Michael Zwaagstra is a senior fellow with two Canadian public policy think tanks. His specialty is education, but he writes about a variety of topics and has had a weekly newspaper column since 2009.
A stock photo of hogs, NOT from the events discussed in the column. Imaged licensed to Brian Zinchuk via Storyblocks
One thing most people agree on is that it’s important to help cats and dogs find good homes. When organizations such as the Winnipeg Humane Society take in strays and promote animal adoption, they do a good thing for everyone.
Last week, the humane society applied to set up a booth at the Hanover Ag Fair in Grunthal. Assuming this booth would promote the humane society’s popular animal adoption program, organizers readily accepted their application. After all, thousands of people attended the Hanover Ag Fair, and this would have been a great opportunity to showcase the pets up for adoption.
Sadly, that’s not what happened. Instead of focusing on animal adoption, the humane society set up a booth protesting current hog farming practices. Beside the booth was a cage that people were encouraged to walk into to simulate the limited space that many hogs are kept in while they are being raised on pig farms.
Whatever one thinks about the humane society’s position on hog farming, setting up this booth was an incredibly tone-deaf thing to do. The hog industry is a huge employer in southeastern Manitoba and companies such as HyLife play a key role in our region. To push a hardline animal rights message at the Hanover Ag Fair made about as much sense as promoting atheism in a Steinbach church.
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The problem is that the Winnipeg Humane Society has two conflicting missions. On one hand, the humane society takes in stray animals and helps unwanted pets find new homes. This is a cause virtually everyone supports, and it would have been a welcome message at the Hanover Ag Fair. However, the humane society also engages in political advocacy and pressures governments to change animal welfare laws. This is considerably more contentious, particularly when it targets longstanding farming practices.
When the humane society engages in controversial political advocacy, it loses credibility with the many people who support animal adoption but who cannot get behind an extreme animal rights message. The humane society should choose one lane and stay within it.
For example, Steinbach & Area Animal Rescue is a local group that does fantastic work taking in stray animals and helping them find homes. This organization would never do anything so foolish as to set up an inflammatory booth at the Hanover Ag Festival that directly attacks the hog industry. They know that taking an extreme animal rights position would undermine the broad-based support that they receive in our region.
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In contrast, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) is an American-based animal rights organization that is notorious for its cheap publicity stunts. One of its worst campaigns was the 2003 “Holocaust on Your Plate” campaign. This campaign featured billboards comparing Nazi death camps with images of factory farms. To say that this comparison was disgusting and inappropriate would be an understatement.
Most people consider PETA to be a fringe group—as they should. PETA is so extreme that it wants everyone to stop eating meat, avoid swatting flies, and stop drinking milk. No wonder PETA never gets any support from mainstream politicians.
Obviously, the Winnipeg Humane Society is nowhere near as extreme as PETA. However, the stunt that it pulled at the Hanover Ag Fair was the type of thing that we’ve come to expect from fringe animal rights groups like PETA. While this stunt and the resulting media coverage might have gotten some extra publicity for their cause, it didn’t help any pets find new homes.
The humane society had a prime opportunity to promote its important work on animal adoption at an event with thousands of people in attendance. Unfortunately, it squandered this chance.
Michael Zwaagstra is a high school teacher and deputy mayor of Steinbach. He can be reached at mzwaagstra@shaw.ca.