Horse advocates deliver 40,000 signatures to council.

This Thursday morning at 8:30am the Victoria Horse Alliance (VHA) delivered over 40,000 signatures from their Change.org petition calling on mayor and council to endorse the recommendations of the BC SPCA and ban horse carriages in Victoria. 

At 12:30pm today, two representatives from the BC SPCA will be answering questions from city council at the Committee of the Whole meeting. The BC SPCA has previously sent a letter of recommendations to council, which include recommendations to prohibit the operations of horse carriages and trolleys on city streets. This letter was sent to the city in May 2018 and no action has been taken by council to address these recommendations to date. 

In May this year, councillor Ben Isitt brought forward a motion for staff to investigate the costs of implementing a ban, if council voted to implement one.  Although the motion passed at the Committee of the Whole meeting, councillor Laurel Collins reneged on her earlier support of the motion causing the vote to not proceed as planned at council the next week. Council instead decided to invite the BC SPCA to answer their questions at today’s Committee of the Whole meeting. 

The Victoria Horse Alliance has been advocating for a ban on horse carriages for several years, documenting the operations of the carriages and treatment of the horses.  In May 2018, VHA released video footage of two horses collapsed at Ogden Point, struggling to get up.  This footage went viral, being viewed over half a million times on Facebook and YouTube. 

Jordan Reichert of the Victoria Horse Alliance said that it is time for the BC SPCA to clearly direct council to follow through on the recommendations they have made and for council to take action on this long-standing issue. 

“Members of Victoria city council have continued to ignore or deny that the BC SPCA recommendations exist because they do not want to wade into animal politics. However, this issue is not going to go away until the horse carriages are banned. They seem more interested in appeasing industry and a vocal minority than listening to the authority on animal welfare in this province.” 

Victoria Animal News