House of Commons Debates VOLUME 147 Ï NUMBER 065 Ï 2nd SESSION Ï 41st PARLIAMENT OFFICIAL REPORT (HANSARD) Monday, March 31, 2014 Speaker: The Honourable Andrew Scheer CONTENTS (Table of Contents appears at back of this issue.) 4027 HOUSE OF COMMONS Monday, March 31, 2014 The House met at 11 a.m. To understand why such a distinction needs to be made, it is necessary to examine the nature of the equine industry, the medications that are administered to horses, the purposes for which these medications are commonly used, the implications that are Prayers posed to human health from ingesting equine drugs that may be present in horsemeat, and the adequacy of the regulations that currently govern the Canadian horse slaughter industry. ROUTINE PROCEEDINGS The question that needs to be answered is: Without the enactment Ï (1100) of Bill C-571, is it possible to guarantee a safe horsemeat product if [English] it is produced from horses that were not raised or regulated within an ORDER IN COUNCIL APPOINTMENTS agricultural industry and were never intended to enter the human Hon. Peter Van Loan (Leader of the Government in the House food chain until the day of being purchased by a kill buyer under of Commons, CPC): Mr. Speaker, I am tabling, in both official contract to a Canadian horse processor. languages, six orders in council respecting appointments that have been made by this government. Last year, 71,961 horses were slaughtered in Canada. Some 85% of the meat derived from these horses was exported to the EU and I regret to inform the House that due to an administrative error, the remaining 15% sold domestically. Over half of these horses were these appointments were not tabled pursuant to Standing Order 110 imported from the U.S., a country, I will note, that is not permitted to (1) on Friday afternoon when they should have been. export horsemeat to the EU, and where a 2007 ban on horse slaughter remains in place today. It bears keeping in mind that out of a population of some ten million Canadian and U.S. horses, little PRIVATE MEMBERS' BUSINESS more than 1% is slaughtered to produce meat, meaning nearly 99% are not. [English] MEAT INSPECTION ACT Whether bred for show, racing, jumping, breeding, pleasure, Mr. Alex Atamanenko (British Columbia Southern Interior, rodeo, dressage, companionship as pets, or for work, horses enter the NDP) moved that Bill C-571, An Act to amend the Meat Inspection slaughter supply chain to Canada for processing from a multitude of Act and the Safe Food for Canadians Act (slaughter of equines for owners and a myriad of directions. human consumption), be read the second time and referred to a committee. Throughout their lives, a wide variety of medications are He said: Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to speak to my Bill C-571 administered to keep horses healthy and able to perform in their today. I will begin by recognizing and thanking all those Canadians racing or sporting career and any other capacity required by their who have written letters, signed petitions, and shared information owners. about the horse slaughter industry with me. Bill C-571 seeks to recognize that horses are ordinarily kept as “WARNING: Do not use in horses intended for human domestic animals for recreational and sporting purposes, not to consumption”, reads the label found on an extensive array of produce meat for human consumption, and may contain substances common horse drugs and includes, among others, wormers, that are prohibited in food animals. vaccines, painkillers, tranquilizers, bronchodilators, anabolic ster- oids, ulcer mediations, diuretics, antibiotics, and fertility drugs. Most The bill would prohibit horses from being conveyed to slaughter of these drugs are listed in Chapter 17, Annex E.5 of Canada's Meat and horsemeat from being sold for human consumption. The only Hygiene Manual of Procedures, under the heading List of Veterinary exception to the prohibition would be for horses that are raised Drugs Not Permitted for Use in Equine Slaughtered for Food. When primarily for the food chain and are accompanied by a complete something is not permitted, any administration of these drugs renders lifetime record, in chronological order, of all medical treatments ever their meat unfit and unapproved whether or not it can be detected in administered. tests. 