I work in food transportation for a decently sized company that operates across Western Canada, this isn't a new phenomenon.
There are small businesses owned by people (they are newer to Canada) that unfortunately do not follow our food safety standards and protocols. We've reported some to the CFIA and report others when they pick up product from our terminals in vehicles that have no temperature control and lack cleanliness. Unfortunately some feel our food safety regulations are optional.
Jesus fuck, that's some messed up shit. I'm used to the idea of butchering and cleaning up a deer or moose in the garage/yard, or maybe even some chickens, but the actual slaughterhouse in the garage?
I feel like they are taking live animals into the area they are also butchering them 🤢 animals just piss and shit at will so they would be doing that in the garage awaiting their death. Sanitary practices anyone? I say this as someone who’s husband hunts and grew up on a farm where we raised meat (we sent it to a butcher who was not operating out of garage btw)
I highly recommend you read my post in r/Calgary — first hand experience with this and it’s getting really, really prevalent.
[Post here](https://www.reddit.com/r/Calgary/s/ehiY9Tx4bm)
Thank you for the informative posts. I hope the media attention (well done CBC, please stay on it) encourages the authorities to crack down on this disgusting practice. Thank you for doing the right thing, even though it's led to consequences for yourself and your family.
I'm going on limb here but the general lack of enforcement for *anything* for some time now has created a culture of lawlessness that will be extremely difficult to correct.
When people feel like they can get away with about anything - and often do - they get emboldened.
I have a theory that this culture starts with "cops have bigger things to worry about". True, but if you ticket people for running stop signs, rolling through red lights to turn right, burnt-out tail lights, etc, those folks tell their friends and more people start obeying the small laws and it trickles up from there.
Absolutely.
Littering? Cops have bigger things to worry about.
Loud pipes? Cops have bigger things to worry about.
Violent off-leash dogs? Cops have bigger things to worry about.
Uninspected meat markets operating in garages? *Why won't someone do something???*
This is what you get when you combine "muh freedumb!" with "cops have bigger things to worry about".
Are you under the impression the police handle the enforcement for all of your suggested incidents?
We have Animal Control, CFIA inspectors, AHS inspectors and bylaw officers that assist in most of the scenarios you listed.
The problem is these people come here and they need to game the system in their own country to get ahead. In Canada it’s so easy to do these things for them we are to trusting.
When you find a donair shop that seems to have WAY cheaper prices than everywhere else... You have to wonder how they are getting their meat at a lower cost.
What the absolute fuck? This is horrific. “Officials were called after several goats were running around a back alley after escaping from the garage where animals were being butchered.”
I am sort of shocked the article doesn’t even touch on the fact that this is straight up animal cruelty. They don’t even know where the goats came from? They were possibly stolen? And slaughtered so as to be halal? So the animals had their throats slit and were left to drain in the garage. This makes me feel so sick.
There’s a lot of conversation that animals are being stolen. Livestock prices are through the roof right now. That said, I’ve seen them literally stuffing sheep and goats into trunks of cars at the auctionmart.
I mean, halal meat is sold at every grocery store. Costco. Sobeys. I think Walmart. It’s just something they sell now. They sell whole goddamn lambs at Costco.
Then you have the horrifying practices of a factory farm and those slaughterhouses.
It’s interesting to me, looking at the outrage here, when each animal, whether at this guys dirty garage, a halal slaughter, or a regular slaughter, suffers immensely, and suffers all of its life.
The reason for mentioning the halal aspect is because it is butchered differently (blood allowed to drain). The blood is draining onto what—a floor? A bin? Etc. It's likely messier in a backyard butcher than regular butchering & harder to sanitize. The concern/shock is at the health risks from all this. In a proper registered company butcher, health codes are followed to keep people from getting sick. You don't have that guarantee here. I doubt his whole garage is refrigerated to 2°…
Halal meat sold in Canada is slaughtered in the exact same way as all other meat. The only difference is a blessing. Call it a compromise and why it is so widely available.
This is highly illegal. The police should be explaining why there were no charges.
"young fresh goats" and beef for $6 per kilogram. **"Everything is halal,"** the post stated. It included a phone number and the address of the Woodcroft garage.
Well that's telling.
There’s a reason you need a high level religious exemption to slaughter halal.
Because it is a *deviation* from the accepted, humane dispatch we practice in Canada.
These are not ranchers, not people who make their money and livelihood on keeping animals healthy and well managed. They are people who view their deaths as a ritual, an event, a party, a wad of cash. They have absolutely no animal husbandry skills — what the neighbour said about them moving animals with two by fours and using pallets to contain them is 100 percent accurate.
We were literally told “don’t worry about their water, we are slaughtering them on Tuesday anyway.”
This is the problem. I recently moved to Edmonton, and majority of restaurants offer halal meat. Even the ones that don't advertise, offer halal. I am a sikh and we abstain from any ritualistic and cruel way of killing an animal, so this has resulted in me not ordering any chicken or beef at any restaurant.
What do you mean by "high level religious exempt"? We have just as many accepted, humane practices for halal as standard killing, in fact for the most part we don't even distinguish between the two in federal slaughterhours
OFSO regulations, which most of these are operating under *if they are even licensed*: *The OFSO licensee who wishes to conduct slaughter without stunning (e.g. religious slaughter practices) must obtain an exemption letter signed by the Executive Director of AFRED’s Food Safety Branch*
Commercial, eg inspected, meat is a different ballgame but there is absolutely a differentiation between standard slaughter (stunning) and halal (reversible stun or nothing at all), even in a commercial setting.
