WEBVTT 00:00:07.050 --> 00:00:08.880 I want you to open your eyes. 00:00:13.880 --> 00:00:16.390 Open your eyes and take my hand. 00:00:20.380 --> 00:00:22.400 There’s so much you need to see. 00:00:26.680 --> 00:00:27.920 It won’t be easy, 00:00:29.670 --> 00:00:31.140 but it will be simple. 00:00:33.880 --> 00:00:35.030 Don’t worry. 00:00:36.400 --> 00:00:38.050 I’m right here with you. 00:00:40.600 --> 00:00:51.080 [fading in sound of truck idling and a pig screaming until abruptly cut off] 00:00:52.060 --> 00:00:53.120 Wake up. 00:01:08.630 --> 00:01:12.920 Hi it’s Emily from Bite Size Vegan and welcome to another vegan nugget. 00:01:17.720 --> 00:01:25.439 As a society, we hide the realities of our food industry from view. We shroud the process in secrecy, interact 00:01:25.439 --> 00:01:31.149 only with sterilized, aesthetically-pleasing packages. We tell ourselves our food animals 00:01:31.149 --> 00:01:36.499 are treated nicely. That they’re killed humanely. And when faced with evidence to 00:01:36.499 --> 00:01:39.979 the contrary, we say “it’s not like that here.” 00:01:42.659 --> 00:01:45.220 Well I’m here to show you that it is like that here. 00:01:47.140 --> 00:01:50.050 This video is for vegans and non-vegans alike. 00:01:52.850 --> 00:01:56.859 If you’re non-vegan, being fully aware of what you’re purchasing and choosing 00:01:56.859 --> 00:02:02.989 to eat is of vital importance. If you’re vegan, keeping that connection to why you’ve 00:02:02.989 --> 00:02:05.919 chosen this way of life is of equal importance. 00:02:07.559 --> 00:02:11.950 Regardless of your lifestyle, the lives we will encounter here together have value, 00:02:13.190 --> 00:02:18.150 and turning a blind eye to their experiences is condemning them to an existence completely 00:02:18.150 --> 00:02:21.080 devoid of even a moment’s recognition. 00:02:23.010 --> 00:02:28.710 Some of what I will be showing you today will be disturbing, heartbreaking, even infuriating. 00:02:30.630 --> 00:02:35.649 You will want to close your eyes, but I’ll ask that you bear witness to this reality. 00:02:37.319 --> 00:02:44.140 This is not sensationalized. These are everyday sights, mundane tasks in the daily operations 00:02:44.140 --> 00:02:45.930 of the animal products industry. 00:02:48.340 --> 00:02:52.980 If you aren’t vegan and feel the need to turn away, I’d ask you to think on the question, 00:02:53.530 --> 00:02:58.080 if it’s not good enough for your eyes, why is it good enough for your stomach? 00:03:00.180 --> 00:03:03.559 This is the bare truth of where your food comes from. 00:03:05.299 --> 00:03:10.800 If you are vegan, please find it within yourself to validate what these individuals have gone through. 00:03:12.080 --> 00:03:18.449 If they have to live through it and die by it, the very least we can do is bear witness to it. 00:03:20.189 --> 00:03:23.560 If you must look away, please continue to listen. 00:03:25.920 --> 00:03:29.460 This is reality for trillions of individuals in our world. 00:03:30.920 --> 00:03:33.010 This is not an isolated case. 00:03:34.120 --> 00:03:36.330 This is not in some distant land. 00:03:38.390 --> 00:03:41.880 This is here and now, in your own backyard. 00:04:01.040 --> 00:04:05.810 For this 24 hour vigil with the activist group Toronto Pig Save, we started off in the early 00:04:05.810 --> 00:04:11.480 morning at Fearman’s Pork, Incorporated in Burlington, Canada. Before most people 00:04:11.480 --> 00:04:15.569 had even gotten out of bed, these pigs were around the corner from their deaths. 00:04:17.869 --> 00:04:23.119 Pigs and other quote unquote livestock animals can travel for days without food and water, 00:04:23.509 --> 00:04:29.399 with the maximum allowable limit varying by country. In Canada, it’s currently 36 hours 00:04:29.399 --> 00:04:36.340 for pigs and chickens and 48 hours for cows. Due to cramped and unhygienic conditions pigs 00:04:36.340 --> 00:04:40.550 attack and cannibalize one another and suffer from growths and infections. 00:04:42.240 --> 00:04:47.489 Whether they come from factory farms or quiet humane family farms, they all end up here. 00:04:48.239 --> 00:04:50.630 And today is their death day. 00:04:53.979 --> 00:04:58.839 "We love you! We love you sweetheart! We love you baby! Yes we..." 00:05:00.090 --> 00:05:05.240 Our next stop was two cow slaughterhouses in Toronto, St. Helens and the Halal and Kosher 00:05:05.240 --> 00:05:11.750 Ryding-Regency. Under Halal and Kosher standards, animals must be fully conscious when killed. 