The reality for Canadian pigs

I have a really specific anxiety when going inside a farm, uninvited. 

I don’t want to be discovered beforehand; I want to be able to get inside without breaking anything; and I want desperately to get it done and share the story of the animals inside with the outside world.

When entering, I then experience another desperate feeling: dread. For the sights I’m about to witness; for the sounds and smells that assail my senses. There’s ammonia racing up my nose and tearing at my eyes, miscellaneous particles in the air entering my lungs, and screams of the animals as well as the loud machinery battering at my ears.  All of these visceral reactions you don’t get to see in my photos, in my videos.

I’ll choose a Quebec “farm” for this story. The word farm brings to mind beautiful scenes of animals grazing on green pastures, of the farmer’s family leaning over a wooden gate and chatting with their neighbour. The reality is a hidden world of cruel animal confinement, all behind closed doors. There’s signs that say no trespassing, and no animals to be seen outside, apart from those thrown away in the garbage bins filled with pink bodies of various sizes.

What stays with me? The sad eyes of the breeding female pigs as they look up at yet another human; who won’t free them from their awful existence.  They know they’re trapped in the gestation crate, unable to even turn around. After they’re artificially inseminated they’ll be marched over to the farrowing crate to have their babies. The cycle starts all over again once the innocent piglets are removed. What a horrendous life.

The ‘fattening’ area was such a horror show. The young pigs lived in a thick sludge of their own excrement and urine. One of them had a hacking cough.  The mix of flies, rodents and sludge are perfect conditions for the next pandemic.

I just couldn’t understand how the owners allowed other humans, often immigrant labour, to experience these awful conditions.

The young pigs crowded to us, hoping for food. I offered them a gentle touch on their snouts. It was hard not to retch, to cry. All I could do was document the vile conditions, the huge cobwebs hanging from everywhere, the corroded electrical equipment, and the misery and confusion of the pigs.

Barn fires happen all the time; animals burn to death. I know why – the ammonia corrodes, the cobwebs provide the fuel, and the lack of fire prevention equipment ensures an efficient and deadly fire. The insurance companies pay the ‘farmer’. They don’t care about the inhabitants.

I and 11 others were arrested in Quebec, at Porgreg, the small family farm factory we entered. The police had refused our demands to have media visit and for the politicians to hear us out.  It took 2 years for our trial to happen.

As the judge was reading our ‘guilty’ verdict, he said our footage was poignant, and powerful. He wouldn’t have said that about a factory producing nuts and bolts. It begs the question – when is the law going to recognize animals as more than mere things?

You can follow our action via #PigTrial4.

Whatever the outcome, it’s not anything compared to the life and death sentence given to the pigs in their prison.

Jenny McQueen