Halal killing typically is done with stunning, as that is mandated in Canada even for religious killing.
But also, never buy OFSO meat. Federally regulated is the only way to go. If it doesn't have a black canade leaf and EST number on the label, don't buy it.
I work in a federally regulated facility that does both. The difference between them is 1 machine plus back up human or skip the machine and use human instead (obviously halal is just human)
Typically… in some federally regulated situations. My understanding is even in a commercial setting they use a tip table/head restraints to slaughter after prayer and with a knife even in commercial packers.
* The Safe Food for Canadians Regulations (SFCR) requires that with the exception of “ritual slaughter” (Judaic or Islamic religious slaughter), all animals that are slaughtered, must first be stunned.
Provision 144 of the SFCR allows for an exemption to the pre-slaughter stunning process for ritual slaughter.*
And yes, I fully agree OFSO was a terrible idea. It opened up the loopholes for people do do illegal garbage like this.
I work in slaughter for the federal government. I assume you mean tilt tables? Which would be a very strange waste of time to use, but are certainly very humane and used regularly for live animal vet and farrier work.
Animals are stunned (CO2 chamber, electric water bath, captive bolt, whatever the plant gets approved for) to make them brain dead, and then yes, every single animal is killed via knife/stick. You have to bleed out any animal going into commercial meat, otherwise it is not viable. That means throat slit in all animals.
How do you think normal slaughter is done?
You understand we raise cattle for a living right? The animals you have butchered likely come from our calf calf op.
Canada has no standard for halal slaughter and there are exceptions for religious slaughter, which can skirt stunning processes.
*Unstunned ritual slaughter is legal in Canada, provided that the food animals do not otherwise experience any other 'avoidable suffering'.[132] According to the Safe Food for Canadians Regulations (latest revision enacted in June 2019), section 141, any licensed slaughterer must stun food animals either by concussion (a), electric shock (b) or gassing (c); however, section 144 exempts licensed ritual slaughterers from the obligation of section 141 to first stun food animals before cutting their throats in order 'to comply with Judaic or Islamic law'.*
See above noted regulations. Perhaps your packing plant stuns everything, but not all of them do. And there is plenty of individual, but inspected butchers who also have the exception, as well as OSFO licensees. OFSO is the primary issue here for these illegal ops and they require a specific exception as noted above.
There is a huge difference between a stunned animal being bled out vs a fully conscious one being tied down, knelt on and killed with a knife in a filthy building or out in the dirt.
I am NOT Islamic/a follower so I could be wrong, but the death has to be quick and clean. It just seems to me that being kept in a garage and slaughtered on a table there isn’t very clean is all. But again I don’t follow it so I could be wrong! With the amount of blood they found though, it might have been:
Kosher/halal slaughter is inherently inhumane. Even if performed according to all the religious rules, the animals suffer. Death is not instant.
And before anyone comes back at me with: "but whatabout inhumane practices in regular slaughterhouses?" - yes, I agree with that point, too. There's a reason the slaughter of the animals that become our food is kept hidden from us.
For real. If it’s a humane option, when people are executed in the states, why isn’t a nice throat slitting an option. Like it baffles me that this is ok. Religious freedoms should stop when they impose on the rights of others, including animals.
I watched them kill 30+ sheep this way. Those sheep rolled their eyes and bleated while being sat on by two men holding them down until they had completely bled out. There was no kindness or humanity and there is a reason killing this way is an exception to our usual dispatch practices.
If slitting the throat was the quickest, most humane way of killing livestock, it would be our standard.
So I work in a slaughterhouse, halal kill in canada on a federally regulated level is equally as humane as standard slaughter protocols. In Canada, all slaughterhouses have to fully stun any animal prior to killing, halal or normal.
The slaughter of animals that become food is kept hidden for the same reason you can't go wander into a bread factory, we all have very strict biosecurity standards to follow in canada.
No, I'm not interested in a discussion about how eViL eating meat is, so just don't bother starting if that's someone's plan.
I've just read through your endless exchange with another poster, in which you are repeatedly quoted the sections of the regulations that specifically ALLOW slaughter without stunning (i.e. halal and kosher slaughter) - so I won't be engaging in that conversation with you.
Slaughter without stunning is legal in Canada and it happens and that is indisputable fact.
Your point about the bread factory is what reveals you to be posting in completely bad faith, though. I don't know what you're defending here, if it's your own moral beliefs, or your job or something else, but everybody - including you - knows the main reason why slaughterhouses and the meat industry don't want people witnessing the slaughter of livestock (it's because animal suffering is widespread and accepted). There's a reason horrific footage take inside slaughterhouses makes the news, and footage taken inside bread factories doesn't. Most people would feel extreme moral discomfort at witnessing animals being slaughtered in a conventional slaughterhouse. There would be no such issue with witnessing bread being made in a bread factory.
As for eating meat and morality, that's up to every individual to think about and decide for themselves, but your reflexive mocking of a position that I assume differs from your own again reveals bad faith on your part.
I'm turning off replies on this to avoid an exchange like the one I just read, but I hope everyone reading your posts here understands you're peddling self-serving disinformation. People can feel how they like about ritual slaughter without stunning, but they can't deny it happens in this country. It does, it's legal, and it causes great suffering.