00:05:12.880 --> 00:05:18.460 Ryding also slaughters spent dairy cows, mothers whose bodies are so exhausted from repeated 00:05:18.460 --> 00:05:23.089 pregnancies and milkings they they’ve given out or succumbed to disease. 00:05:25.609 --> 00:05:30.750 Ryding-Regency Meat Packers slaughterhouse kills 50 dairy cows a day. A kill floor worker 00:05:30.750 --> 00:05:36.389 told us this week that 60-70% of the cows are pregnant when on the kill floor. 00:05:37.269 --> 00:05:43.110 The fetuses can be as small as 2 inches or as large as calves ready to be born the same day. 00:05:44.610 --> 00:05:50.319 The heads and spinal cords of the mother dairy cows are labeled SRM or “Specified Risk 00:05:50.319 --> 00:05:54.610 Material.” Anyone over 30 months is prone to Mad Cow Disease. 00:05:54.610 --> 00:05:58.480 That is, they may potentially carry bovine spongiform encephalopathy. 00:05:59.380 --> 00:06:01.520 The mother heads are painted blue to designate 00:06:01.520 --> 00:06:05.889 them as Specified Risk Material. They are sent off to incineration rather than to a 00:06:05.889 --> 00:06:09.160 rendering plant for pet food or farmed animal feed. 00:06:11.060 --> 00:06:15.639 I met with a kill floor worker at Ryding-Regency Meat Packers slaughterhouse, who told me that 00:06:15.639 --> 00:06:21.090 he has born witness to cows being skinned while they are still conscious. This atrocity 00:06:21.090 --> 00:06:26.730 is unimaginable and anyone’s worst nightmare in wars, yet this happens everyday in Toronto. 00:06:27.450 --> 00:06:33.780 A scalper skins the faces while the cows are awake. It often happens particularly to the 00:06:33.780 --> 00:06:39.610 first 10 cows slaughtered each morning at 7 am because the owner doesn’t allow time 00:06:39.610 --> 00:06:44.720 for the first cows on the kill floor to be fully bled. There is pressure to start dismembering 00:06:44.720 --> 00:06:48.730 the cows right away and not lose money by slowing down the production line. 00:06:50.080 --> 00:06:55.330 The skinning of cows while they are still conscious was an atrocity reported in Gail Eisnitz's 00:06:55.330 --> 00:07:01.689 book Slaughterhouse... It happens every day here because they kill kosher or halal... There 00:07:01.689 --> 00:07:05.630 is no stunning and if the cows are not bled enough, the scalper begins 00:07:06.500 --> 00:07:08.349 while the cows are still conscious. 00:07:10.699 --> 00:07:16.020 The owners of Ryding-Regency and St. Helens profess to be animal lovers, with St. Helens’ 00:07:16.020 --> 00:07:21.110 stating to one Toronto Pig Save activist “no one loves animals more than me.” 00:07:22.530 --> 00:07:26.970 The cows’ skins are loaded into trucks and taken down the street to the tannery, leaving 00:07:26.970 --> 00:07:32.930 a trail of blood along the way. The stench at the tannery is almost unbearable as workers 00:07:32.930 --> 00:07:37.040 run the skins through salt water to prevent putrefaction of the collagen. 00:07:38.040 --> 00:07:44.190 Towering stacks of skins are moved around on a forklift. This is your luxurious leather. 00:07:46.670 --> 00:07:51.900 At all of the slaughterhouses, semis are pumped full of blood, which along with rejected body 00:07:51.900 --> 00:07:56.869 parts is carted off to rendering plants to be mixed into pet food and livestock feed. 00:07:57.979 --> 00:08:02.450 We feed our food animals the blood and remains of those who went before them. 00:08:05.300 --> 00:08:10.180 Our final stop for the night was Maple Leaf Poultry in Toronto, a chicken slaughterhouse 00:08:10.180 --> 00:08:16.130 that runs 24 hours a day during the week, slaughtering in excess of 60,000 chickens a day. 00:08:18.820 --> 00:08:22.920 Each arriving truck carries between 5 and 10,000 chickens. 00:08:24.710 --> 00:08:30.649 Some die slowly and painfully from disease, injury, or exhaustion before even reaching slaughter. 00:08:32.119 --> 00:08:36.480 While they appear to be full grown, they are only 36 to 42 days old on the day 00:08:36.480 --> 00:08:42.169 of their death. As with all animals killed for food, they are but babies. 00:08:44.529 --> 00:08:49.160 At the last 24 hour vigil, Martin, the plant manager at Maple Leaf surrendered a chicken 00:08:49.160 --> 00:08:54.940 to Toronto Pig Save activists. Mercy now lives free at a local farm sanctuary. 00:08:55.920 --> 00:09:00.090 Encouraged by this victory, activists asked to free one more. 00:09:01.730 --> 00:09:05.650 One of thousands today, one of hundreds 00:09:05.650 --> 00:09:14.280 of thousands this week, one of millions this year at this slaughterhouse alone. Just one. 00:09:19.250 --> 00:09:22.890 But they were denied, pushed aside, and detained. 