4028 COMMONS DEBATES March 31, 2014 Private Members' Business In his detailed letter of notice to European Commissioner Tony Further down in his testimony he states, “In addition to Lasix, Borg, Bruce Wagman of the legal firm Schiff Hardin, representing nearly 100 percent of all racehorses run with Butazolidin, Ketofen, Front Range Equine Rescue and the U.S. Humane Society, includes or Banamine along with other ‘therapeutic drugs’ in their systems”. as Exhibit 1, a list of 115 banned and dangerous substances commonly administered to U.S. horses that are slaughtered for At the same Congressional hearing, Kathryn Papp, a veterinary horsemeat exports to the EU, in contravention of numerous food practitioner at Penn National Race Course in Grantville, Pennsylva- safety and transparency laws. nia, states: Also included in Mr. Wagman's letter are 13 signed declarations representing the sworn testimonies of a broad spectrum of American The overuse and abuse of medication is rampant at our Thoroughbred racetracks and training centers. The abuse is not limited to just performance enhancing drugs, it veterinarians, breeders, trainers, and owners attesting to the encompasses all substances that our trainers think may improve their horse’s administration of these drugs to horses they have raised or cared performance, from valid treatments to hokey and possibly dangerous therapies. for. In one example, Dr. Holly Colella, a veterinarian who attends to Medications that are currently being overused at our racetracks include but are not more than 1,200 horses annually in her practice, testifies that a limited to antibiotics, corticosteroids, NSAIDs, hormones and their analogues, calmative agents, hyper sensitizing agents, and respiratory aids, amongst many majority of the substances on Exhibit 1 is regularly and routinely others. These substances are not just being used inappropriately around race time, administered to the horses she works with. more commonly they are employed during training and the time leading up to races. I cannot tell you how many barns I know that train every one of their horses on In her article for Newsweek entitled “What's In Your Horse phenylbutazone daily whether they need it or not. And bute alone has many adverse Burger? Chemicals That Pose Serious Health Risks”, Vickery Eckoff effects to consider, ranging from GI issues to renal issues. writes, “Horses—and particularly racehorses—are walking pharma- cies”. Also at this committee meeting, Congress heard from Glenn Dr. Nicholas Dodman, one of the authors of the study entitled, Thompson, a thoroughbred trainer for 30 years and author of the “Association of Phenylbutazone Usage with Horses Bought for book, The Tradition of Cheating in the Sport of Kings, who stated: Slaughter: A Public-Health Risk” that was published in the scientific journal Food and Chemical Toxicology, has stated in interviews that From the time you start your first hot walking job until you take out your trainer's license you were taught, if a horse has a problem, you do whatever it takes to get “Eating them [that is horses] is about as healthful as eating food them healthy to race. If there is an ankle problem, you give the horse bute&, if a contaminated with DDT”. horse has a bleeding problem, you give him Lasix&, if a filly is in season, you give Ï (1105) her a drug to take her out of season. Dodman's study had clearly shown that mechanisms to ensure the Ï (1110) removal from the food chain of horses treated with the drug phenylbutazone, or “bute”, as it is commonly called, are inadequate [Translation] at best. By matching the registered name to their racetrack drug record over a five-year period, the Dodman study revealed that 18 thoroughbred racehorses sent for slaughter had been given “bute” on Clearly, everyone involved in the horse slaughter industry, race day, a drug that is banned for use in any animal intended for including Canadian, American and European regulators, know human consumption because it causes serious and lethal idiosyn- perfectly well that they simply cannot guarantee the safety of horse cratic adverse effects in humans. meat. Mindy Lovell, a Canadian, has owned horses for over 35 years. She has competed extensively and trained professionally for many Lastly, given that the United States has no program in place to years. Currently, she operates a boarding stable in conjunction with a monitor the drugs given to horses and has no intention of creating thoroughbred aftercare program. In her experience, the one thing she one, the U.S. cannot export its horse meat directly to Europe. A notes that all horses have in common is the way in which they are report produced by the European Commission's Food and Veterinary cared for with respect to veterinary care and medications. As she Office very clearly outlines the inadequacies of our regulatory writes in her letter to me: regime when it comes to horse slaughter. Here are some examples from the 2010 audit. One can simply walk into ANY boarding/training/schooling facility and open the medicine cabinet to clearly see the array of drugs and medications easily available and commonly used on these horses. The majority of these are clearly labelled—not First of all, the oversight regime in place in Canada to verify the to be used on horses intended for human consumption. use of drugs in horses intended for slaughter, as set out in Council In testimony before a 2012 congressional committee that was Directive 96/23/EC, is inadequate because it does not provide struck on the heels of The New York Times exposé on the use of official verification of the identification, movement and medical drugs in the racing industry and its relationship to an increased records of a limited number of horses destined for slaughter.