When we talk about animal welfare, we often look sideways — at other countries, other systems, other headlines. But is that fair? Which questions *should* we be asking?

“We’re not as bad as they are.”

I’ve heard it since playground days — usually shouted through grubby hands by the child who’d just been caught doing something they shouldn’t. “I’m not as bad as he is!”

The thing is, when it comes to animal livestock agriculture, there are some in Canada who will point to the worst practices in another country and say that because we don’t do *that* here, we’re therefore better at animal welfare.

The thing is, comparing our “average” to someone else’s “worst” is no way to build an industry.

Animal welfare is bigger than one procedure

If you’re a wool-minded person, maybe you’ve heard of something called mulesing, the practice in some parts of Australia where a layer of skin is surgically removed from the back-ends of wrinkly Merino sheep to help prevent flystrike, a devastating, painful and often fatal condition. While for many observers, mulesing is difficult to watch and it raises profound ethical questions, the Australian producers who practice mulesing will argue they are choosing what they believe to be the lesser of two harms — that critics should see a flystruck sheep before deciding which outcome is worse.

(To my mind, and just so we’re clear, neither option is acceptable. One might wonder why a wrinkly beastie vulnerable to flystrike would be the sheep breed of choice in an area notorious for flesh-eating maggots. Just because a thing can be done doesn’t mean it should.)

The mulesing comparison misses the point, however. Most Canadian sheep flocks aren’t exposed to the same level of flystrike pressure so the practice of mulesing is pretty much a moot point here. We haven’t had to consider it — not doing it isn’t about moral choice, it’s about context.

Animal welfare is a much broader issue than just one controversial practice — it is a spectrum of practices including things like pain management for routine procedures (like tail docking or castration), handling stress, nutrition and health care, transportation and marketing conditions and shelter, hygiene and environmental comfort.

Focusing on one practice — especially one that doesn’t apply in Canada — misses the bigger picture.

Canada’s animal welfare laws are lacking

In Canada, animal protection is covered under:

• The Criminal Code (anti-cruelty provisions)
• Provincial animal protection acts enforced by SPCA-style organizations
• Codes of Practice, which are industry-developed guidelines, not law

Those Codes of Practice are influential — but they are not automatically law. Enforcement varies by province. Oversight is often complaint-driven and reactive.

In practical terms, if something is considered “accepted practice,” even if not required by science, it is generally permitted.

Now, contrast this with Europe:

• The European Union has legally binding animal welfare directives that cover transport, slaughter, housing, and general care.
• Many European countries require pain relief for routine procedures and have formal inspection and enforcement programs.

In that context, Canada’s welfare protection laws are less prescriptive and less enforced than in parts of Europe. When we compare our average to their average, we don’t come out ahead.

If we actually want to compare animal welfare honestly, the question should be:

“Do Canadian sheep production systems protect animal welfare as well as the best systems internationally?”

And when we do that comparison:

• Canada competes well at the farm level, especially where producers prioritize low-stress handling, nutrition, and health monitoring. This is based largely on self-reported evidence or when sheep come into the supply chain and are subject to third party inspection – as at auction barns or abattoirs.
• But Canada doesn’t yet have national legal standards or certification systems that consistently require high welfare across the board the way some European programs do.

That means Canada has excellent producers, but not an industry-wide commitment to welfare, subject to third-party audits and objectively demonstrated.

Why robust animal welfare laws should matter

Of course animal health and well-being is paramount. I honestly believe that most people, if they take the time to think about the pork, chicken or beef — or wool — in their lives, would like to think that the animal providing the protein (in whatever form) has or had a wonderful, fulfilling life, however brief it might have been. But our current legal landscape allows the conscientious producer — the one who uses pain medication, invests in ventilation and clean bedding, monitors nutrition, and practices low-stress handling — to be treated no differently from the producer down the road whose barns reek of ammonia, whose sheep stand in wet, filthy bedding, who makes no effort at preventative health, and whose nutrition program begins and ends with the cheapest hay available.

