On July 26, The Globe and Mail quoted Dr. Georgia Mason in a piece about animal welfare and sentience. Unfortunately, she felt the finished piece missed touching on the wide spectrum of debate on sentience and did not explain the importance of the Canadian Veterinary Medical Association (CVMA)’s newly-released position on animal sentience. Read her letter to the editor online, or in full below:
Re: “The controversy behind animal sentience” (July 26): The debate around animal “sentience” (abilities to feel pleasures and pains) involves a spectrum of views. At one extreme, some believe even single-celled organisms are sentient. But at the other extreme, sadly missing from this article, are views that most animals are non-sentient. Some neuroscientists believe sentience is unique to primates, for instance, and the Ontario Federation of Agriculture has proposed that farm animals lack sentience. Such positions potentially imply that fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds and farm animals need no protection from welfare harms. Currently the National Farm Animal Care Council and Canadian Council on Animal Care do somewhat protect these animals. However, whether they protect them enough, or protect all relevant species, is an ongoing ethical issue. This moral and political context is what makes the Canadian Veterinary Medical Association’s new statement on sentience so crucial for animals in Canada.
