September 25, 2008 - Municipalities to vote on cage ban for hens

 

Published in: Georgia Straight
By: Peita Woolley

 

The president of the B.C. Egg Producers Association has slammed some urban politicians for trying to change how rural farms operate. Dan Kampen spoke to the Straight from the Union of B.C. Municipalities convention in Penticton, which wraps up on Friday (September 26), where he will address mayors and councillors about a resolution that asks the province to ban the use of battery cages for egg-laying hens.

 

“It’s hard to say that conditions are appalling when you haven’t seen how modern farming works,” Kampen said, noting that the BCEPA offered politicians tours of conventional facilities, but no one has taken the organization up on the offer. “If there is no egg production in their area and they’ve never toured a facility, I don’t see how they can properly comment on the conditions in B.C.”

 

In January, the Vancouver Humane Society sent a letter to B.C. municipalities asking them to consider banning battery-cage eggs in municipal facilities. Pitt Meadows councillor Andrew Tolchard took the request a step further, calling on the Lower Mainland Local Government Association to ask the provincial government to ban battery-cage production. The resolution was narrowly defeated there, but the UBCM will vote on a similar motion on Friday (September 26).

 

The humane society’s director of farm-animal programs, Leanne McConnachie, told the Straight that urbanites have every right to determine how food animals are treated.