Your Montreal Gazette

Ducks suffer so that gourmets can dine
Quebec legislators are notoriously lax about the mistreatment of animals
JOSEE LEGAULT, The Gazette
Published: 9 hours ago

The film broadcast on many local news programs this week was gruesome, maybe even gruesome enough to make a foie-gras fan think twice about his favourite delicacy.

It showed ducks being force-fed grain until they threw up, heads being yanked off live birds while others were thrown against concrete walls or bled to death. And from the sound track, at least, you got the impression the workers enjoyed this sadistic mess.

And at least some of the film was indeed shot at ...levages PErigord, Canada's leading producer of the delicacy and a major exporter.

The film was produced by the Global Action Network, an animal-rights group that says a PErigord employee shot the images with a hidden camera over a 12-week period.

When the SretE du QuEbec completes its investigation, whoever is responsible should be prosecuted. But cruelty against animals is something about which our legislators and justice system are notoriously lax.

It's unlikely that there will be any boycott of foie gras any time soon. The popularity of force-fattened duck and goose liver is up on this continent. And with the government's own SociEtE gEnErale de financement providing 43 per cent of PErigord's financing, no one can expect the government to pass a law banning the stuff.

So it was surprising to hear PErigord's director-general, Emmanuel Nassans, position himself as a victim of the Global Action Network, which he said was out to destroy his company.

With the powerful SGF behind it and now, with the high-profile, high-powered National Public Relations firm handling its PR campaign, it looks like a fairly uneven battle between PErigord and the GAN. It also doesn't help GAN that community-based lobbies are getting a lot of bad press these days in Quebec, often caricatured as lunatics and party poopers.

Nassans's statement at his press conference was a classic in today's PR practices: Be appalled but deny it has anything to do with the company.

Nassans said what was done was cruel, unacceptable and contrary to the company's standards. He sacked the one employee he recognized and ordered an inquiry.

But if it's contrary to company standards - and it surely is in theory - why did it happen and why are there possibly other employees involved? This leaves unanswered questions pertaining to the hiring, training and supervision of employees.

...levages PErigord is based in St. Louis de Gonzague. It does some of the production itself, but in 2004, Radio-Canada's La semaine verte reported that PErigord had 19 subcontractors to whom it supplied with ducklings and feed. Some of those subcontractors are farmers who also do other forms of production.

In those cases, Rad-Can reported, it's the subcontractors who rear the ducks, force feed them and slaughter them. If this footage was shot on PErigord's own grounds, one wonders what happens at its subcontractors' facilities. Does the mother company train and supervise the subcontractors adequately?

This story is appalling and it should be a time to look at how the foie-gras "business" is run here. But chances are it won't happen. In the case of PErigord, foie gras is a lucrative, government backed business. Chances are slim that Agriculture Canada and Quebec's Ministry of Agriculture will ever step up their own rules and supervision.

And what are the chances we'll look at force feeding itself? If that method of production is banned in many European countries and some American cities, it's because it can be considered cruel treatment.

When foie gras went from a delicacy for the rich produced in small quantities to a product for the middle and the upper middle classes, production was increased, with more risks of mistreatment of animals for profit and expediency. Companies like PErigord are not small family farms using traditional, small-scale methods.

But people can ask themselves if having animals force fed, or even worse in some cases, is something they really want. And you needn't be an "enraged vegetarian" - to quote a foie gras producer angered by the possible impact of the footage - to ask yourself that question.

© The Gazette (Montreal) 2007