The City of Toronto issued an Extreme Cold Weather Alert for Tuesday, January 3, 2012. Toronto Pig Save (TPS) decided to bear witness on Lakeshore and Strachan from 7:30-9:30 am, though we didn't last the last 20 minutes. We saw three trucks go by, though we usually see 10-12 at this time in the early morning. But there shouldn't have been any transport trucks at all on such a cold day.

It was -12 but it felt like -18 and -20 in Toronto. But for the pigs, travelling on the highway at 80-100 kilometres per hour, it would feel more like between -30 and -40 degrees Celsius for the pigs.

I only got a little video footage from one of the three trucks we saw that morning, but the glimpses give you a sense of how gruesome the journey was for the pigs. The discoloration on their bodies is extreme and the truckload of pigs was completely silent and their stares showed incomprehension of their suffering at the hands of humans.

We are asking people to call or write another letter to the Canadian Food Inspection Agency. Contact CFIA’s Toronto office at 416-665-5055 or you can post a letter here: http://www.inspection.gc.ca/about-the-cfia/contact-us/eng/1299860523723/1299860643049  Let's ask the CFIA to ban transport in extreme weather and enforce it.

This video shows all the added "unnecessary" suffering the pigs must endure as they are unloaded with intensive use of the electric prod. The trucker saw us there, I imagine, but there was no pretense at "humane treatment" when he used his electric prod to poke into the truck and then climbed into the trailer with an electric prod only--leaving the rattle paddle behind.

We must speak out against this. Our only regret is we should have 'trespassed' that cold day to oppose the violent method of unloading and took footage of the frost-bitten and hypothermic pigs who can hardly move after enduring temperatures that felt like -30 to -40 degrees Celsius on the highway often for several hours and then having to face the electric prod and each other's piteous screaming -- which makes all of them suffer even more!

TPS has information sheets to systematically document any possible violations of animal cruelty laws and codes you witness. The information sheets are posted on our website here: http://torontopigsave.wordpress.com/slaughterhouse-vigil/

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Video production: Anita Krajnc, Toronto Pig Save