Changing the status quo isn't about one method precluding another, or being better than another. Not eating horses is one way to send the message that you don't approve of the slaughter of horses for meat, no matter how many horses there are. Surely eating them is not the answer to excess horses. There are a lot of excess dogs and cats too, but so far Canadians have not suggested we might as well eat them rather than work on humane solutions.

It's true that outlawing horse slaughter in one country means that the horses will be slaughtered in another country, but "evil cannot be done that good may result". By accepting the evil of the status quo, one is part of the evil, not part of the solution to the evil.

The evil under discussion is the evil of over-breeding of horses. The slaughter of horses for meat is a result of over-breeding; a cheap product that was looking for a market and found it.

That evil cannot be ended by accepting slaughter. Consumer markets follow patterns that can be taken advantage of. Ban the slaughter of horses in Canada and the US, and yes, the poor horses may be shipped to Mexico*. But that may mean the price for horses will be reduced to the point that there is little or no profit in selling horses to Mexico, and as the disposal options for unwanted horses lessens, the resale price will drop and fewer will be bred.

I don't callously accept this process; if I could, I would save every rejected, excess horse; but this is the process that results in change.

Think of the banning of public smoking. For many years "education" was used, and though it may have made a few conscientious smokers ask permission before lighting up, its real benefit was that it resulted in an awareness by non-smokers that they were being poisoned and killed by smokers, and in the media getting onside with many articles about the poisoning of others by smokers, especially in the workplace. That combination resulted in laws banning public smoking and it's laws that have really made such a difference that Canadian tobacco growers are going out of business.

Smokers stopped smoking and the suppliers are going out of business; if meat-eaters stop eating meat the suppliers will go out of business. It's that easy. The consumer is the problem. Consumers of meat are why billions of animals suffer. When enough people stop eating meat, the market will collapse and the suffering will end.

I don't agree that we are never as a society going to stop eating meat. In the 1970s, when I first became aware of vegetarianism, I didn't know one single vegetarian, and the public image, promoted by the media, was of a sandaled fruitcake (or nutbar, very apt similes!). Now I can hardly turn around without bumping into a vegetarian and even vegans. Two weeks ago in a cheap clothing store I overheard two women talking about their veganism. It's gone mainstream. Even athletes, the former poster-boys for eating mounds of meat, are going vegan.

Accepting an evil because it is the status quo is never going to cause change to happen. Public education to get support for an idea, consumers changing their purchasing habits, shifting the media, and finally, getting laws adopted, is the process that results in change.

*Can someone supply the figures for the last few years of horses being shipped to Mexico for slaughter from the US and from Canada?