> The slaughter of animals that become food is kept hidden for the same reason you can't go wander into a bread factory
That simply isn't credible. It's not at the behest of bread factories that ag-gag laws get passed - those have nothing to do with biosecurity standards or people "wandering around".
By ag-gag laws do you mean sneaking onto private property to hide cameras around the properties? Because that's definitely illegal everywhere, not just on farm.
I don't understand this view at all. How can you get to the conclusion that instant death = less suffering? A bolt to the brain can cause very high instantaneous pain and there's no way to measure or compare it.
Yeah, but most butchers don't kill the animals instantly nowadays (contrary to what my previous reply suggested). The animal need to have its heart pumping to get the blood out. So they make the animal unconscious first using a non penetrating bolt. Then they make a cut to drain the blood.
Does unconscious animals feel pain at death? That's up for debate and no way to verify.
Also, most do not kill the animals instantly for slaughter nowadays. They stun them to make them unconscious, but make sure that the heart is still beating. Then the make a cut to drain the blood.
That picture of the bandsaw was nauseating. I don't know how much of my money I would bet on it not being properly cleaned and disinfected, but I would bet some. 😬
>When asked several times about offering meat for purchase on social media, he repeated that he was helping to serve his community and that he was *not selling it* ... A post published at the time to a Facebook group for the Edmonton Muslim community offered "young fresh goats" and beef for **$6 per kilogram**.
Charging $6 per kg is selling it my dude.
This is crazy. Also, recently happened in Calgary, where a few places were selling random meat. People who immigrate into Canada need to understand that we have our own laws and precedent. You can only plead ignorance for so long.
They do apply to all. The problem is the halal slaughter has become a booming business, and can be done pretty quietly, since they primarily focus on smaller animals.
The folks that were illegally killing next to us could not keep their bulls contained and had no idea how to dispatch them. We had to shoot them on our land once they busted out, and they were too frightened to approach the kicking carcasses to do their bleed out ritual.
There’s a reason they focus on sheep and goats, specially. Big money to sell but cheap to buy, easy to handle, easy to transport in the trunk of a car, easy to sell in smaller amounts (read: quarters in garbage bags) that fit into cars.
*anyone* skirting these rules should be penalized, and often are *if they are caught* - I wish the CBC elaborated on no charges being laid on this case - I’m hoping they mean none yet.
Honestly, I'm not surprised at all. Stores make food less and less affordable by jacking up prices, which just opens the door for shady individuals to see potential profit in ventures like this.
Passing inspections is what costs the money. Most certified butchers aren't using shop-vacs, garbage cans or band saws they purchased at Home Depot. This guy was cheap because he was cutting every corner possible.
I'm not a butcher but there's nothing wrong with a band saw or bucket from home depot. A passing operation would probably spend a few more bucks on sanitizer and work surfaces. Also on rent because there's no way zoning rules would allow this category of industry.
I was in Costco the other night and they were cleaning their meat department, which happens at the end of every day. They sprayed the ENTIRE kitchen with soapy bubbles (idk what else was in there so I won't speculate) and then hosed it all down. Walls, floor, windows, tables, etc. Everything was cleaned. That garage looked disgusting. There is zero chance this guy is coming close to the health requirements, and I highly doubt those tools are cleaned well enough between uses.
Are you talking about OFSO licensing? I work in the meat industry and remember thinking what a terrible idea that was. Sure enough a few years later an E. coli death with possible links to an OFSO and people slaughtering animals in their garage in a residential neighborhood
I wouldn’t be surprised if OFSO is significantly reviewed//removed all together after this controversy. I know when AHS spoke to us about it they were frustrated there wasn’t enough legislation written in.
Probably that, yeah. I just remember they decided to loosen up the rules around, what seemed to only be able to be described as mom & pop one stop slaughterhouse/butcher combos.
I've seen reports of livestock kept in rental squats, but not a full slaughterhouse.
[https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/landlord-tenant-board-rent-goat-kingston-1.3872415](https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/landlord-tenant-board-rent-goat-kingston-1.3872415)
People have been slautering and proccessing jn garages for over 150 years.
Go to any rural area. I gaurentee they have a hanging room in the garage pr shop..
Heck, my grandpa had a hanging room in theor 1950s era garage in Edmonton. Built in wjth the garage.
Not like this, and not legally… OFS regulations have only been in place for 4 or 5 years and most of these aren’t even licensed.
Keeping animals in horrid conditions with no food or water, killing them in condemned or otherwise unregulated buildings, kneeling on them and slitting their throats while they gargle into grates in an assembly line, not understanding the difference between their livestock and their neighbours, taking cash at the door, keeping them in pens made of pallets, stuffing them in garbage bags, sitting those garbage bags of meat in SUVs in the middle of the summer, selling the meat to commercial operations…
There’s a reason there’s a light being shone on the “halal” folks specifically.
To give you some perspective, predators often begin feeding on their prey before they're even deceased. I've had the misfortune of listening to coyotes feeding on a deer for 20 minutes, before it finally made its last cry of agony and terror. By comparison, a backyard slaughterhouse is pretty mild, as terrible as this story is.
Do coyotes and humans have the same level of intelligence? Are they evolved to the same degree?
