There are a lot of organizations that support animals but they don’t all get along. I think this is partly because they have different beliefs about how people should ethically coexist with animals. To understand these differences, we can imagine a spectrum on which animal rights supporters are on one extreme; they argue that it is never acceptable to use animals and that veganism is the only ethical way to live. On the other end, we have animal welfare groups, and it is their belief that our society has an ethical responsibility to provide proper care for animals, but we can eat them and use products they produce (like milk, honey, wool). Now you can see why there can be a lot of beef between these orgnizations (sometimes literally) over these differing ethical stances.

North America is behind in the animal rights/animal welfare movement, and Canada is all over the place. In Ontario, Humane Societies and SPCAs generally don’t collaborate, and they’re not very progressive either. BC is a different story. This organization is united with about 30 adoption centers all over the province, and one provincial office where policy, management, and programs are put together. They are efficient and progressive, and my guess is that it is due to their unity.

My hope is that Canada can pull it’s act together, that we can reconcile our ethical differences and find a way to have a united animal welfare/rights movement. Many organizations will disagree on the ultimate end goal, but in all honesty we are nowhere near achieving them right now. We do, however, share some immediate goals. For example, in the eyes of the law animals are considered property rather than beings who have rights. I think we can all agree that this needs to change, and we would be more powerful if we united to change it together.