-
Anita: I’m currently speaking to you from
a cab in a police car.
-
And the pigs are being herded off to the kill
floor.
-
They should be shown mercy, not herded to
the gas chambers.
-
Show some mercy.
-
Save the pigs.
-
Call Fearmans.
-
Everybody, please call Fearmans.
-
Police Officer: I’m going to have to take
it while we’re driving, though.
-
You can’t have it while you’re driving.
-
You are currently in custody, which means
you don’t get any possessions, okay?
-
Anita: Okay I understand, I understand. Sorry, Officer.
Police Officer: Thank you.
-
Hi it's Emily from Bite Size Vegan and welcome
to another vegan nugget.
-
November 1, 2016 marked the 22nd year of celebrating
World Vegan day and, appropriately enough,
-
the resumption of the criminal trial in Canada
that’s thrust animal rights and veganism
-
onto the international stage.
-
Animal activist and co-founder of Toronto
Pig Save, Anita Krajnc, is facing 6 months
-
in jail and a $5,000 fine for giving water
to thirsty pigs on their way to slaughter.
-
For more details on the incident itself, please
see my interview with Anita from January 2016,
-
linked in the side bar and below.
-
Just prior to the November 1 court date, I
spoke with Anita and James, another key organizer
-
for Toronto Pig Save—and the man behind
Twitter’s Veganoso—about the trial’s
-
proceedings and impact thus far.
-
The defense in this case, led by vegan lawyers
Gary Grill and James Silver, has taken a unique
-
approach:
-
Anita: The key defense we’re using is the
idea that everyone has the duty to bear witness.
-
That’s our defense.
-
Right at the beginning when I testified I
said our mission is to create a nonviolent
-
vegan world, to promote the idea that everybody
has a duty to bear witness and to promote
-
a cultural shift so that people no longer
think it’s ok to say, “I don’t want
-
to see.”
-
“It’s too hard.”
-
“It might change how I eat.” and then
people say that’s an acceptable answer.
-
We want to actually promote a cultural shift
where people say, that “I want to live up
-
to my duty to bear witness.
-
I want to bear witness.”
-
And the way we’re sort of presenting it
is that, as animal lovers, we’re willing
-
to suffer and willing to sacrifice in order
to promote social change.
-
So saying something like “Oh it’s too
hard to look” or “I am going to have an
-
emotional breakdown”—that’s ok.
-
It’s actually ok to suffer in order to help
animals, ‘cause the history of social change
-
has occurred because of that, and people like
Leo Tolstoy and Mahatma Gandhi tried to redefine
-
or reinterpret the notions of self-sacrifice
and suffering.
-
Because that’s how social change happens.
-
At our trial, when we talk about animals,
we talk about animals as individuals and not
-
as property.
-
The classic, sort of, line from the driver
in this incident was, “They’re not human.”
-
I said “If they’re thirsty, give them
water” and he said “they’re not human.”
-
James: And if there was a dog in a hot car
it would be a duty to help that dog, to break
-
the window to let the dog out.
-
So there’s no fundamental difference between
a dog and a pig so why would there be a different
-
standard on how you treat pigs?
-
This is not just a convenient analogy.
-
The same year Anita was charged for giving
water to dehydrated pigs, a woman in British
-
Columbia was sentenced to jail for the death
of six dogs she left in her truck on a hot
-
day.
-
The truck driver who confronted Anita was
hauling 190 pigs in severe heat without any
-
access to water or adequate ventilation.
-
That year, in Canada alone, 14,212 pigs died
on their way to slaughter.
-
And then we quoted Tolstoy, saying “when
we wish to harm others we really do evil to
-
ourselves.”
-
That one line brings together all the arguments
that we had.
-
So there’s a unity of life— we’re all
equal.
-
Animals are individuals just like we are and
deserve respect and love.
-
And if we don’t treat them that way, we’re
hurting animals, but we’re also going to
-
destroy the planet.
-
I asked Anita and James to share any memorable
or powerful moments from the trial thus far:
-
Anita: There were a number of memorable times
in court.
-
I think when my lawyer—vegan lawyer—James
Silver cross-examined the truck driver, Jeff,
-
he was able to establish the real motivation
for charging me.
-
And that was, that they wanted to shut us
down.
-
So he established how much money the industry
makes, how much that factory farm makes, what
-
were the discussions and why were they concerned
about us.
-
Yes, he wasn't concerned about what was in
the water or that I gave water—because I
-
offered him a free sample.
-
What was really behind this was the motivation
that we were hurting the bottom line of the
-
industry.
