Back in November of 2021, a shocking story emerged in the media and online about the abuse of dairy cows at Cedar Valley Farms in British Columbia, Canada.

In a post at the time by Animal Justice, Camille Labchuk, Executive Director, wrote: “Cedar Valley Farms is part of Cedarwal Farms, which is owned by the Vanderwal family, including veterinarian Dr. Rich Vanderwal. Dr. Vanderwal was the veterinarian overseeing Chilliwack Cattle Sales Ltd., a dairy farm that was exposed on hidden camera in 2014 for brutal beatings of cows, festering wounds, and other suffering—resulting in multiple convictions, fines, and jail time.” You can read the full blog post here.

In other words, Dr. Vanderwal, a licensed vet with the College of Veterinarians of British Columbia (CVBC), was connected to both Cedar Valley Farms as co-owner and Chilliwack Cattle Sales as the vet overseeing animal welfare. When the story about Cedar Valley Farms broke, it prompted protests at Dr. Vanderwal’s veterinary clinic, as reported by the media here and here, demanding Dr. Vanderwal’s veterinary license be revoked. Shortly after the story broke, the BC SPCA pledged to conduct an investigation, and the farm had its license suspended by the BC Milk Marketing Board as reported by BC CTV News. However, that was quickly overturned mere days later. And, as far back as October 2022, the BC SPCA recommended charges, but crown prosecutors have thus far chosen not to proceed. A check with the CVBC reveals that Dr. Vanderwal remains a fully-licensed veterinarian in good standing with the college.

These stories of farm animal abuse have emerged not only in Canada, but also around the world for years and continue to do so. Evidence of this can be seen in our archive of undercover investigations here. So, what are we to make of all this?

First, we think it is important to define “abuse”. The definition is as follows:

“ABUSE - ə-byoo͞z′ - transitive verb:
1. To use improperly or excessively; misuse.
2. To hurt or injure by maltreatment; ill-use.
3. To force sexual activity on; rape or molest."
Source: The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

We think it is fair to say that most people consider abuse to be physical, sometimes verbal, and always wrong. However, is “abuse” strictly a human-on-human affair? What about human-on-animal? Most certainly! Whenever stories of an abused dog, cat or other companion animals emerge, there is often an outcry from the public seeking punishment for those responsible, such as this story of a veterinarian in St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada, caught physically abusing his animal clients.

Some would argue that the abuse by the vet in Ontario and the farm workers in British Columbia are no different. We would agree. But the industry, and many consumers for that matter, will draw a line between what is called standard industry practices in the dairy industry and that which is conducted by the individuals contained in the videos we have posted below. And it is here that we would disagree. Nonetheless, we think it is important to distinguish between these two forms of abuse:

1. This first kind we prefer to call “ad-hoc care abuse” (individuals acting alone or in consort with others to harm the animals out of frustration, anger, impatience, etc.) and
2. “Systemic abuse” (where we subjugate the inherent rights of a sentient being to the sole benefit or utility of us, i.e. humans, which violates a principle in moral philosophy called the equal consideration principle).

Many examples of systemic abuse in dairy production can be found on our website under the page heading: “Life of A Cow”. Most of what you will read, see, and watch on this page is “standard industry practice”. In short, there is considerable harm - both physical (treatment) and moral (use) - perpetrated on innocent, feeling beings in the normal routine of procuring bovine milk for human consumption, including killing both baby, male calves sold to the veal industry, and the female cows who are invariably slaughtered once their ability to lactate drops off and they’re no longer profitable. Ad-hoc care abuse simply compounds the initial and primary harm of systemic abuse. We appreciate that some people may disagree with our position. and that’s fine. For those people, however, we would highly recommend a read of a brief summary of a book by the late Tom Regan, Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at North Carolina State University, titled, “The Case for Animal Rights”. After reading this, you’ll hopefully understand what we mean.

We have included 4 videos below, taken by the Cedar Valley Farm whistleblower, showcasing both ad-hoc care abuse and systemic abuse captured between May and October of 2021 (WARNING: some people may find these videos distressing). The only editing in these videos is to obscure the identity of the individuals therein for liability reasons. We have opted to show these videos in their entirety simply because we believe a fulsome record and account of what happened needs to be made public - with no narration, dramatic music, and (for the most part) little to no captions. We split the original 35-minute video into four parts simply for ease of playback, uploading, downloading and load times for users.

We feel it is imperative that consumers watch and educate themselves on dairy production to help them make informed and compassionate choices. We hope these videos inspire you to take action. As a consumer, you have considerable power as to what you wish to support and not support. And given the huge variety of delicious and healthy plant-based alternatives on the market, we feel the choice is a very easy one.