We are the public oversight of the horse carriage industry.
For the past nine years, the Victoria Horse Alliance has documented the operation of the horse carriage industry in Victoria. The BC SPCA does not oversee their operations and can only investigate when a complaint is made. City of Victoria Bylaw Services is also complaint driven. This leaves monitoring, reporting, and holding the carriage industry accountable up to concerned citizens who don’t believe horses should be exploited for entertaining tourists on city streets.
It’s not tourism, it’s exploitation.
Violence against non-human animals is everywhere in our society, but some of these practices are more visible than others.
In Langford, the rodeo is now gone because people spoke out against the inhumane practices of that industry. In Oak Bay, Sealand of the Pacific has been gone for many years after a fatal incident due to the inhumane conditions of the orca whales once kept there.
Now, it is time for the horse-drawn carriages of Victoria to be banned for the inhumane practice of forcing horses to wade through city streets, an unnatural and stressful environment for them.
This is animal exploitation, plain and simple. Every time we go out into the community to raise awareness and challenge this industry we meet concerned citizens who agree, horse-drawn carriages in Victoria need to end. For the horses and for all of us.