-
It was such an incredible moment, you know,
the truth was revealed.
-
And then another amazing moment was when he
cross-examined the farmer, Mr. Van Boekel,
-
about how the sows were treated, and I got
some of the most heartbreaking moments because
-
he talked about how he had hundreds of sows
and they were in these crates where they can't
-
turn around, their babies were taken away,
and then they were put back into a general
-
pen and then within five or six days they
were re-impregnated.
-
And then again.
-
So their life was a constant cycle, it was
just heartbreaking.
-
There were so many moments that were very
revealing.
-
When I testified, there were a lot of moments
that I found very memorable cause I was able
-
to say what I really thought and believed.
-
What really got me was we were able to show
the pig preserve video.
-
It just shows who pigs are and it
was like a 13-minute video.
-
Well, I've been listening to these guys for about
-
26 years. I think they have about 40 different vocalizations
-
but they combine those with body language
-
and so a different vocalization with one body language
-
is different from the same vocalization with a different body language.
-
And I think when you combine the two they probably got a vocabulary amongst themselves
-
of probably a 100, 120, 150
-
different communications.
-
[Happy grunting.] Richard:Oh yeah....Yeah I know. [Laughter.]
-
Because I am happy pig. [grunting]
-
I am happy pig. [grunting]
-
Lauren: So they do this. It seems that he is very happy.
-
Richard:Oh yeah!
Lauren: So happy to have all this space.
-
So in regards to being like in a factory farm this space is, you know,
-
the type of space that pigs would in the wild be roaming in. Would you say?
-
Richard: Well yeah if you understand it in—truly in the wild, these are nomadic animals.
-
This is just a good lifestyle for a pig. This is the lifestyle they were meant to live.
-
Yeah. Um, typically when I put a pig down, I give the group an hour or so
-
and they'll come up usually one at a time and say their goodbyes. Right.
-
But it varies from social group to social group.
-
But they all do mourn.
-
When... They come up to the pig that is??
-
They nose them all around and they talk to em
-
and try to get em up
-
I was just so happy we got to show that, and
-
then after that we showed footage of the gas
chamber.
-
To me, like the truth—we’re telling the
truth, and so for me those were high points.
-
James: I think for me, the whole case has
been so captivating.
-
The level of interest—every day the courthouse
has been packed, there’s been people waiting
-
outside trying to get in.
-
In terms of content, just the lack of emotion
and lack of empathy from their side has been
-
quite disturbing.
-
Because they’re watching the same images
that we’re seeing on the screens and the
-
disconnect I think is so strong of people
that work in the industry.
-
Anita: Mr. Van Boekel and maybe ten or so
farmers came to my trial date when I testified.
-
It was a packed courtroom, people were sitting
on the floor and people were watching the
-
farmers and you know, sometimes they were sort of like joking about it, things like that.
-
[James: A lot of them were joking]
-
But when the pig preserve video was shown:
who pigs really are, they were paying attention.
-
Richard Hoyle is an ex marine and pigs were shown in a different light of who they really are.
-
And I think it touched some of them.
-
I believe that this pig trial is touching
some of them.
-
The pig trial was presenting the truth and
at the end of the day, that’s what’s going
-
to change the world.
-
And I believe we even touched the factory
farm industry.
-
And there was one article in an animal ag.
magazine that said ‘Mr. Van Boekel is fighting
-
this alone.
-
Where’s the pork council?
-
Where are they?’
-
And I think this is such a strong case that
they have a lot of trouble defending.
-
That’s the incredible thing about this trial.
-
It has managed to place the prosecution on
the defense, and the rights and individuality
-
of non-human animals at the center of debate.
-
Anita’s lawyers have called a handful of
expert witnesses throughout the trial so far.
-
As this interview was filmed prior to the
November 1 session, I’ll include live tweets
-
of the testimony onscreen for the witnesses
that day.
-
Anita: Dr. May is a veterinarian and she was
the first expert witness to testify.
-
And one of the most revealing parts of her
testimony was, she looked at the video, where
-
I gave water to the pigs, and then she counted
the number of pants and she said some of the
-
pigs were panting at 200 pants per minute.
-
She said they were in severe distress.
-
On November 1st we have two expert witnesses.
-
Dr. Lori Marino, she’s going to talk about
pig personality, intelligence, sentience.
-
She’s a foremost cognitive behaviorist.
-
Then we have Dr. David Jenkins.
-
He’s a professor at the university of Toronto.
-
He invented the glycemic index.
-
And he’s an outspoken vegan.
-
And he will be talking about the health benefits
of a plant based diet and the incredible health
-
impacts of eating meat, dairy and eggs.
