health of its people.

 

We would:

- Allow the magnetic strip in the OHIP card to be used to a limited extent for

percentage discounts on purchases of whole, organic Ontario grown carrots,

apples, corn, rye and other local plant-source foods for the sake of encouraging

health promotion and local produce purchases. If our interprovincial and

international trade agreements at the time do not allow our restricting this

health promotion discount to Ontario grown produce, then that restriction will

be lifted. Processed foods (including foods that have been irradiated) and

animal-source foods would not qualify for this discount. The money for this

would come from our junk food tax and the removal of meat and dairy subsidies.

- Require the Ontario Ministry of Health to produce and promote, in a gentle,

encouraging fashion as an ideal, a Food Guide for Ontarians that uses the

recommendations of the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (P.O. Box

6322, Washington, D.C. 20015) as a model upon which to base such a Food Guide -

specifically recommending the introduction of a new set of four, totally

vegetarian food groups, i.e. (1) vegetables, (2) whole grains, (3) fruits and

(4) legumes - with other items mentioned in a sidebar, (e.g. meat, dairy, eggs,

sweets, fats) but not actually recommended for health - until such time as

Health and Welfare Canada changes their current recommendations and produces a

version of The Canada Food Guide that is similar in orientation.

- Reward farmers for converting from chemical to ecological methods of farming.

- Remove subsidies from animal feedcrop farming and animal ranching.

- Encourage the education of the public and especially the children about the

new four food groups, what nutritious food is, how it depends on rich soil,

micro organisms, clean water, and good farming methods.

- Promote strong education to counter advertising aimed at children that does

not encourage good food habits.

- Encourage the consumption of locally grown food

- Encourage appropriate social networks so that children have a nutritious diet.

- Encourage the consumption of food in its natural state with little processing,

no irradiation and no artificial additives or substitutes.

- Discourage research into gene splicing technology that is used to create new

life forms

- Discourage the use of food irradiation

- Require labelling of all foods that have been irradiated.

- Regard chemicals as harmful until shown there is conclusive scientific proof

declaring them safe.

- Not try to control chemicals one by one, using risk assessment methods, but

rather avoid irreversible harm by taking precautions to ban or phase out whole

classes of chemicals as soon as there is any evidence of harm.

 

 

 

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