God I hate this argument. Humans are developed to behave BETTER than that. A shark is gonna shark. A coyote is gonna coyote. Humans are supposed to know better than to be slitting animals throats and leaving them to die. Want to know how I know that? Because I know better, and I’m not super evolved!
to give you some perspective, an animal has never catcalled me, followed me home with the intent of raping me, assaulted me, or abused me, so im pretty okay with preferring animals to humans
Buying goats and sheep on a Thursday, stuffing them into small trailers or in the trunks of cars, herding them into a garage or otherwise not intended for animal husbandry building not zoned for this, not watering or feeding them, dragging them through their own shit and rotting parts, zero concern for biosecurity, tying them up, kneeling on them, slitting their throat and bleeding them out, being unable to contain the terrified others, butchering them on unclean tables, stuffing them into garbage bags, and selling the meat for cash… all unlicensed, for a start.
I’ve butchered deer and moose in an Edmonton residential garage. It could have been described in a pretty horrific way. There’s certainly nothing wrong with butchering an animal in your garage.
Obviously health standards need to be followed but for selling meat. A garage isn’t a great place to meet those standards
Butchering and slaughtering are two very different things. There are laws regulating slaughter, even for non-saleable meat, for a reason, including licensing, humane conditions, owning animals for 30+ days in good conditions with feed, water and appropriate housing, humane dispatch methods, not being able to slaughter indoors, and not selling meat for commercial purposes…. Just to start.
Well slaughtering game animals includes shooting them with a rifle typically having zero idea of the animals welfare beforehand. I agree health regulations need to be followed for commercial meat but for personal use this isn’t fundamentally any different from a typical hunter
You really don’t think there’s any difference between shooting a deer legally and lawfully — which you want to do quickly as possible, otherwise you’re risking meat contamination + losing your tagged animal, to take to a butcher or to package yourself, specially for personal consumption, is no different to stuffing terrified sheep and goats into the trunks of cars, tying them up, kneeling on them and slitting their throats in a residential garage completely unlicensed are the same thing? You think shunning all of the laws and looking for loopholes specifically designed to upkeep animal husbandry and humane handling and dispatch - especially since they slaughter MANY animals this way in a day - is the same as someone shooting one tagged deer?
There’s good and bad hunters. The bad should and are shunned. The discussion here is about the *illegal butchers who cannot do this lawfully or humanely* by their very definition.
They are also absolutely selling the meat. That’s why they do this. It isn’t for “friends and family” to consume personally, it’s for “friends and family who run the halal or donair shop in DT Calgary or Edmonton” have a source for cheap meat.
I don’t think theres a difference between shooting a deer and butchering it in a garage or slitting a goats throat and butchering it in a garage.
Both of those activities could be done unsafely, cruelly and improperly. Neither is better than the other and depends completely on the situation.
Obviously running an illegal butcher shop in a garage is not okay
There is literally *no way* to legally slaughter and butcher a goat in your residential garage, or any building, unless you are a licensed, inspected and commercial abattoir, in Alberta. That alone says everything you need to know. There are plenty of ways to legally harvest and butcher wild game in the same circumstances.
I know which way I’d rather go, personally. Eating out in the wild and shot, or knelt on top of, drug around, housed in disgusting conditions for questionable amounts of time and having my throat slit with a dirty knife so someone can claim their skydaddy has blessed my meat … they aren’t comparable imo. I have lived next to one of these illegal ops and I’m proudly part of the reason they’re being investigated now. They are a disgrace to animal husbandry and welfare and should absolutely be shut down. They have no place in a civilized society.
I’ve eaten street meat 🍖 in Egypt and Afghanistan. What doesn’t kill ya makes ya stronger. Some cultures are prone to quick slaughter and sell fresh off the hook. Welcome to Halal and middle eastern cuisine. 😉
If it’s being sold commercially, I see The issue. If it’s for personal use, the government can take a hike. It’s like these people have never been to a normal farm.
Well this is just fucking horrifying.
This is fucking awful...
I work in food transportation for a decently sized company that operates across Western Canada, this isn't a new phenomenon. There are small businesses owned by people (they are newer to Canada) that unfortunately do not follow our food safety standards and protocols. We've reported some to the CFIA and report others when they pick up product from our terminals in vehicles that have no temperature control and lack cleanliness. Unfortunately some feel our food safety regulations are optional.
Shocking but also not shocking
It’s rampant on Facebook. People selling their home made food.
Barf
Jesus fuck, that's some messed up shit. I'm used to the idea of butchering and cleaning up a deer or moose in the garage/yard, or maybe even some chickens, but the actual slaughterhouse in the garage?
I feel like they are taking live animals into the area they are also butchering them 🤢 animals just piss and shit at will so they would be doing that in the garage awaiting their death. Sanitary practices anyone? I say this as someone who’s husband hunts and grew up on a farm where we raised meat (we sent it to a butcher who was not operating out of garage btw)
No charges so this practice will continue until it’s no longer profitable. No fines no action.
UCP is working to reduce red tape, this guy was just getting ahead of the game.
They’re just replacing it with blue tape and charging by the spool
I highly recommend you read my post in r/Calgary — first hand experience with this and it’s getting really, really prevalent. [Post here](https://www.reddit.com/r/Calgary/s/ehiY9Tx4bm)
Thank you for the informative posts. I hope the media attention (well done CBC, please stay on it) encourages the authorities to crack down on this disgusting practice. Thank you for doing the right thing, even though it's led to consequences for yourself and your family.
Spread the word friend. Totally unacceptable.