-
And then finally on November 10th we will
have our expert witness on the environment
-
Dr. Tony Weis who’s professor of geography
at the University of Western Ontario.
-
And he’s going to talk about the impact
of animal agriculture on climate change, ocean
-
dead zones, deforestation, species extinction,
water use, water pollution and other issues.
-
The Pig Trial has drawn the attention and
support of celebrities like vegan musician,
-
DJ, photographer and animal activist Moby,
actress and model Maggie Q, who stood in solidarity
-
with Anita on November 1,
-
The most important thing that we're promoting today
-
um, when it come to Anita's case
-
is that compassion is not a crime. That's what it says on my shirt.
-
and the founder of PETA, Ingrid Newkirk, who has flown out to Toronto for the trial to show her support.
-
5 million of our members and supporters are watching Burlington
-
and want to know what's happening. We think of kindness as a virtue
-
and not as something to be punished.
-
The broad exposure of the trial speaks to
the two primary goals of The Save Movement:
-
to bear witness to the individuals suffering
in the trucks and to document the experience
-
to share with the world.
-
Having myself attended a number of vigils
with Toronto Pig Save, and Manchester and
-
Essex Pig Saves in the UK, I can personally
attest to the incredible impact of bearing
-
witness and publishing the images
for the world to see.
-
[Pigs screaming in fear, pain and terror,
gas chamber machinery churning.]
-
They're being slapped right now!
-
[Pigs screaming continually.]
-
Anita: We want people to see what we see and when we look inside a truck we see individuals,
-
pigs, cows and chickens who want to live.
-
James: When you show the victims, when you
see their faces, when you look in their eyes
-
and you see them as individuals it really
helps people connect and have empathy.
-
Anita: When any of us are at vigils, and we
go up to the pigs or the cows or the chickens
-
and bear witness we have a camera in hand.
-
So we’re there for the individual, we’re
present, we say “we love you we’re sorry.”
-
We see the individual before us but we also
have a camera in hand because we’re trying
-
to change the world thinking and we’re thinking
about broader issues as well.
-
Because of the pig trial we’re getting these
images in the mainstream media—they even
-
looped the video of the incident when I was
charged from June 2015 on mainstream television.
-
Two days day after Anita’s testimony at
trial, a truck overturned outside of Fearmans
-
pork, the slaughterhouse at which Anita was
charged.
-
We’ll hear more about the actual event later
in this video.
-
Anita spoke to the effect of the crash on
the media.
-
Anita: There’s been learning in the media.
-
I think the media has got more and more sympathetic
as the pig trial has gone on and when we had
-
that horrible crash a few days after I testified
at the pig trial it just had unprecedented
-
coverage because usually the coverage is either
to ignore it or to say no one was hurt, the
-
driver wasn’t hurt and this time the media
was there and I think there was incredible
-
learning.
-
We told all our activists “Go to the site
and document.”
-
See if that pig crash happened and there were
no activists that went on site it would not
-
have been as big a story and it wouldn’t
have been reported as sympathetically.
-
One news reporter said that this incident
had changed her life and that she wants to
-
go vegan.
-
There was another cameraperson from a huge
television station that said he was vegan
-
and his whole family was vegan.
-
So I think we’re definitely—the vegan
movement is spreading in the mass media and
-
it’s just an indication that it’s spreading
across all sectors of society.
-
The Pig Trial has managed to elicit support
and empathy even from meat-eaters.
-
I asked Anita and James why this case is reaching
people when nothing else has:
-
By and large the public is sympathetic.
-
It’s the idea of defending the Golden Rule.
-
So: “treat others as you’d like to be
treated.”
-
Leo Tolstoy said we should take pity on animals
the same way we take pity on each other if
-
we are not to deaden the voice of conscience.
-
So people understand across cultures and you know the Golden Rule is thousands of years old.
-
So the animal agricultural industry cannot
fight the Golden Rule.
-
And that’s what they tried to do and it’s
backfiring.
-
While Toronto Pig Save has been holding vigils
and posting images of animals on their way
-
to slaughter for five years now, this is the
first time they’ve gained international
-
coverage, and with an impressive reach and
momentum at that.
-
Anita and James spoke to what they saw as
the driving force behind this growth:
-
First of all the incident in and of itself,
it’s the best possible incident you can
-
charge someone on, like, giving water to a
thirsty animal.
-
So yes [that’s] an incredible incident,
but the other factor is the fact that we are
-
organized.
-
You know the reason this is so big is because
there’s a social movement here, it’s not
-
just some random woman who gave water to thirsty
pigs and was charged.
