http://www.montrealmirror.com/ARCHIVES/2000/020300/news2.html

Quebec's animal euthanasia rate is the highest in Canada

by CRAIG SEGAL

What kind of pets do Quebecers love most?

Dead ones.

Quebec ranks as the number one province in Canada in terms of euthanized pets. According to a recent study, 82 per cent of all animals picked up by Montreal-area pounds in 1996 were put down. The next highest are Winnipeg and Edmonton at 53 per cent.

Quebec pounds continue to kill nearly half a million unwanted or unclaimed pets each year, and return a minimal percentage of lost pets to owners. Quebecers also adopt less than any province.

"There are enough bodies to cover the whole island of Montreal," says Dr. Charles Danten, author of Un Veterinaire en colere (The Angry Vet). Most animals are killed by injection, in decompression chambers or by carbon monoxide poisoning. But horror stories abound: before it was raided, a creative pound in Drummondville was hosing animals down with water, sticking electrodes to their ear and anus and frying them like bacon.

Which isn't a strange metaphor considering that we're in the habit of turning euthanized cats and dogs into pet food. According to Danten, many dead pets are tossed into large vats--flea collar, garbage bag and all--and boiled to become pet food ingredients with names like "animal fat" and "dried animal digest."

Killing by the pound
Why is Quebec's record so poor? Some vets say it's cultural. "I think there seems to be less sensitivity in Quebec to the needs of animals," says Shelagh MacDonald of the Canadian Federation of Humane Societies.

Others--most notably SPCA Director Pierre Barnoti--blame the pound contract for our bad animal rap. Six years ago the SPCA lost their Montreal contract to another local pound, Berger Blanc.

"Montreal is the bloodiest city in Canada," says Barnoti. "What is the city of Montreal doing about it? Sweet **** all." According to Barnoti, the Berger Blanc only picked up 12 per cent of the animals it was supposed to in 1996.

The pound disagrees. "Did Mr. Barnoti tell you we only had the city contract for seven months in 1996?" replies Pierre Couture, president of Berger Blanc, in response to Barnoti's stats. "That's why we're missing numbers. If we were incompetent, do you think the municipalities would continue to give us the contracts?"

Euthanasia-industrial complex
As for angry vet Charles Danten, he believes the problem in Quebec is not cultural. Nor is it Berger Blanc;

Danten is no fan of the SPCA. "The SPCA is just a pound in disguise," he says. "They're not a protection organization at all. People who work at the SPCA have a good salary. Don't kid yourself. It's an industry."

Danten, who was a vet for 20 years before he became disenchanted with the pet industry, thinks pets are part of our slave-owner mentality. "What we're doing to pets now we've done all along in history to our own kind. The slave mentality is not over. It's just directed to animals."

What does the good doctor recommend? Danten emphasized that he doesn't want to tell people what to do, but after his 14-year-old cat dies, he's not planning on buying another.