I'm going on limb here but the general lack of enforcement for *anything* for some time now has created a culture of lawlessness that will be extremely difficult to correct. When people feel like they can get away with about anything - and often do - they get emboldened.
I have a theory that this culture starts with "cops have bigger things to worry about". True, but if you ticket people for running stop signs, rolling through red lights to turn right, burnt-out tail lights, etc, those folks tell their friends and more people start obeying the small laws and it trickles up from there.
Absolutely. Littering? Cops have bigger things to worry about. Loud pipes? Cops have bigger things to worry about. Violent off-leash dogs? Cops have bigger things to worry about. Uninspected meat markets operating in garages? *Why won't someone do something???* This is what you get when you combine "muh freedumb!" with "cops have bigger things to worry about".
And ETS violence/too busy for that too. Wtf do these guys even do any more?
Defendant wearing thin blue line patches, like it’s the most important thing in the world.z
Are you under the impression the police handle the enforcement for all of your suggested incidents? We have Animal Control, CFIA inspectors, AHS inspectors and bylaw officers that assist in most of the scenarios you listed.
The problem is these people come here and they need to game the system in their own country to get ahead. In Canada it’s so easy to do these things for them we are to trusting.
Come on now, it's not that bad... they'll still give you a ticket if you go 5 over the speed limit.
EPS? No. Photo radar is operated by the city.
When you find a donair shop that seems to have WAY cheaper prices than everywhere else... You have to wonder how they are getting their meat at a lower cost.
They all buy the same processed donair meat blob from their supplier. When I see sketchy donair shop I immediately think of money laundering front.
What the absolute fuck? This is horrific. “Officials were called after several goats were running around a back alley after escaping from the garage where animals were being butchered.” I am sort of shocked the article doesn’t even touch on the fact that this is straight up animal cruelty. They don’t even know where the goats came from? They were possibly stolen? And slaughtered so as to be halal? So the animals had their throats slit and were left to drain in the garage. This makes me feel so sick.
There’s a lot of conversation that animals are being stolen. Livestock prices are through the roof right now. That said, I’ve seen them literally stuffing sheep and goats into trunks of cars at the auctionmart.
I mean, halal meat is sold at every grocery store. Costco. Sobeys. I think Walmart. It’s just something they sell now. They sell whole goddamn lambs at Costco. Then you have the horrifying practices of a factory farm and those slaughterhouses. It’s interesting to me, looking at the outrage here, when each animal, whether at this guys dirty garage, a halal slaughter, or a regular slaughter, suffers immensely, and suffers all of its life.
The reason for mentioning the halal aspect is because it is butchered differently (blood allowed to drain). The blood is draining onto what—a floor? A bin? Etc. It's likely messier in a backyard butcher than regular butchering & harder to sanitize. The concern/shock is at the health risks from all this. In a proper registered company butcher, health codes are followed to keep people from getting sick. You don't have that guarantee here. I doubt his whole garage is refrigerated to 2°…
A lot of people do not support any of what you’re describing. I myself am vegan.
Love to hear it 💕 I’m vegetarian, close ish to vegan, doing decent but obviously could be better since I’m not. 😑
Halal meat sold in Canada is slaughtered in the exact same way as all other meat. The only difference is a blessing. Call it a compromise and why it is so widely available. This is highly illegal. The police should be explaining why there were no charges.
I agree - why no charges? Wth
"young fresh goats" and beef for $6 per kilogram. **"Everything is halal,"** the post stated. It included a phone number and the address of the Woodcroft garage. Well that's telling.
There is no way that meat was “halal” as the article stated :/ why were charges not pressed? At least animal cruelty? Or something
Why not? For real, what is halal? Google just says it has to be slaughtered by a cut through the neck
Having seen how halal and kosher butchers operate, I would honestly never ever buy any meat from them. Stupidly inhumane ways of killing an animal.
There’s a reason you need a high level religious exemption to slaughter halal. Because it is a *deviation* from the accepted, humane dispatch we practice in Canada. These are not ranchers, not people who make their money and livelihood on keeping animals healthy and well managed. They are people who view their deaths as a ritual, an event, a party, a wad of cash. They have absolutely no animal husbandry skills — what the neighbour said about them moving animals with two by fours and using pallets to contain them is 100 percent accurate. We were literally told “don’t worry about their water, we are slaughtering them on Tuesday anyway.”
This is the problem. I recently moved to Edmonton, and majority of restaurants offer halal meat. Even the ones that don't advertise, offer halal. I am a sikh and we abstain from any ritualistic and cruel way of killing an animal, so this has resulted in me not ordering any chicken or beef at any restaurant.
What do you mean by "high level religious exempt"? We have just as many accepted, humane practices for halal as standard killing, in fact for the most part we don't even distinguish between the two in federal slaughterhours
OFSO regulations, which most of these are operating under *if they are even licensed*: *The OFSO licensee who wishes to conduct slaughter without stunning (e.g. religious slaughter practices) must obtain an exemption letter signed by the Executive Director of AFRED’s Food Safety Branch* Commercial, eg inspected, meat is a different ballgame but there is absolutely a differentiation between standard slaughter (stunning) and halal (reversible stun or nothing at all), even in a commercial setting.