00:09:24.090 --> 00:09:29.980 Later on, a truck driver pushed into an activist with his semi. This is not an uncommon occurrence. 00:09:31.560 --> 00:09:35.870 The slaughterhouse workers themselves range from kind and helpful to outright hostile. 00:09:37.000 --> 00:09:41.910 This is their livelihood, how they support their family. Many feel they have no other 00:09:41.910 --> 00:09:47.060 option, and many realistically have very few, as the hourly pay is higher than other industries. 00:09:47.910 --> 00:09:49.280 And with good reason. 00:09:50.370 --> 00:09:52.230 This is no one's dream job. 00:09:54.520 --> 00:09:58.700 Toronto Pig Save is working on developing a transitional program to help slaughterhouse 00:09:58.700 --> 00:10:05.120 workers find alternative employment. The industry is rife with human rights abuses and violations, 00:10:05.120 --> 00:10:10.910 worker injuries and even deaths. With the priority on speed and quantity, safety falls 00:10:10.910 --> 00:10:11.880 by the wayside. 00:10:14.240 --> 00:10:19.000 The security guard at St. Helens told us he has a wife and kids to support. He said 00:10:19.000 --> 00:10:23.940 has no problem with what we’re doing but with great agitation escorts us off the property, 00:10:23.940 --> 00:10:29.440 saying he has to do his job. He’s looked for security work elsewhere but no other business 00:10:29.440 --> 00:10:33.770 pays as high. Of course other no business has so much to hide. 00:10:35.950 --> 00:10:40.660 The animal products industry thrives in secrecy and dies with exposure. 00:10:41.650 --> 00:10:44.920 We asked if he ever goes inside to watch what happens. 00:10:45.640 --> 00:10:50.490 He screwed up his face in disgust and admitted he stopped eating cows and pigs altogether. 00:10:52.290 --> 00:10:56.450 One of the truck drivers who delivers the cows even admitted he’s gone vegan after 00:10:56.450 --> 00:11:01.560 seeing what actually happens to the cows he drops off. But he continues his work because 00:11:01.560 --> 00:11:04.080 he can’t find anything to match his current pay. 00:11:05.940 --> 00:11:12.010 Our food system is broken in more ways than one. The industry relies on consumers not 00:11:12.010 --> 00:11:15.590 seeing the truth, and consumers are all too ready to comply. 00:11:16.960 --> 00:11:18.930 Profit over safety, the bottom 00:11:18.930 --> 00:11:22.420 line over reason, corner-cutting over compassion. 00:11:24.030 --> 00:11:26.730 We as consumers rely on having our food presented 00:11:26.730 --> 00:11:32.330 without the bother of thinking how it got there and what, or who, it was before being 00:11:32.330 --> 00:11:38.700 neatly packaged for our purchase. Slaughterhouse workers rely on the plants higher-than-average 00:11:38.700 --> 00:11:42.250 income despite horrifying and often dangerous working conditions. 00:11:43.010 --> 00:11:47.530 And the animals…well, the animals rely on us. 00:11:48.730 --> 00:11:54.740 Their only hope for freedom comes from us, their tormentors. We have the ability to change 00:11:54.740 --> 00:12:01.640 all of this. And it starts with acknowledging that it is happening. It starts with coming 00:12:01.640 --> 00:12:09.010 face to face with our choices and their real-life impact. It starts with us bearing witness to the truth. 00:12:10.030 --> 00:12:13.570 It starts, when you open your eyes. 00:12:23.830 --> 00:12:30.080 Please share this video to open eyes everywhere to the reality of our food system. Vegan or 00:12:30.080 --> 00:12:37.330 non-vegan, each and every person should experience this firsthand. You don’t have to be strong, 00:12:37.670 --> 00:12:43.620 you just have to be there. For more information, resources and to connect with Toronto Pig 00:12:43.620 --> 00:12:49.120 Save to attend a vigil yourself, please see the blog post for this video and/or the links 00:12:49.120 --> 00:12:50.920 in the video description below. 00:12:52.120 --> 00:12:57.440 If you want to help support Bite Size Vegan in creating this educational video-based resource 00:12:57.440 --> 00:13:02.440 and Toronto Pig Save in bearing witness to these beings, please see the support links 00:13:02.440 --> 00:13:05.940 here, in the sidebar, and in the video description. 00:13:06.750 --> 00:13:08.310 Thank you for listening. 00:13:08.700 --> 00:13:10.480 Thank you for bearing witness. 00:13:11.240 --> 00:13:13.920 Thank you for opening your eyes.