Canada and its merciless and unapologetic exploitation of animals.

🍁🇨🇦 Canada and Its Merciless and Unapologetic Exploitation of Animals 🇨🇦🍁 

✋🐻 First of all: This long essay is completely my own work (and a long one at that ), because I am so passionate about ending animal suffering.
Please share this message so as to raise people's awareness of this issue, because I know from my own experience, that sometimes it simply doesn't occur to a person to ponder certain issues, until a video, a message, a documentary on that topic catches their attention. (I am, personally, the perfect example of this, a person who used to eat lots of meat, eggs, the idea of how all that is actually produced never occurring to me, until one day, we, as a class, were shown a documentary Food.inc. From that point onwards, I never looked at many "regular", "normal" "everyday" things like chunks of meat on a store shelf in the same way again, and the slow process of change, which resulted in me eventually becoming a vegetarian began! )

However, this post of mine is not mainly about factory farming, or domesticated animals, in general, in fact, it all starts with the beaver!

First, this has to be mentioned: Putting a living, cute beaver as a national symbol is an atrocious act of hypocrisy . In reality, it's millions of beaver pelts and the remaining mass of bleeding skinned beaver carcasses that is the symbol of the true, real Canadian relationship with the beaver. But of course, that kind of symbol wouldn't sell well as a souvenir. So, for the money-making purposes, an illusion of a living beaver whose cuteness and cuteness alone, won it the title of the national Canadian symbol was created. (Not the fact that this cute beaver was mercilessly killed en masse despite all its cuteness!) 
But surely, nowadays every Canadian is encouraged to feel pained and sorry about the horrendous exploitation of Canadian wildlife that once took place?! 
If you naively think so, you are wrong. 
I just watched the new 2017 Canadian History documentary "Canada: The Story of Us", and surely, as expected, it talked a lot about discrimination and unfair treatment of some groups of PEOPLE (i.e. early European settlers) towards other groups of PEOPLE (members of Indigenous populations). But besides that, a big part of this documentary was dedicated to telling of beaver hunting. 
What was shocking though, was that unlike the negative portrayal of the exploitation of the Native PEOPLE by Western-European PEOPLE, when it came to animals and their exploitation, the lens through which this issue was viewed was shockingly neutral and at times even positive!! The massive killings of beaver (to which a big part of the beginning of the documentary was dedicated) for example, were presented as a great, lucky thing for the development of the country, as lots and lots of money was made off the death of this animal when massive amounts of beaver pelts were shipped back to Europe where they became all the rage (especially as material for hats in France). 
It was then briefly mentioned that the hunting (i.e. mass murder of the innocent creature) became so severe that the beaver populations in the southern areas of Canada became nearly extinct, but this fact that risked making any normal person uncomfortable, was then promptly mollified as it was quickly pointed out that the near-extinction (which is a euphemism in itself) of beavers in southern areas was actually kind of a good thing, as then the hunters were forced to go north where (hooray!) there was not only more beaver, but their pelts were thicker and of better quality, thus having the potential to bring EVEN MORE money to beaver-murderers! 
Similarly atrocious facts (and in a similarly neutral tone) were then introduced with regards to other species of Canadian wild animals, and surely, nowhere and not once was the word "exploitation of wildlife" (or even the word "kill") mentioned, or any other fitting definition of what was going on, no, everything was viewed as just a normal occurrence and a thing to do. 

Baby bison to be killed

You may say: "Wellll life was hard back then, it was all about survival, people were not conscious of the concept of exploitation of animals and of natural resources in general back then. Really? Well, why then is it so unthinkable to apply the same loose, sloppy moral standards to the early interactions of Western Europeans with the native populations? After all, life was hard, it was all about survival and "racial discrimination" wasn't even a thing (or even an expression) back then, people were not brought up to even ponder this concept back then… But no, after any new fact on the interaction of early European settlers with the Native peoples was introduced, it was then meticulously pointed out (by all kinds of “expert” commentary that followed) how unethical the behaviour of the settlers towards the natives was, so as not to leave space for any doubt-- what early Europeans did to native American PEOPLE was wrong, bad, unethical. But with regards to the issue of exploitation of animals? Any denouncements, comments, anything to suggest a less-than-neutral attitute? None, rien, nada! Actually, the instances of animal exploitation were actively veiled, diverted ones attention from, mollified. 
Even worse, the blatant facts of terrorizing treatment of animals were flipped on their head and presented as an issue of, again, (-the much-rewarded modern topic of—) HUMAN racial discrimination!) Yes, that’s right! Believe it or not! Let me give you one outrageous example:
When white people murdered hundreds of thousands of bison for no reason (simply to make sure that the natives don't get to eat these bison) leaving whole fields of dead bodies of these animals to rot in the sun, it was presented as only a bad thing to do TO NATIVE PEOPLE and not to the animals themselves! As if these animals were not living things but just objects that were rendered useless by one group of people so as to cause inconveniences to another group, and only for that reason was it "mean" and "unfair" to do such a thing! (To be sure, many native peoples themselves also had a tradition of killing the whole heard of bison for no reason, just because they had a belief that if they don't, the remaining animals would go on and "inform" the other herds of danger. And in this case, this tradition wasn't even mentioned as anything bad at all, just an interesting, peculiar quirk of culture, in fact, the site of mass-murder of bison by native Americans the Animalso called "Head-Smashed in Buffalo Jump is declared a national heritage site, celebrating Native American culture). 
Why is it that in year 2017 when this documentary was created, all the care is taken to denounce the actions of the English and the French and to point out the exploitation of Native PEOPLE by Western European PEOPLE, and yet no mention is made of unnecessary mass massacre(!) of animals as anything terrible, despicable, (méprisable, undigne etc)?