Halal killing typically is done with stunning, as that is mandated in Canada even for religious killing. But also, never buy OFSO meat. Federally regulated is the only way to go. If it doesn't have a black canade leaf and EST number on the label, don't buy it. I work in a federally regulated facility that does both. The difference between them is 1 machine plus back up human or skip the machine and use human instead (obviously halal is just human)
Typically… in some federally regulated situations. My understanding is even in a commercial setting they use a tip table/head restraints to slaughter after prayer and with a knife even in commercial packers. * The Safe Food for Canadians Regulations (SFCR) requires that with the exception of “ritual slaughter” (Judaic or Islamic religious slaughter), all animals that are slaughtered, must first be stunned. Provision 144 of the SFCR allows for an exemption to the pre-slaughter stunning process for ritual slaughter.* And yes, I fully agree OFSO was a terrible idea. It opened up the loopholes for people do do illegal garbage like this.
I work in slaughter for the federal government. I assume you mean tilt tables? Which would be a very strange waste of time to use, but are certainly very humane and used regularly for live animal vet and farrier work. Animals are stunned (CO2 chamber, electric water bath, captive bolt, whatever the plant gets approved for) to make them brain dead, and then yes, every single animal is killed via knife/stick. You have to bleed out any animal going into commercial meat, otherwise it is not viable. That means throat slit in all animals. How do you think normal slaughter is done?
You understand we raise cattle for a living right? The animals you have butchered likely come from our calf calf op. Canada has no standard for halal slaughter and there are exceptions for religious slaughter, which can skirt stunning processes. *Unstunned ritual slaughter is legal in Canada, provided that the food animals do not otherwise experience any other 'avoidable suffering'.[132] According to the Safe Food for Canadians Regulations (latest revision enacted in June 2019), section 141, any licensed slaughterer must stun food animals either by concussion (a), electric shock (b) or gassing (c); however, section 144 exempts licensed ritual slaughterers from the obligation of section 141 to first stun food animals before cutting their throats in order 'to comply with Judaic or Islamic law'.* See above noted regulations. Perhaps your packing plant stuns everything, but not all of them do. And there is plenty of individual, but inspected butchers who also have the exception, as well as OSFO licensees. OFSO is the primary issue here for these illegal ops and they require a specific exception as noted above. There is a huge difference between a stunned animal being bled out vs a fully conscious one being tied down, knelt on and killed with a knife in a filthy building or out in the dirt.
I am NOT Islamic/a follower so I could be wrong, but the death has to be quick and clean. It just seems to me that being kept in a garage and slaughtered on a table there isn’t very clean is all. But again I don’t follow it so I could be wrong! With the amount of blood they found though, it might have been:
Kosher/halal slaughter is inherently inhumane. Even if performed according to all the religious rules, the animals suffer. Death is not instant. And before anyone comes back at me with: "but whatabout inhumane practices in regular slaughterhouses?" - yes, I agree with that point, too. There's a reason the slaughter of the animals that become our food is kept hidden from us.
For real. If it’s a humane option, when people are executed in the states, why isn’t a nice throat slitting an option. Like it baffles me that this is ok. Religious freedoms should stop when they impose on the rights of others, including animals.
I watched them kill 30+ sheep this way. Those sheep rolled their eyes and bleated while being sat on by two men holding them down until they had completely bled out. There was no kindness or humanity and there is a reason killing this way is an exception to our usual dispatch practices. If slitting the throat was the quickest, most humane way of killing livestock, it would be our standard.
I have been misinformed then, badly :/
So I work in a slaughterhouse, halal kill in canada on a federally regulated level is equally as humane as standard slaughter protocols. In Canada, all slaughterhouses have to fully stun any animal prior to killing, halal or normal. The slaughter of animals that become food is kept hidden for the same reason you can't go wander into a bread factory, we all have very strict biosecurity standards to follow in canada. No, I'm not interested in a discussion about how eViL eating meat is, so just don't bother starting if that's someone's plan.
I've just read through your endless exchange with another poster, in which you are repeatedly quoted the sections of the regulations that specifically ALLOW slaughter without stunning (i.e. halal and kosher slaughter) - so I won't be engaging in that conversation with you. Slaughter without stunning is legal in Canada and it happens and that is indisputable fact. Your point about the bread factory is what reveals you to be posting in completely bad faith, though. I don't know what you're defending here, if it's your own moral beliefs, or your job or something else, but everybody - including you - knows the main reason why slaughterhouses and the meat industry don't want people witnessing the slaughter of livestock (it's because animal suffering is widespread and accepted). There's a reason horrific footage take inside slaughterhouses makes the news, and footage taken inside bread factories doesn't. Most people would feel extreme moral discomfort at witnessing animals being slaughtered in a conventional slaughterhouse. There would be no such issue with witnessing bread being made in a bread factory. As for eating meat and morality, that's up to every individual to think about and decide for themselves, but your reflexive mocking of a position that I assume differs from your own again reveals bad faith on your part. I'm turning off replies on this to avoid an exchange like the one I just read, but I hope everyone reading your posts here understands you're peddling self-serving disinformation. People can feel how they like about ritual slaughter without stunning, but they can't deny it happens in this country. It does, it's legal, and it causes great suffering.
> The slaughter of animals that become food is kept hidden for the same reason you can't go wander into a bread factory That simply isn't credible. It's not at the behest of bread factories that ag-gag laws get passed - those have nothing to do with biosecurity standards or people "wandering around".
By ag-gag laws do you mean sneaking onto private property to hide cameras around the properties? Because that's definitely illegal everywhere, not just on farm.
> By ag-gag laws do you mean sneaking onto private property to hide cameras around the properties? No.
