Almost a year after an urban rodeo in Montreal drew ire from animal rights advocates, the Montreal SPCA has turned its eye towards another event in St-Tite.
The St-Tite Western Festival, which will take place between Sept. 7 to 16, includes rodeos, which the SPCA calls cruel.
In a statement released on Thursday, the SPCA announced a new campaign that will target 17 of the festival’s sponsors and partners, including Coca-Cola and Ford.
The campaign follows a recent report by a Universite de Montreal law professor saying that the Montreal and St-Tite rodeos violated Quebec animal welfare laws by subjecting the animals to fear, stress and risk of injury or death.
“They show horses tripping, falling, injuring themselves, really collapsing,” said SPCA attorney Sophie Gaillard. “Calves being lassoed while they’re running at full speed, being violently slammed down and dragged for a number of feet. We don’t need to see anything else, for us it’s quite obvious this kind of behaviour doesn’t respect animal welfare and there’s really no purpose except entertainment.”
On the festival’s website, organizers said many precautions are taken to ensure the safety of rodeo animals.
“In an additional effort to protect the animals for the risks inherent to the sport and offer them the best environment possible, the Festival Organization has also made arena safety a priority. In order to do so, we have invested thousands of dollars to have an arena that is well adapted to for rodeo competitions.”
According to the SPCA, both Hydro-Qeubec and the SAQ had responded to their request and agreed to disassociate themselves from the event.
Spokespeople from both organizations told CTV Montreal that they had committed to sponsorship of the Western Festival for this summer, but that sponsorship was connected to other aspects of the event and not the rodeo.
A Hydro-Quebec spokesperson said the company evaluates its sponsorship every year and would consider the report when looking at next year’s event.
