Baby calves, just weeks old, are kicked, punched, slapped and yelled at by barn employees. Some are grabbed by the testicles to force them into narrow wooden stalls. Several lie gasping for air on slats stained with urine and feces.

These are among the disturbing images revealed in undercover video footage shot by Mercy for Animals Canada, an anti-cruelty animal activist group, at a milk-fed-veal complex in Pont Rouge, outside Quebec City. It was obtained by CTV’s W5 as part of its investigative report on the Quebec veal industry.

At the Pont-Rouge barn, about 800 calves are subjected to harsh treatment and inhumane confinement for the entire 18 to 20 weeks of their short lives, the undercover investigation reveals. They are housed in crates so narrow they can’t turn around or lie down comfortably. Many are tethered by chains around their necks.

The crates, most of which are no more than 49 centimetres wide, are designed to prohibit exercise and normal muscle growth in order to produce tender veal. The calves are fed a milk-substitute diet deliberately low in iron so their flesh will stay pale.The calves don’t go outside to play, breathe fresh air, clean themselves or bond with their mothers. They never see sunlight, the Mercy for Animals investigator says. Most of their time in the barn is spent in the dark.

Veal farming is a direct byproduct of the dairy industry since all veal calves are male offspring of dairy cows. Dairy cows must be impregnated annually to continue producing milk. About half of their calves are male and of no use to dairy farmers.

Quebec is the largest producer of milk-fed veal in Canada, producing 80 per cent of the so-called white veal. In 2013, 165 farms in the province raised almost 150,000 milk-fed calves.

The undercover investigator with Mercy for Animals, a non-profit organization that campaigns against what it calls “cruel farm practices,” applied for the job at Pont-Rouge through an online job site and worked there for two months with a hidden camera.

In an interview, the investigator said he “lost count” of the number of calves that died while he was there. “For some of the time, it was a calf every day. We’d go in and there’d be a dead calf in his crate.”

Animal technician Jean Jacques Bonnet is employed by les Industries Agroveau, the company that owns the calves. It is his job to visit barns like this one every week to monitor conditions, and Agroveau designated him to speak to W5. (The barn’s owner rents out the barn to Agroveau and has nothing to do with the animals’ care.)

W5 showed the video to Bonnet, who had offered the undercover investigator a job. Visibly shaken by what he saw, he insisted he was not aware of what was happening there. He blamed the workers who, he noted, are no longer employed at the barn.

“If I had been here and witnessed what I saw in the video ... well, I am strong enough to grab someone by the shoulders and throw him out even if it would cause me problems afterward,” he said.

In Quebec, there is a Code of Practice setting out the conditions for the treatment of veal calves. Last updated in 1998, its 20 pages are filled with recommendations on the care and handling of veal calves. The code is voluntary.

“I’m unaware of any code that exists,” the undercover operative said, adding that he was “never told or shown any sort of guideline” on how to deal with the calves.

Toronto lawyer and animal-rights activist Lesli Bisgould noted that there are many laws, provincial and federal, that address animals in agriculture. “They’re very minimally related to the welfare of the animals themselves. Their focus is human safety and making sure the product is clean.”

In one horrific sequence on the video, a worker shoots a gravely ill calf with a .22-calibre rifle. The animal does not die right away, but suffers on the floor bleeding profusely from the head. The worker returns and fires a second bullet to the head.

The video was also shown to Fabien Fontaine, a key member of the Quebec Veal Association and the owner of Delimax Veal, one of the largest producers of milk-fed veal in the province. His company delivered the calves to the Pont Rouge barn and will pick them up to take them to the slaughterhouse. His drivers also deliver the milk byproducts to the barn to feed the calves.

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Fontaine pointed out that Delimax does not own the Pont-Rouge operation.

He described the video as “sickening and unacceptable. It’s unacceptable that people can do that.”

Asked if his drivers ever reported mistreatment of the calves when on delivery, he replied: “I didn’t see anything. I didn’t hear anything.”

However, he did concede that the video will definitely give a “black eye” to the industry. “Unfortunately, it’s always negative. We can’t stop it now.”

But he noted that the treatment of milk-fed veal calves in Quebec will soon be much more humane.

Fontaine took W5 on a tour of a Delimax veal operation near Drummondville, east of Montreal. There calves are raised in group pens that allow them to mingle with one another and allow a little more room to move around. They even get an occasional treat of grain and corn.

He added that this new system will be the norm in the Quebec veal industry by 2018. But the new rules, like the current ones, will not be legally binding.

There are 120 veal operations in Quebec that use wooden crates, about 75 per cent of all the barns in the province.

The European Union banned veal crates in 2007. A handful of U.S. states have banned crates and the American Veal Association wants producers to eliminate them by 2017. In Canada, pressure is growing to take calves out of the crates.

Quebec’s barns, Fontaine said, “will have to adjust to the new system of animal treatment, conform to the freedom we give these animals today … or stop production.”

Cruel Business airs at 7 p.m. Saturday on CTV’s W5.

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