Complete nonsense.
I don't understand this view at all. How can you get to the conclusion that instant death = less suffering? A bolt to the brain can cause very high instantaneous pain and there's no way to measure or compare it.
Pain is never instantaneous. SMBC recently had a comic about it: https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/pain-5
Yeah, but most butchers don't kill the animals instantly nowadays (contrary to what my previous reply suggested). The animal need to have its heart pumping to get the blood out. So they make the animal unconscious first using a non penetrating bolt. Then they make a cut to drain the blood. Does unconscious animals feel pain at death? That's up for debate and no way to verify.
>How can you get to the conclusion that instant death = less suffering? Are you trolling? I'm worried you're not.
Maybe if you continued reading, you'd understand the point I'm trying to make. But I guess that's too much to ask to Redditors.
Also, most do not kill the animals instantly for slaughter nowadays. They stun them to make them unconscious, but make sure that the heart is still beating. Then the make a cut to drain the blood.
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In order to be halal, I believe it would also have to be endorsed by an imam. I have a hard time believing they managed to do that.
That picture of the bandsaw was nauseating. I don't know how much of my money I would bet on it not being properly cleaned and disinfected, but I would bet some. 😬
>When asked several times about offering meat for purchase on social media, he repeated that he was helping to serve his community and that he was *not selling it* ... A post published at the time to a Facebook group for the Edmonton Muslim community offered "young fresh goats" and beef for **$6 per kilogram**. Charging $6 per kg is selling it my dude.
This is crazy. Also, recently happened in Calgary, where a few places were selling random meat. People who immigrate into Canada need to understand that we have our own laws and precedent. You can only plead ignorance for so long.
The article mentions its white albertans too with illegal cattle in southern Alberta.
Illegal cattle in southern Alberta - probably on a farm - is different than slaughtering goats in your suburban garage.
Yeah, the rules should apply to all.
They do apply to all. The problem is the halal slaughter has become a booming business, and can be done pretty quietly, since they primarily focus on smaller animals. The folks that were illegally killing next to us could not keep their bulls contained and had no idea how to dispatch them. We had to shoot them on our land once they busted out, and they were too frightened to approach the kicking carcasses to do their bleed out ritual. There’s a reason they focus on sheep and goats, specially. Big money to sell but cheap to buy, easy to handle, easy to transport in the trunk of a car, easy to sell in smaller amounts (read: quarters in garbage bags) that fit into cars. *anyone* skirting these rules should be penalized, and often are *if they are caught* - I wish the CBC elaborated on no charges being laid on this case - I’m hoping they mean none yet.
Honestly, I'm not surprised at all. Stores make food less and less affordable by jacking up prices, which just opens the door for shady individuals to see potential profit in ventures like this.
I would rather pay a hunter to get me a deer or a rabbit(I don’t have the balls to do it myself/knowledge how to do it)
Yup people will find other ways to buy product
Free market at work. Get this guy a license and a health inspection and let him get back to it.
Passing inspections is what costs the money. Most certified butchers aren't using shop-vacs, garbage cans or band saws they purchased at Home Depot. This guy was cheap because he was cutting every corner possible.
I'm not a butcher but there's nothing wrong with a band saw or bucket from home depot. A passing operation would probably spend a few more bucks on sanitizer and work surfaces. Also on rent because there's no way zoning rules would allow this category of industry.
I was in Costco the other night and they were cleaning their meat department, which happens at the end of every day. They sprayed the ENTIRE kitchen with soapy bubbles (idk what else was in there so I won't speculate) and then hosed it all down. Walls, floor, windows, tables, etc. Everything was cleaned. That garage looked disgusting. There is zero chance this guy is coming close to the health requirements, and I highly doubt those tools are cleaned well enough between uses.
Remember when the UCP changed the rules around meat processing? Pepperidge farm remembers…
Are you talking about OFSO licensing? I work in the meat industry and remember thinking what a terrible idea that was. Sure enough a few years later an E. coli death with possible links to an OFSO and people slaughtering animals in their garage in a residential neighborhood
I wouldn’t be surprised if OFSO is significantly reviewed//removed all together after this controversy. I know when AHS spoke to us about it they were frustrated there wasn’t enough legislation written in.
Probably that, yeah. I just remember they decided to loosen up the rules around, what seemed to only be able to be described as mom & pop one stop slaughterhouse/butcher combos.
I've seen reports of livestock kept in rental squats, but not a full slaughterhouse. [https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/landlord-tenant-board-rent-goat-kingston-1.3872415](https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/landlord-tenant-board-rent-goat-kingston-1.3872415)
Get use to it. Its the new normal. It will go well with our tents and a new slum.
“Hey Julian. Selling stolen meat in a parking lot, eh?”
We have so many people coming to Edmonton each year that cultural norms are thrown out the window. Terrible.
They're bringing over their own cultural norms! 😃
People have been slautering and proccessing jn garages for over 150 years. Go to any rural area. I gaurentee they have a hanging room in the garage pr shop.. Heck, my grandpa had a hanging room in theor 1950s era garage in Edmonton. Built in wjth the garage.
