After PETA Intervention and Years of Campaigning, Canadian Transportation Agency Agrees to Amendment in Airline's Cargo Policy
For Immediate Release:
December 20, 2012
Contact:
Tasgola Bruner 202-483-7382
Montréal -- Following more than a year of deliberation, including input from PETA, the Canadian Transportation Agency (CTA) has just ruled that it will allow Air Canada to submit revisions to its shipping policy to ban the transport of primates destined for laboratories, where they are often poisoned, addicted to drugs, mutilated, and killed.
Air Canada requested permission from the CTA to end the cruel practice in November 2011, after being urged to take this action by PETA, other animal welfare groups, and members of the public. The airline stated that the proposed ban was "both to align our policies with those of many other major international carriers and in response to widespread public concern." Following objections from animal experimenters, the CTA initially did not approve the ban and scheduled a hearing on the issue. PETA immediately filed comments, which were included in the official record, in support of Air Canada's proposed ban. Through PETA's website, nearly 19,000 people also urged the CTA to approve the ban. Today, the CTA ruled in Air Canada's favour, leaving the airline free to re-file its proposed ban and bring it into effect.
"The CTA's decision will allow Air Canada finally to do what PETA and kind people across North America have been urging for years: Stop delivering primates to misery and death in laboratories," says PETA Senior Vice President of Laboratory Investigations Kathy Guillermo. "Air Canada passengers will soon be able to rest assured that their ticket purchases will not fund the capturing, cutting up, and killing of primates in cruel experiments."
Every year, tens of thousands of monkeys—many of whom were torn away from their families in the wild—are flown from Asia and Africa to North America, where they are caged, experimented on, and killed in laboratories. Nearly every major airline in the world refuses to participate in this cruel practice. Air Canada's ban will leave United/Continental as the only major North American airline still willing to ship primates to laboratories.
For more information, please visit PETA.org.
