Dearest Friends:
I hope that each of you are enjoying this holiday season in the way that is most meaningful for you. This season means different things for each of us. For me, it has always been a time to reflect on the past year, and my gratitude for your generosity, support, and compassion.
In emails, letters and phone calls we have shared our love and concern for animals. We have comforted each other when we learn of new harms inflicted on animals, and have urged each other to take action to help them. I am always inspired by how deep your love and commitment is to animals, and how loyal and dedicated you are to their cause. We are truly in this together. We are a team.
I have done this work for more than 35 years and there is still so much work to do to create a kinder and more just nation for all animals – every one of them. Thinking of you and this work we do together has brought home the theme that I want for this Holiday Letter for 2023. The theme that keeps coming to my mind is ‘Loyalty’.
Loyalty:
You have shown incredible loyalty to the ongoing fight for the animals. Your loyalty has been expressed over years and decades in the way that you live and the advocacy you engage in. You have also shown great loyalty to our organization, generously supporting us, standing with us year after year, providing the funds to make our work possible. You also demonstrate your loyalty to this planet through your daily choices, treating this home of ours with the respect it deserves.
There is loyalty too to ourselves – being faithful to our beliefs and ideals – determined to never give up on this glorious ambition to change the world for animals, embracing a belief system that places us outside of mainstream society, but on the right side of history.
A remarkable movement:
Ours is a remarkable movement, one based on the highest degree of compassion and altruism: caring for those who can never repay us, and who we will often never meet. I’m honoured to be able to work within this movement, to make my career working to help end the social acceptance of harming animals for pleasure or profit. I dream of a day when it is no longer legal to confine, harm, exploit, use or kill any animal, and I know that this is the same dream that brings so many of you to our organizations: the advocacy group we founded in 1990, the political party that followed, and our newest organization, a charity called the Animal Alliance of Canada Fund.
Loyalty now, more than ever:
Sometimes it seems that we are slipping backward, losing ground, and we might be tempted to give up and stop fighting. And then we have an amazing victory – a testing and trade ban on cosmetic animal testing in Canada, a fight that took many years. You made the victory possible because together we remained resolutely loyal to those exploited animals.
We’ve seen Ag-Gag laws pass in various provinces, including Ontario’s Bill 156, spreading like a contagion as one provincial government follows the other. Recently, we saw a federal Ag-Gag bill adopted in the House of Commons. Even though most laws governing the treatment of farmed animals come under the jurisdiction of the provinces, this superfluous bill allowed opportunistic politicians to signal to the animal agricultural community that they are on their side, and want their votes.
Many people are discouraged by these Ag-Gag laws, but I see it differently. They are a very real indication that we are impacting the animal agriculture industry in Canada. The industry and their supporters in government are afraid of the success that animal protection groups like ours have had in exposing how farmed animals are really treated. And they should be. Governments and industry have decided to fight back by trying to keep the cruelty that takes place in their barns, stockyards, and slaughterhouses hidden behind these laws. It won’t work. Repeated exposure of animal agriculture atrocities, and challenges to these laws will ultimately be the drivers of change.
Our new consumer strength is a real threat to animal agriculture, as is our advocacy and determination. These disgraceful Ag-Gag laws are their flailing attempts to stave off the growing awareness of the shameful practices they engage in, and the harm they inflict on animals and the environment. Together, we are creating meaningful change. Our remarkable movement is making even more progress. More people than ever are adopting plant-based life-styles, refusing to wear fur and leather, and avoiding products that have been tested on animals. Consumer practices like these that were once considered eccentric are increasingly seen as valid choices. Even major corporations now pursue our patronage, seeing that we have grown numerous enough to be a desirable consumer group.
Finding comfort in our determination:
This winter festival season, I wish you all a peaceful and happy holiday. I hope too that you will find the comfort that comes from your own determination to remain loyal to this great undertaking, this movement to change the world for animals.
Knowing who we are, what we believe; and being secure in our resolve to be loyal to our beliefs, to ourselves, and to each other can give us comfort and peace.
Your compassion and loyalty give me hope that together we will keep having an effect, that more and more people will join us and will see animals for who they really are – individuals worthy of our respect, compassion and decency.
Happy Holidays and all my best to you,
Liz White
PS. Our entire team: staff, board members, and volunteers also wish you comfort and peace, and pledge their loyalty to the animals, and our deepest gratitude to you.
