When Canadian animal rights lawyer and Animal Justice Executive Director Camille Labchuk discovered that a Manitoba horse exporter had shipped 97 horses to Japan in December 2022 — on a rerouted flight projected to exceed Canada’s 28-hour transport limit and without a legally required contingency plan covering the full journey — she did something almost unheard of in Canadian animal law: she filed a private prosecution. In this episode, she and host Mariann Sullivan break down the brutal realities of Canada’s live horse export industry, the regulatory failures of the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA), and the historic trial that followed, with a verdict expected imminently.

Canada’s live horse export industry exposed: A small number of Canadian exporters factory-farm horses specifically for live export to Japan, where the meat (basashi) is considered a delicacy, with individual shipments fetching over $1 million — yet most Canadians have no idea this industry exists.
Systemic enforcement failures by the CFIA: Despite clear evidence of repeated violations of Canada’s 28-hour animal transport law and mounting data from Japan showing deaths, collapses, and serious injuries, the CFIA has never charged a single horse transporter — a pattern Animal Justice calls regulatory capture.
A landmark private prosecution: Animal Justice used Canada’s little-known private prosecution right — rooted in British common law — to charge Carlisle Farms Limited for failing to have a legally required contingency plan covering the full duration of the horses’ journey to Japan, culminating in a two-day trial in Winnipeg in February 2025.
The “Cruel Cargo” report: New data obtained from Japanese government and feedlot records reveals that in just one year, 9 horses died, 29 collapsed on flights, and 290 others suffered serious injuries or illness — none of which were reported by Canadian exporters or tracked by the CFIA.
Legislative and legal momentum: A federal bill to ban live horse exports passed the Canadian House of Commons but died in the Senate; Animal Justice is now pushing the new Carney government to revive it, while also pursuing private prosecutions as a tool to force real enforcement of existing animal transport laws.

ABOUT OUR GUEST

Camille Labchuk is an animal rights lawyer and Executive Director of Animal Justice, Canada’s leading legal advocacy organization for animals, where she has spent over 15 years using litigation, investigation, and legislative advocacy to transform how Canada treats animals. Under her leadership, Animal Justice has secured landmark victories including the national ban on whale and dolphin captivity and the defeat of ag gag laws; she has argued cases at the Supreme Court of Canada, testified before legislative committees, and written for outlets including the Globe and Mail and the Toronto Star. A Fellow at the Oxford Centre for Animal Ethics, Camille holds degrees from the University of Toronto Faculty of Law and Mount Allison University, and brings a unique combination of legal and political strategy to the fight for animals — shaped by her earlier career as a press secretary to a federal party leader and two-time parliamentary candidate.

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