TORONTO, July 04, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — When the 2024 edition of the Calgary Stampede kicks off tomorrow for its ten-day run, you can expect to see rodeo business as usual: Broncos being busted; steers ruthlessly wrenched to the ground; calves cruelly roped, and horses driven at life-threatening speed along the chuckwagon track’s legendary “half-mile of hell.” You can also expect to see pancakes being flipped for the public by the smiling likes of Alberta Premier Danielle Smith, Canada’s Official Opposition leader Pierre Poilièvre and perhaps even the head of the Green Party of Canada, Elizabeth May.
Who won’t you see inside the Calgary Stampede grounds? Any member of the Animal Protection Party of Canada (APPC).
“Rodeo events have no place in the modern world, both because of the distress and suffering they inflict on animals and because they bring out the worst instincts of cruelty-as-pleasure in human beings,” declares Liz White, leader of the APPC. “As North America’s first federal political party dedicated solely to the protection of all animals and the environment, we condemn all events at the Calgary Stampede that involve the abuse of animals as entertainment.”
Over many decades, rodeos have been described as “a cruel detour to the slaughterhouse,” given the high rate of injury and death among animals, for many of whom the abattoir is the end of the ride. For politicians, on the other hand, public appearances at spectacles like the Calgary Stampede can constitute a cruelty-condoning path to elected office. All that’s required, beyond the flipping of a few pancakes and the shaking of many hands, is hearty endorsement of the “heritage” and “cultural” aspects of the events and some choice references to the half-billion-dollar boost that ten days of Stampede provide to the economy.
Yet, if it were stripped of all events involving stress, pain, danger or death to animals, the Calgary Stampede could truly become what its website promises: “A gathering place that hosts, educates and entertains visitors from around the world.” Already, the Stampede presents concerts, midway rides, children’s programming, educational sessions on agricultural-animal welfare, indigenous history and much more. “Surely,” says Barry MacKay, APPC General Manager, “without rodeo, the breadth of its attraction to the public could be even broader and just as economically viable.”
It’s notable that a growing majority of Canadians (67%) oppose the use of animals in rodeo events, according to a 2023 poll conducted by Research Co. and Glacier Media.
“It’s time,” says MacKay, “for Canada’s mainstream political parties—representing Liberals, Conservatives, New Democrats and Greens—to put down their pancake-flipping utensils, take off their aprons and glad-handing smiles, and join the APPC in condemning animal cruelty as entertainment at the world-famous Calgary Stampede.”