-
No.
-
They charged an organizer.
-
They charged an organizer who’s part of
an organizing team that’s across Toronto.
-
And now there’s a global movement—there’s
like almost 90 save groups around the world,
-
21 new save groups started in the United Kingdom.
-
We have people like grandmothers, babies—we
have hundreds of people that come to our vigils.
-
Like our biggest vigil was when you, Bite
Size Vegan first came to one of our vigils.
-
That was our biggest vigil back in September
24, 2015.
-
[On] that day we had almost 300 people.
-
So that was our biggest vigil to date.
-
Since then we’ve grown and grown and grown.
-
That's the reason we’re getting great coverage.
-
And I think it has to do with also with the
trial.
-
A trial is something I think that the media
can report on.
-
It’s hard for them to just cover our vigils,
we’ve been doing this for more that 5 years.
-
Why are we getting mainstream media coverage
now?
-
Why are we getting international coverage?
-
It had to do with the trial.
-
So now our images are getting out there, the
ones that we’ve had all this time.
-
At the end of the day the news coverage was
that this pig trial put animal agriculture
-
on trial.
-
James: Sometimes it’s almost like you forget
that it’s Anita on trial because of the
-
whole sense of someone there having to defend
the truth of what they do because it’s just
-
so abhorrent.
-
In our global society, there is a profound
reversal of right and wrong surrounding our
-
food system.
-
Eating a vegan diet is viewed as extreme.
-
Animal lovers readily consume the bodies of
sentient beings whom they would not be able
-
to bring themselves to harm.
-
A horrifically clear example of the laws protecting
the criminal whilst criminalizing those fighting
-
to save the victims, came on October 5, 2016.
-
The day the truck crashed at Fearmans.
-
Anita, fresh from her testimony in court two
days before, was promptly arrested again not
-
long after her arrival at the scene.
-
She had refused to step back from documenting
the incident.
-
I asked James to share some of his experience.
-
He alludes to a pig named Bonnie, whose story
you can hear more in depth in the video dedicated
-
to the crash linked in the sidebar and below:
-
James: As soon as I parked my car and got
out, you could hear the pigs screaming.
-
There was blood on the sidewalk.
-
Some pigs had escaped.
-
In my naïveté, I expect to find
people that are helping the pigs and that
-
wasn’t happening.
-
There were people; office workers, that were
holding cardboard to shield the truth from
-
us.
-
The cops were complicit in that.
-
It got worse after Anita left.
-
I don’t know what they’re called, but
special unit cops arrived with tasers and
-
it was all around hiding the truth.
-
We didn’t see this, so we don’t know,
but no injured pigs came off the truck so
-
they must have killed a lot of pigs because
when I got there the screaming was the worst
-
screaming and we had heard them screaming
every single week.
-
It was the worst screaming I had ever heard.
-
And they walked was it forty or fifty pigs
off the truck.
-
They shot Bonnie in front of us but there
were no other injured pigs so I strongly suspect
-
they killed a lot of the pigs on the truck
because all that screaming suddenly stopped.
-
I mean people are compassionate and people
have empathy.
-
This is why animal agriculture has spent so
much time and money and effort into shielding
-
the truth because if people knew what’s
happening they would make the change they
-
would go vegan.
-
They would not support and pay for this to
happen
-
And that’s precisely what the Pig Trial
is accomplishing.
-
In reality, it’s not so much that Anita
or her lawyers or Toronto Pig Save came up
-
with some revolutionary argument never before
voiced by animal activists.
-
When it comes to veganism and the rights,
emotions, individuality, and capacity to suffer
-
of non-human animals, it’s not a lack of
compelling evidence but rather a lack of a
-
large enough platform that hinders the reach
of the message.
-
And unbeknownst to the truck driver and farmer on that oppressively hot day
-
in June 2015, by confronting and having Anita
charged they supplied that platform.
-
For the animal products industry, so desperately
reliant on deception and untruths, there’s
-
nothing more dangerous than giving the voice
of the animals they systematically abuse and
-
kill, an international stage for their truth
to be heard.
-
It’s time to expose the real crimes and
the real criminals.
-
Please share this video far and wide to raise
awareness and give it a thumbs-up if you are
-
moved by these events.
-
And subscribe to the channel for more vegan
content every week.
-
To help support Bite Size Vegan’s educational
efforts, please see the support links below
-
or in the sidebar.
-
Find more information about the trial, the
crash, and more on the blog post for this
-
video linked below.
-
Now go live vegan, speak the truth, and I’ll
see you soon.