On December 5, 2023 the federal government responded to our e-petition, which called on the Minister of National Defence, Bill Blair, to bring an end to the Department of National Defence (DND)’s use of live piglets in military medical training. This training involves poisoning piglets with chemical weapons, exposing them to radiation, stabbing, maiming and, finally, killing them – all to provide Canadian medics with training that could be better achieved by using human patient simulators, as do more than 70% of other NATO nations.
Minister Blair’s response was disappointing but not surprising. It mirrors the response we received over a year ago from his predecessor. The lone piece of new information is that the DND invested approximately $129,000 in the purchase of a high-fidelity human patient simulator – a welcome investment, but a pittance compared to the $1 million in taxpayer funds it spent on the purchase of live piglets in the past 10 years alone. Additionally concerning is that the Minister stated the purchase was simply to “augment” its current training with piglets, not replace the piglets outright, as the vast majority of Canada’s allies have done.
The Minister’s claim that the DND “strictly adheres” to the Canadian Council on Animal Care (CCAC)’s guidelines for the use of animals flies in the face of the DND’s own documents which reveal that piglets have revived during the four-hour long training exercises. Those same documents also expose the fact that the DND’s animal care committee (the cornerstone of the CCAC’s oversight scheme) knew piglets were reviving as far back as 2005, yet attempted to conceal the information by altering documents rather than demand protocols be changed to prevent the piglets’ suffering.
The Minister of National Defence must be held to account for this continued support of the cruel use of piglets for military medical training.
Please send a message to your Member of Parliament (MP) using the button below to ask them to urge Minister Blair to stop animal abuse in the Canadian military.
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