Reasonable Doubt: What's the difference between animals and furniture?

"If a dog is property, then in that sense, it is no different than any other property; for example, a ring or a painting."

Warnica v. Gering, 2004 CanLII 50065 (ON SC)

Legally speaking, animals in Canada are property. They have no legal rights whatsoever. There is little difference between animals and furniture. As long as we are not sadistic or wasteful, it is more or less legal to use them or hurt them as we please.

What does it mean to say that animals in Canada have no rights whatsoever? Well, for starters, it means that we can kill them or hurt them even if it is only to satisfy our small, trivial interests, like pleasure or convenience.

I look after a 14-year-old black lab named Riley. Even though I am not really an “animal person”—whatever that means—I adore him. My partner and I do our best to make sure he has a good life. But he is also our property. And if I wanted to kill him tomorrow, for no reason in particular, then that is my prerogative as his owner. He and other domesticated animals live a vulnerable life completely dependent on their owners’ charity.

Canadian “anti-cruelty” laws are primarily concerned with not treating animals sadistically or wastefully—an important factor here is the research suggesting sadistic treatment of animals leads to violence toward humans. These laws do nearly nothing to protect animals.

Consider R. v. Menard, likely the leading Canadian case dealing with anti-cruelty laws. In the decision, the court explained some basic principles about the legal status of animals:

The animal is inferior to man, and takes its place within a hierarchy which is the hierarchy of animals, and above all is a part of nature with all its "racial and natural" selections. The animal is subordinate to nature and to man. It will often be in the interests of man to kill and mutilate wild or domestic animals, to subjugate them and, to this end, to tame them with all the painful consequences this may entail for them and, if they are too old, or too numerous, or abandoned, to kill them. 

The above passage makes it clear that, legally speaking, animals are ours to use, subjugate and exploit for our own purposes. In other words, they are property. They are something, not someone.

The facts of the case are illustrative. Menard was convicted of animal cruelty for killing stray dogs as a part of his animal control business by locking them in a box and running engine exhaust into it. The dogs suffered horrible deaths. Before losing consciousness, the exhaust burned their throats and lungs. Local authorities had warned Menard to switch to a similar and inexpensive method that caused less suffering and he refused.

The court did not find Menard guilty because he was killing stray dogs or causing them suffering. The court was only concerned with how he was killing the dogs because there was other well known, less painful and inexpensive ways available to him. If these alternatives were more expensive, the findings may well have been different.

The guiding principle of animals as property informs how anti-cruelty laws are interpreted. Once hurting animals can be economically justified or acts to serve a (non-sadistic) human interest, it is almost always legal.

Using and killing animals in food production is one of the clearest examples of how deeply ingrained animals’ property status is in our emotions, beliefs and laws.

Animals on standard industrial farms are subject to some of the most barbaric conditions you can imagine. For instance, farmers cut or burn off the front of chickens’ beaks so that they do less damage pecking each other while living in intense confinement. Animals on farms are routinely kept in such cramped conditions that they suffer from stereotypical behavioir (like pacing back and forth or other repetitive behavior) as a result of mental anguish. The list goes on. In the end, all farmed animals are killed when it makes the most economic sense, which is inevitably at a fraction of their “natural” lifespan. These conditions are justified because they are less expensive for farmers and consumers—the bottom line.

Even animals used and killed on “humane” farms do not necessarily face much better conditions. For instance, the SPCA certified label allows farmers to de-beak hens and cut the tails off of pigs when “necessary”. Chickens may never see the outside until they are transported to slaughter (up to a 12-hour trip). Male chicks born into the egg industry do not lay eggs so they are not valuable; farmers may “macerate” those chicks so long as the blade that chops them to pieces turns at an acceptable frequency. Animals can be kept in cramped living conditions, though less cramped than standard farms. Even on farms where animals are afforded more freedoms, those animals are still treated like mere resources to be used and killed for our benefit.

Animal agriculture is an industry where we ignore the most basic and important animal interests in order to satisfy relatively trivial human interests. Though customary, it’s completely unnecessary.

By any objective standard, our justifications for eating animal products are quite small. According to the leading Canadian and American dietary associations, animal products are not necessary for health at any stage of human life; plant-based diets are suitable at all life stages and may provide nutritional benefits. People eat animal products for cultural norms and because they taste good and are easy to find; that’s it.

A growing number of lawyers are integrating their beliefs on animal rights with their profession. According to many lawyers, including professor Gary Francione—a lawyer, academic and arguably the most vocal critic of traditional animal law—the problem is that most or all legal campaigns or cases end up further entrenching animals’ status as property, the very problem they should be fighting.

For example, some groups advocate for larger living spaces for animals living on farms in part based on economic arguments, pointing out that, at some point, cramped conditions become more costly because so many animals become ill. These arguments do not challenge the animals-as-property paradigm at all, and in fact reinforce it on multiple levels.

More recently, lawyers in the United States argued that four chimps held in captivity were being held against their will, contrary to their right to liberty. Those cases were, not surprisingly, unsuccessful.

The law is generally just not the place to make meaningful changes at the early stages of a social movement. The law is typically slow to catch up, which is why some lawyers, including Francione, believe the most important thing lawyers who support animal rights can do is stay out of the court room and instead spend their time educating the public and building the momentum necessary for real legal change. For now, the focus should be re-shaping hearts and minds to get away from the property paradigm and to start treating animals as more than mere resources for us to exploit, and, arguably just as importantly, for people to start practicing these principles in their everyday lives.

Next week in Reasonable Doubt: Kevin Yee will be writing about the modern day jury trial.

Joseph Fearon is a civil litigation lawyer at Stevens Virgin practising in the areas of personal injury and commercial litigation. Reasonable Doubt appears on Straight.com on Fridays. You can send your questions for the column to its writers at straight.reasonable.doubt@gmail.com. A  word of caution: You should not act or rely on the information provided in this column. It is not legal advice. To ensure your interests are protected, retain or formally seek advice from a lawyer. The views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of Stevens Virgin or the lawyers of Stevens Virgin.

Comments

6 Comments

400 ppm

Mar 7, 2014 at 12:43pm

rights, ownership, property, law...

An entire mythology is stored within our language.
LUDWIG WITTGENSTEIN

Sam

Mar 7, 2014 at 12:59pm

Great piece! Thank you!

Ty Savoy

Mar 7, 2014 at 2:39pm

Pretty amazing 2013 Doc Film on this topic - 'Speciesism The Movie'. It has an all star cast of animal rights people, including Peter Singer, Gary Francione, Steven Best, Temple Grandin (ok, she isn't an Animal Rights person), Tom Regan, Richard Dawkins.
http://speciesismthemovie.com/

Ty Savoy

Mar 7, 2014 at 3:12pm

I have to mention this film too - 'Bold Native', 2010 feature film - IMDB rating:7.5.

Most definitely the best film on animal rights activists made. (Has there been another? ... besides '12 Monkeys', that is.) Has cameo appearances by real life animal rights activists, including Peter Young. Can be seen in its entirely, in HD no less here:

http://www.boldnative.com/

It explores the issues in a way I've not seen before. From the perspective of the insider. It will definitely move you.

Bea Elliott

Mar 8, 2014 at 7:21pm

Thank you for bringing the problems of property status of nonhumans to light. It is only by force and by social conditioning that such unjust realities exist for other animals. There are so many fine opportunities to avoid harming others. I can only hope we rise to the level of our own ethical code of compassion that we claim exists in calling our species "humane".

Mark B

Apr 7, 2014 at 9:24pm

So many words to awkwardly summarize someone else's work, and then not even a mention of veganism. Weird article.