Meet your neighbour: Animal rights lawyer Camille Labchuk
By Juliet O’Neill
Growing up in a family that included cats, a hamster and a rabbit, Camille Labchuk saw all animals as pets. That changed forever when she was nine and watched a TV show on the seal hunt.
Just a dozen years later, Labchuk was on the ice floes off the East Coast campaigning against the hunt during a vacation from her then job in the office of Green Party leader Elizabeth May.
While her mom, an environmental activist, inspired Labchuk to “do something about it if you see an injustice,” it was May, a lawyer, who inspired her to study law. She wanted to be able to quickly drill down, like her boss, through legalese.
After graduating from the University of Toronto, Labchuk established a rare solo practice in animal law before taking her current position as executive director of Animal Justice, a non-profit group dedicated to “the legal fight for animals in Canada.”
Her latest project is co-hosting a new podcast with a title, Paw and Order, thatinjects humour into an often-grim topic.
Labchuk jokes that she can depress anyone in minutes by talking about Canada’s poor state of animal protection. Cases in point: animals freezing to death in trucks heading to slaughter; the misery of chickens in battery cages; inadequate food labelling; and public dependence on whistleblowers and complaints, far more than inspectors, to expose and oppose cruelty.
Canada should have a coherent national animal welfare statute, Labchuk says. In her view, the current Criminal Code, federal transportation regulations, and provincial laws and rules related to animals comprise a weak patchwork that pales against other Western countries.
“Animals should have rights appropriate to their species,” she said. “Not the right to vote or to drive a car, but to live free of pain and to enjoy everything that makes life worth living.”
Despite her dim view of Canada’s record, Labchuk was optimistic in an interview at Mantovani 1946, an Italian gelato café on Murray Street. A vegan, she ordered her café latte with almond milk.
Public awareness is growing, she said, thanks to mainstream media and social media “inspiring a greater ethic of care.”
Living for the past few years in Lowertown, Labchuk, 33, enjoys the proximity to the Byward Market, being within walking distance to her downtown office and to Parliament Hill, where several proposed laws for animals are being considered.
The proposals would ban captivity of whales and dolphins, prohibit cosmetic testing on animals, ban shark fin imports, and criminalize all sexual contact with animals.
The Supreme Court of Canada suggested in 2016 that Parliament modernize the anti-bestiality law after it acquitted an accused. For Labchuk, the case produced two milestones. For the first time, lawyers were allowed to stand up in court and address judges on behalf of animals. And the Supreme Court ruling incorporated Animal Justice’s position that “fundamental values” include the protection of vulnerable animals.
“Pretty cool,” said Labchuk. “That set the tone for the future.”