Association Québécoise pour la Protection des Equidés

hhttp://www.lerefugedegalahad.com/english.htm

That’s where you will find the Quebec Association for the Protection of Equines.  Located in St-Jean-sur-Richelieu, Refuge Galahad does wonderful work.  I nearly copied an image of a poor beauty, 4 years old, off their site…but my heart couldn’t take it, and I thought yours couldn’t either.  Please visit their site and help in any way you can.

No More Quebec-Bashing

Go here:  Ontario hippophagy  page 15

This is from a gourmet food magazine published in 2005*.  There are so many errors in it about horsemeat that I have to report it here.   Like all good gourmets (that’s “gourmet”, not “gourmand”), they suggest the proper wine to go-with.   Tragically, a Quebec abattoir provides for this clearly upscale market in Ontario:  once again, Quebec is the lapdog of others who furtively buy their product while openly maligning the supplier province.  One of the points I made to a fellow horse advocate this week was that you can’t come in Quebec’s back door, take videos of our abattoirs, and then stand aside remotely with your arms folded and watch our reaction.  It’s akin to your neighbour telling you that you have a dead rat in your backyard and then, offering no help at all, watching you try to deal with it.  I think they got the point:  there’s more French in their material than I’ve ever seen before (though no links but they’ll come around). I try not to engage in internecine or intramural squabbling whenever I can, but I am always made aware (especially when dealing outside Quebec) that I am not “white”, and “ethnics with money” are not welcome at the meetings; they’re only welcome at the accountant’s office.  For my part, I try to stay focused on the horses, whatever is going on.

We need help here.  Distancing yourself from what happens in Quebec just because we speak a different language is not a valid (or useful) option to pursue in the saving of our horses.  Anyway, I think this hedonistic nonsense below speaks for itself.

They Eat Horses, Don’t They?

Quit your squirming. The French don’t seem to mind

High School Confidential

If I hear this comment just one more time, I’m going to spit:  “why are you spending your energy on horses when women and children need your support?”  As I recall, the first time I was reproached in writing about this was in a response from Senator Celine Hervieux-Payette; that was about eight or ten years ago.

Are You Eating Beef Laced with Horsemeat?

The purpose of Section 33 of the Meat Inspection Act was to prevent the mixing of horsemeat with other meats rendered, prepared, packaged, labelled and sold to the consumer market.  By repealing this section of the Act, Canada has jeopardized the food safety of its own citizens (see previous post called “Alert!  Horse Apartheid”). This is a life-altering, backwards step by the CFIA which herein caters only to abattoir owners who don’t want to follow country-wide food safety regulations, and want to butcher horses in their own way.  (For those of who read my book, Ground Manners, you’ll recall the part about “l’abattage au bout de la pelle” [slaughter at the end of a backhoe shovel]. This is where Quebec is headed by pandering to an industry which, rather than be left to its own devices, should, at all times, be monitored for food safety.)

Section 33 repealed as of October 2011 in the Meat Inspection Act of 1990 originally read thusly:

33. (1) Subject to subsections (2) and (3), during the time a food animal other than an equine animal is slaughtered at a registered establishment, a carcass of a food animal other than an equine animal is dressed at a registered establishment or a meat product derived from a food animal other than an equine animal is processed, packaged or labelled in a registered establishment, the registered establishment shall not at the same time contain a meat product derived from an equine animal and shall not thereafter be used for the slaughtering of an equine animal, the dressing of the carcass of an equine animal or the processing, packaging or labelling of a meat product derived from an equine animal unless

(a) all meat products derived from a food animal other than an equine animal have been removed from the registered establishment;

(b) the registered establishment has facilities that are suitable for handling equine animals and for the slaughtering of equine animals; and

(c) an inspector has certified that the registered establishment meets the requirements of paragraphs (a) and (b).

(2) The meat products required by paragraph (1)(a) to be removed from a registered establishment may be kept in the registered establishment if they are locked in a separate room under the control of an inspector.

(3) Where a meat product derived from an equine animal is processed in a registered establishment, a meat product derived from a food animal other than an equine animal may, for the purpose of being combined with the meat product of an equine animal, be kept in the registered establishment.

For those who haven’t read the text of why Section 33 and other sections were repealed (see link in prior post), the reason the government did this was to accommodate small business owners of abattoirs who cannot afford to meet the requirements of the CFIA’s policies and procedures.  (Well then…why have a CFIA at all?)  

Alert! Horse Apartheid

A dear friend just sent this to me:  Amendments (as of Nov 9/11) made to the Meat Inspection Act of 1990 include repealing Section 33 which heretofore segregated the rendering of horsemeat from the rendering of other animal meat.  If this is true, then the reason horsemeat had originally been kept separate will return:  it will accidentally or by human error become mixed in with other meat products sold to consumers.  Go here