I wrote a letter to Elizabeth May (Green Party) back in late November, asking her about her stance on the negative impact Animal Agricultural Food Industry had on climate change, and following is the reply I received yesterday. Unfortunately, it is just more posturing about animal welfare and promotion of organic farming. Apparently no political party is going to endorse the elimination of animal agriculture, not even a party based on the belief of a healthy environment! Good day Lynn, Thanks for writing to us. The Green Party of Canada agrees with you that the environmental footprint of industrial agriculture, especially for meat and poultry, is huge. Part of the solution we believe would be to move towards organic farming and locally sourced food as a means of reducing greenhouse emissions associated with farming practices as well as protecting species diversity. For more details on how the Green Party would reduce emissions from agriculture you can follow the link here: greenparty.ca/en/vision-green/p2.1.9 While organic farming is not necessarily vegetarian or animal-free, certified organic meat and dairy is normally produced on a smaller scale with more strict standards of animal welfare. The Green Party also has a clear stance against animal cruelty and would seek to adopt animal welfare legislation to prevent inhumane treatment of farm animals including intensive factory farming methods, as is highlighted by Elizabeth May in 2012: I am strongly opposed to animal cruelty and support animal welfare legislation. As a Green M.P., I will work to adopt animal welfare legislation to further prevent criminal treatment towards animals, as well as establish minimum standards to ensure that farming conditions allow for animals to live healthy lives untouched by stress and aggression. While you can see that the Green Party is not necessarily opposed to farming that includes animals raised for meat or dairy, we do believe that there is much room for improvement in the methods widely used today, both in regards to animal welfare and current agricultural greenhouse gas emissions. More information on the many Green Party proposals for improved animal welfare can be found at this link: greenparty.ca/en/vision-green/p3.10 We believe that these steps, while not a complete elimination of meat consumption, would take us is the right direction toward better respect of animals and reduction of our emissions. I hope I was able to better highlight the Green Partys stance on the issues. We also take note of your suggestion to better address agricultural sources of greenhouse gas emissions. Thanks again for writing to us! Chandra,
Posted on: Tue, 27 Jan 2015 15:47:08 +0000