Robust welfare legislation does not surveil good producers.

It removes the competitive advantage of poor ones.

Right now, our system is complaint-driven, inconsistently enforced, and often reactive rather than preventative. The inherent variability breeds ambiguity — and ambiguity breeds distrust. It leaves sectors vulnerable to activist exposure, fosters defensiveness between the industry and the public and can promote rumourmongering. By contrast, when laws are clear and enforced, it creates clarity and can shift the dynamic — from “Trust me,” to “Here, see for yourself.”

That’s stabilizing.

Laws also signal what is “normal.” My parents didn’t have a baby seat in their 1973 Dodge. I wouldn’t have been able to leave the hospital without one when my son was born. Whether it’s seatbelts, drunk driving or smoking indoors, cultural norms shift after legal clarity.

When pain mitigation becomes required rather than “recommended,” it stops being a debate.

When stocking density is regulated, it stops being an argument.

If Canadian wool wants to grow — particularly in premium markets — it cannot afford a scandal that reveals minimal oversight, self-reporting only, no independent audits, and weak enforcement. For most markets, wool is not a staple commodity. It is often a discretionary, values-driven purchase. Luxury goods with shaky provenance are the first to be abandoned when trust erodes.

This is how sectors lose social licence and other jurisdictions are happy to take that market share.

Good law reduces catastrophic reputational risk.

Now, of course there are many who point out the risks — from increased compliance costs, paperwork, one-size-fits-all rules that aren’t sensitive to regional realities and urban policy makers that misunderstand rural systems (CFIA anyone?). These absolutely are legitimate concerns.

But this is also precisely why producers should be at the table shaping law, not resisting its existence — if you don’t help write it, someone else will.

Better comparisons are “my best to their best” not “my average to their worst”

Instead of saying:

“We’re better because we don’t do their worst practices,”

A stronger, more meaningful approach would be to say, “Here’s how Canadian producers lead in welfare — and here’s how we can improve our legal and industry frameworks to match leading international standards.”

Canada doesn’t practice mulesing — because we don’t have to. The absence of mulesing doesn’t automatically make our welfare system better. The truth is our animal protection laws are less comprehensive than those in some European jurisdictions; our enforcement is under-resourced; welfare problems are often only caught by accident and not as a result of a transparent process of accountability; we rely on people to tell the truth about their operations.

A gentle word to fellow farmers

And now a word to sheep farmers. I know some of you are feeling angry with me right now. I’m sorry about that — truly. This is not intended as an attack. But please believe me when I tell you that there are two kinds of stories in the world — the ones you’re ahead of and the one’s you’re trying to manage your way out of. When welfare failures hit news, the public does not think in terms of individual farms. They think in sectors.

It isn’t “that one dairy.”
It’s “the dairy industry.”

It isn’t “that one feedlot.”
It’s “the beef sector.”

If we want the public never to think “This is an industry problem,” we must get ahead of the story — not react to it.

Transparent, accountable, demonstrable standards — that’s how sectors protect themselves.

In order for the Canadian wool sector to truly ensure that the public never thinks, “It’s an industry problem,” we need to get in front of the story. We need to advocate for the kinds of transparent and accountable policies that ensure — and then demonstrate — that Canadian wool is NOT PART OF THE PROBLEM.

Here’s another way to think about it. A young man of my acquaintance and I were discussing the way women are often treated in male-dominated industries. He said, “Men think that if they’re not part of the problem, they’re part of the solution. . . But that just rewards passivity. Unless you’re actively part of the solution, you’re part of the problem.”

It’s the same thing for animal welfare. Unless you’re actively part of the solution – and that can look differently depending on where you sit — you might have more to do with the problem than you think.

The final word

Animal welfare isn’t about pointing to what you don’t do — it’s about what you actively do to promote health, reduce pain, and provide good lives for animals. That’s the standard Canadian producers should be proud to meet. That’s where we should be aiming our guns. Anything else is just a misfire.

For further reading, please look to our Animals and Breeds resource list, under Animal Law and Welfare, in Keeping.