"Compassion is not a crime," says Carmen Coburn.

The Kitchener dance instructor is incensed that animal rights activist Anita Krajnc is charged with mischief, after she gave water to pigs being transported to a Burlington slaughterhouse on a hot summer day.

Krajnc is from Toronto and is a leading figure in the animal rights movement. She goes back to court on Nov. 30. Coburn says she will go too, to show her support.

"Animals do feel. They have feelings," Coburn said.

Coburn is part of a growing movement that is seeing animals more and more as sentient, intelligent beings who we humans have no right to mistreat, confine, or kill.

She has attended "heartbreaking" vigils at meat processing plants in southern Ontario where she heard the screams of pigs as they were herded into the building.

She has walked alongside the transport trucks, offering fruit and water to the pigs inside.

She hands out vegan food at barbecue events like Ribfest.

And three times a day, she choose a diet with no meat, fish, dairy or eggs.

Coburn is right to point out a huge double standard between the way we see pets and farm animals.

Dog owners can form deep bonds with their pets. We all get angry, and justifiably so, if we see a dog trapped and suffering in a hot car. We can call the police, who can break into the vehicle, rescue the dog, and lay criminal charges against the owner.

But no one bothers you if you are a farmer who confines a sow to a cage she can't even turn around in, if you don't protect pigs against the extremes of heat and cold on the way to the processing plant. Maybe you're just running an efficient operation.

Pigs are so intelligent: scientists say, that they quickly learn how mirrors work, how to find where food is stashed, and how to jump hoops.

Today, that doesn't stop them being killed en masse. Ten years from now, it might.

On the day in question, Krajnc was standing on the pedestrian island near the intersection of Appleby Line and Harvester Road, which is near the slaughterhouse.

Truckloads of pigs pass by that intersection often. Some have to stop for the traffic lights.

Armed with her water bottles, Krajnc waited for the truck to stop, then began to squirt her bottle through the slats near the pigs' mouths.

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The truck driver tried to stop her, and there was an argument.

Later, she was charged with a count of mischief under $5.000

Krajnc framed her argument in almost Biblical terms. According to a video made of the interaction, when the truck driver threatened to call police, she retorted, "Call Jesus."

"We all have a duty to give food to the hungry, and water to the thirsty," she said later in a television interview.

"We have not only a right but a duty to help suffering animals."

The vast majority of Canadians eat meat. It would be easy for most of us to think of Krajnc's demonstrations as wildly misguided.

But they aren't. Her time is coming quickly.

In 20 or 30 years, we will almost certainly be eating less meat in North America. Prices will be too high, fuelled by rising demand from the growing middle classes in places like China and India.

Meat is bad for the environment, too; livestock farming is a major source of greenhouse gas.

And as animal research shows more of the hidden intelligence of pigs, cows and chickens, it will become less palatable to consume them. By then, Krajnc will be recognized as the social trailblazer that she is.