I have a very good guess as to why! And the answer is rather simple!

Because IT IS BAD FOR BUSINESS if people start feeling sorry for animals!! While a country profits when different groups of PEOPLE live in peace (hence the obsession with denouncing interracial conflicts in modern historical documentaries and everywhere else in the media), no one will make money if people start feeling sorry for animals and, as a result, stop purchasing and consuming meat and fish and eggs the production of which is a big part of economy! Or if people start resenting cutting out forests to accommodate unnecessarily expanding population, and hence stop supporting the logging and construction industry (Which is, by the way, a whole new topic of its own: why so many politicians mindlessly repeat that the population needs to grow? Is it because having virgin forests supplying the country with fresh air and clean water is a bad thing, and having a dirty town or city in their place instead, a good one? China, also a very big country in terms of territory had a really "healthy" human population growth for a while, and what did it result in, in the end? A strain on resources and an emergency state where families literally have to be restricted to just having one child. Is this the end result that Canadian politicians aspire to when they repeat that the population in Canada needs to grow-grow-grow(?!) -- and yes, maybe it "has to do it" slowly, but still, inevitably GROW! ANYWAY you get the point!)
Now back to why it is just not good for political or economical (money-making) purses to suggest that a modern Canadian citizen be in any way sorry for animals: 
You see, nowadays, animals are exploited more than ever (think commercial factory farming), more money than ever is made off the suffering of these perfectly living and feeling beings. Tons of wild fish are caught and sold, commercial factory farming is huge, and all that brings a lot of money to the government; it is massively profitable, "good for the consumerist economy", so the government that produces these documentaries is not interested to present animals as victims of exploitation alongside of and even much more so, than humans ever have been! (or even to just present animals as living beings at all for that matter!). In these documentaries, it will do anything to brush past the fact of horrendous animal exploitation, and even turn it, if at all possible, to serve the profitable agenda of HUMAN to HUMAN relationships and discrimination, completely ignoring the obvious fact that animals are actually living and feeling beings too, no matter how crazy this political ploy of ignoring animal suffering looks to anyone who has any remnants of critical thinking and morals left in them. 
Canada (just like almost any other country, except that most other countries don't brag about it so much--) is only peaceful, kind and humane, all against violence and bla-bla-bla-all-this-nice-stuff in affairs and places where it is profitable: Getting groups of people to work together without interracial conflicts, hence increasing work productivity and yields is good for economy) and not in others, where being non-violent and non-exploitative just REALLY doesn't pay: for example discouraging inhumane factory farming and massive fishing, cutting out forests to accommodate ever-increasing populations (--of potential voters).
Politicians, whose sole career and income ($$$) depend on being elected are smart to hush the issue of animal exploitation, because really, how many people are going to vote for someone whose time in office will be associated with rising prices on meat, eggs and other animal produce! (You see, keeping animals in more-or-less livable conditions is more expensive!) --Not too many, and not as many as would vote for someone who will promise to make the price of animal produce to go DOWN EVEN MORE (resulting in even more atrocious animal living conditions and merciless exploitation but who cares). 
So Trudeau with his pretentious speech of "peace and love" at the beginning of the documentary was a typical example of politicians, nearly all of whom, while portraying themselves as kind-hearted angels working to spread peace and love and end of suffering in any shape or form, who then, without blinking an eye, ignore the real, blatant suffering and pain staring them in the face, in the form of the massacre of wildlife, murder of innocent calfs, throwing chickens live in boiling water, the plea of all factory farm animals, all that taking place routinely, all over the country, every day. But no, while making sure to end every sentence with a piece and love message, they completely turn their head away from this pain of living creatures, and actively work to make sure everyone else does the same! Diverting people's attention by flooding the discussion with only the profitable, agenda of racial discrimination, so that there is no place in anyone's mind for real, torturous, bloody, murderous, cruel and uncomfortable issues taking place every single second of our lives and right next to us, is just one insidious, stealthy tactic of theirs. A
ll that is like sitting on a yoga mat, doing a peace-and-love meditation, while a crowd is screaming and being slowly, torturously murdered in your own backyard, every day, and instead of even just looking out once to see if anyone needs any help at all, one just turns the peaceful music a little bit louder so as to obstruct and choke the annoying, disagreeable noise coming from the tortured souls! every day... And all this is really happening right at your side, and non-stop even as you are reading this. (In fact, 50,000 chickens will be killed in North America alone by the time you're finished reading this sentence)

Watch my Youtube video on this! ☛

Endnote: If any of you at this point feel like starting the online equivalent of screaming and brandishing fists saying something to the effect of Russiadoesittoo (as if just by being born anywhere outside of Canada means a person has henceforth no right, ever, to express anything less than admiration and silent gratitude towards this country, and when it comes to criticism, is restricted on the other hand, to their country of origin), I will mention that I do denounce animal maltreatment and cruelty towards animals wherever it takes place. It's just that you probably wouldn't see or know of it, as when I see it happening on the Russian-speaking territory, I then do the criticism of it in Russian, and often on other platforms where there is a bigger Russian-speaking audience.