Love-Based Activism
Toronto Pig Save activists protest slaughter weekly at Quality Meat Packers abattoir.
Toronto Pig Save: Our mission is to put “glass walls” on Toronto’s three slaughterhouses: St. Helen’s Meat Packers and Ryding-Regency Meat Packers cow slaughterhouses located at 1 and 7 Glen Scarlett Road, and Maple Leaf Poultry chicken slaughterhouse located at 100 Ethel Avenue. Our goal is to encourage people: to join us and bear witness of the suffering of animals in transport and at slaughterhouses, to go vegan, to be daily animal activists, to protect the environment, to promote healthy living, to support farm sanctuaries, and to work towards a just transition for workers and the creation of meaningful and nonviolent work in a vegan food economy.
Toronto Pig Save started in December 2010 as a grassroots, animal rights, vegan group, after an adopted dog, Mr. Bean, put us in touch with our community: walking on Lake Shore we saw 8 or 9 transport trucks carrying sad and frightened pigs to a nearby downtown slaughterhouse called “Quality Meat Packers.” In July 2011, we committed to holding three weekly vigils to bear witness of pigs and other farmed animals transported to Toronto’s four slaughterhouses. In late 2012, Toronto Cow Save started holding weekly vigils and in July 2013 Toronto Chicken Save began holding weekly vigils. As our group grows, we hope to increase the number and duration of our vigils.
Toronto Pig Save uses the strategies of bearing witness to animal suffering in darkest places—slaughterhouses—and a community-organizing approach in which we have a team of leaders and we encourage leadership in others. We aim to build a democratic, mass-based, grassroots movement to bear witness of animal suffering, end the animal emergency, and create a world of animal equality and animal sanctuaries. We use a love-based approach informed by Leo Tolstoy (especially his book The Kingdom of God is Within You about nonviolence, love and truth as the most potent forces in life and in social change), Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Lois Gibbs, Cesar Chavez, and many other grassroots community organizers.
Pig Save has grown to an international Save Movement with Save groups in Canada including Toronto Cow Save, Toronto Chicken Save, Golden Horseshoe Farm Animal Save, Waterloo Wellington Animal Save, Windsor Pig Save, Brampton Chicken Save, London Chicken Save, Montreal Pig Save, Manitoba Pig Save, and Brandon Pig Save; in the U.S. NY Farm Animal Save, New Jersey Farm Animal Save, Pennsylvania Animal Save, Huron Turkey Save (South Dakota), Indiana Pig Save, and North Carolina Farm Animal Save; in Australia: Melbourne Pig Save, Melbourne Chicken Save, and Perth Pig Save; and Sao Paolo Animal Save in Brazil.
These people are doing great work to raise awareness and help the masses make the connection, check out their website and what they get up to.