Dear Editor,

After reading Dana Lacroix's letter to the editor, I can safely say I 90 per cent disagree with Dana Lacroix's plea [Horse face dreadful death, May 22 Letters, TIMES].

While I do disagree with the inhumane methods used to kill horses for meat, I don't disagree with the idea that horses are, indeed, meat. Not for my palette per se, but yes, these animals have been used as meat as long as they have been on the planet.

If horse slaughter were banned in Canada, where would all these homeless horses go? Do you think someone would suddenly swoop in and adopt them all? To save them from being homeless?

If someone hasn't done that to prevent them from being brutally slaughtered, then I highly doubt they will come to the rescue now.

No, in fact, I can tell you exactly where theses horses will go: they will be "packed into trucks and hauled" not hundreds of miles, but thousands. They will be sent somewhere where they can be legally slaughtered.

Now tell me, is it better they suffer for a shorter period of time here in Canada, or should they suffer weeks or months longer to be sent south of the border, or better yet, overseas?

If a horse isn't living happily as someone's pet, family member, or labourer, then to cramp them up in auction houses for years on end before someone can finally take them home isn't fair to them, either.

What Canada needs is not to ban horse slaughter, but to put in place regulations that require it to be done in a quick and humane way.

This is the same sad tale every animal-loving activist tries to sway the masses with. I don't see anyone trying to ban chicken slaughter or pigs, or cows for that matter.

We don't see these animals as our pets, we see them on plates.

While I agree that our methods of disposing of unwanted animals or animals intended for our dining pleasure are inexplicably cruel and unwarranted, I'd sooner see it on our doorstep than claim we've seen the wrong in our ways and ship them somewhere else to have our dirty work done.

Jessica Mason