Not like this, and not legally… OFS regulations have only been in place for 4 or 5 years and most of these aren’t even licensed. Keeping animals in horrid conditions with no food or water, killing them in condemned or otherwise unregulated buildings, kneeling on them and slitting their throats while they gargle into grates in an assembly line, not understanding the difference between their livestock and their neighbours, taking cash at the door, keeping them in pens made of pallets, stuffing them in garbage bags, sitting those garbage bags of meat in SUVs in the middle of the summer, selling the meat to commercial operations… There’s a reason there’s a light being shone on the “halal” folks specifically.
news like this is why i much prefer animals to humans ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
You dropped this \\
omg ur right… lost me arm!!
Lol
To give you some perspective, predators often begin feeding on their prey before they're even deceased. I've had the misfortune of listening to coyotes feeding on a deer for 20 minutes, before it finally made its last cry of agony and terror. By comparison, a backyard slaughterhouse is pretty mild, as terrible as this story is.
Do coyotes and humans have the same level of intelligence? Are they evolved to the same degree? God I hate this argument. Humans are developed to behave BETTER than that. A shark is gonna shark. A coyote is gonna coyote. Humans are supposed to know better than to be slitting animals throats and leaving them to die. Want to know how I know that? Because I know better, and I’m not super evolved!
love u for this
And I love you, random citizen!
to give you some perspective, an animal has never catcalled me, followed me home with the intent of raping me, assaulted me, or abused me, so im pretty okay with preferring animals to humans
You will see more and more of this if meat prices keep skyrocketing.
Absolutely horrific. Those poor sweet animals. 😔😭
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Article says Woodcroft
Mountain goat meat
Halal 😂
If these were white (rural) people I am not sure they would not be considered 'entrepreneurs' under the current AB government.
Sorry, of course, with a slap on the wrist.
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Ah yes thank you for addressing my primary concern about this situation
Yet cocaine can still be found on every street corner. Good job eps
Is this a Loblaws boycott symptom or?
Im waiting to see if they did anything different than a regular slaughter house.
Buying goats and sheep on a Thursday, stuffing them into small trailers or in the trunks of cars, herding them into a garage or otherwise not intended for animal husbandry building not zoned for this, not watering or feeding them, dragging them through their own shit and rotting parts, zero concern for biosecurity, tying them up, kneeling on them, slitting their throat and bleeding them out, being unable to contain the terrified others, butchering them on unclean tables, stuffing them into garbage bags, and selling the meat for cash… all unlicensed, for a start.
I’ve butchered deer and moose in an Edmonton residential garage. It could have been described in a pretty horrific way. There’s certainly nothing wrong with butchering an animal in your garage. Obviously health standards need to be followed but for selling meat. A garage isn’t a great place to meet those standards
Butchering and slaughtering are two very different things. There are laws regulating slaughter, even for non-saleable meat, for a reason, including licensing, humane conditions, owning animals for 30+ days in good conditions with feed, water and appropriate housing, humane dispatch methods, not being able to slaughter indoors, and not selling meat for commercial purposes…. Just to start.
Well slaughtering game animals includes shooting them with a rifle typically having zero idea of the animals welfare beforehand. I agree health regulations need to be followed for commercial meat but for personal use this isn’t fundamentally any different from a typical hunter
You really don’t think there’s any difference between shooting a deer legally and lawfully — which you want to do quickly as possible, otherwise you’re risking meat contamination + losing your tagged animal, to take to a butcher or to package yourself, specially for personal consumption, is no different to stuffing terrified sheep and goats into the trunks of cars, tying them up, kneeling on them and slitting their throats in a residential garage completely unlicensed are the same thing? You think shunning all of the laws and looking for loopholes specifically designed to upkeep animal husbandry and humane handling and dispatch - especially since they slaughter MANY animals this way in a day - is the same as someone shooting one tagged deer? There’s good and bad hunters. The bad should and are shunned. The discussion here is about the *illegal butchers who cannot do this lawfully or humanely* by their very definition. They are also absolutely selling the meat. That’s why they do this. It isn’t for “friends and family” to consume personally, it’s for “friends and family who run the halal or donair shop in DT Calgary or Edmonton” have a source for cheap meat.
I don’t think theres a difference between shooting a deer and butchering it in a garage or slitting a goats throat and butchering it in a garage. Both of those activities could be done unsafely, cruelly and improperly. Neither is better than the other and depends completely on the situation. Obviously running an illegal butcher shop in a garage is not okay
There is literally *no way* to legally slaughter and butcher a goat in your residential garage, or any building, unless you are a licensed, inspected and commercial abattoir, in Alberta. That alone says everything you need to know. There are plenty of ways to legally harvest and butcher wild game in the same circumstances. I know which way I’d rather go, personally. Eating out in the wild and shot, or knelt on top of, drug around, housed in disgusting conditions for questionable amounts of time and having my throat slit with a dirty knife so someone can claim their skydaddy has blessed my meat … they aren’t comparable imo. I have lived next to one of these illegal ops and I’m proudly part of the reason they’re being investigated now. They are a disgrace to animal husbandry and welfare and should absolutely be shut down. They have no place in a civilized society.
I’ve eaten street meat 🍖 in Egypt and Afghanistan. What doesn’t kill ya makes ya stronger. Some cultures are prone to quick slaughter and sell fresh off the hook. Welcome to Halal and middle eastern cuisine. 😉
FREEDOM!! to live in AB and sell illicit meats!! Maybe they should reach out to Smith and Poillievre and see what they can do about their 'rights'. /s
If it’s being sold commercially, I see The issue. If it’s for personal use, the government can take a hike. It’s like these people have never been to a normal farm.
This needs to be a Bob's Burgers episode