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Decolonization
Vegan Society of Canada News, April 19th 2024

There are various reasons to leave the typical North American diet behind, from health to the environment and ethics. However, today we will touch on decolonization, a motivation we don’t often hear about in Canada, the US and most of the G-20. But for some people, decolonization can be a major factor in the adoption of veganism or a change of diet...

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More compassion needed
Vegan Society of Canada News, March 21st 2024

We once thought that lofty promises of change seemed theoretically possible by 2030, but since that’s only six years away, let’s look at how we are doing. The latest IEA report for 2023 shows that, instead of reducing emissions, we once again increased overall emissions by 1.1% with most of the increase coming from China...

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Thank you: An overview of our work in 2023 and a look at 2024
Vegan Society of Canada News, December 22nd 2023

Thank you to all our donors and volunteers for your continued support throughout 2023. What follows is a brief update of our activities and a forecast for 2024...

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Fundraising campaign
Vegan Society of Canada News, December 1st 2023

The Vegan Society of Canada has been running on 100% volunteer power since the beginning. All donations are used only for the benefit of the organization. No volunteers, including directors, receive salaries or any other forms of payment.

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Climate and pollution update
Vegan Society of Canada News, November 16th 2023

Several significant developments have occurred since our last climate change update. While none of them on their own warrant a lengthy discussion, this compilation provides a brief summary of four key areas...

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Unintentional versus intentional actions
Vegan Society of Canada News, October 12th 2023

There has been much debate over what constitutes “intentional” versus “unintentional” exploitation and what this means for human animals and other animal rights. Regarding killing within the human species, Pnevmatikos explains that intent is the mitigating factor in determining guilt in a court of law, specifically when killing in self-defence or accidentally...

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Vegan printing and our new ebook
Vegan Society of Canada News, September 15th 2023

After much dedicated effort by numerous individuals, we are thrilled to announce the release of our ebook centered around veganism. Initially it will only be available through Google but within the next months we expect to be available on ITunes as well...

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Burger veganism and greenhouse farming
Vegan Society of Canada News, June 15th 2023

There have been many arguments, both academically and among laypersons, about the impacts of crop agriculture versus animal agriculture. One popular argument against veganism is that more animals have to be harmed to produce fruits and vegetables...

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Perils of plastic pollution
Vegan Society of Canada News, April 14th 2023

We’ve known for a while that plastics are ubiquitous. They are part of pretty much all consumer products made in the last decades and have been polluting our oceans, lands and foods since. We are now investigating how ubiquitous plastics are...

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Water shortage caused by dairy and other beverages
Vegan Society of Canada News, March 17th 2023

There are a lot of negative externalities from the dairy industry, not the least of which is the killing and exploitation of animals. But what is often ignored and causes suffering is no access to potable water...

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The cycle of exploitation
Vegan Society of Canada News, February 17th 2023

We should be eternally grateful that a vast majority of animals are incapable of enacting revenge on human animals for how they are treated. But, we have seen the many ways exploiting animals comes back to bite us–whether that’s in the form...

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Country of origin labelling issues
Vegan Society of Canada News, January 20th 2023

Country of origin labelling continues to be a contentious issue at the public level as it pertains to animal exploitation. The narrative concerning the interconnectedness of animal exploitation has long sought to unify the rights of all animals...

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New Country of origin labelling requirement for our vegan certification
Vegan Society of Canada News, January 20th 2023

We cannot wait for solutions to come from the government or anywhere else. Nobody will achieve our vision for us. This is why, in addition to the many requirements in our vegan certification, we are putting in place new Country of Origin Labelling...

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New videos on veganism to foster change
Vegan Society of Canada News, January 7th 2023

We have an ongoing mandate to evaluate how we exploit animals. In collaboration with our colleagues from the Vegan World Alliance, we are releasing a series of short videos that we hope will inspire reflection and provide additional incentive...

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Thank you: An overview of our work in 2022 and a look at 2023
Vegan Society of Canada News, December 23rd 2022

Thank you to all our donors and volunteers for your continued support throughout 2022. What follows is a brief update of our activities and a forecast for 2023...

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The REACH animal testing loophole
Vegan Society of Canada News, December 16th 2022

The Registration, Evaluation, Authorization and Restriction of Chemicals (REACH) animal testing loopholes in Europe are similar to what we’ve discussed before but different in some key aspects. It is misleading countless people...

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We are banning Kashi products
Vegan Society of Canada News, November 21st 2022

We are banning Kashi brand products from vegan certification and putting the Kellogg Company under negative watch.

Many years ago, there was almost nothing labelled vegan which led to people making things from scratch. Fast forward to 2022, there are many foods labelled vegan, but we are faced with having no idea exactly what it means, even from organizations that self-identify as vegan or businesses that self-certify...

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Alzheimer's disease, dementia and the cholesterol link
Vegan Society of Canada News, November 18th 2022

We have known the health risks of cholesterol for a while. However, something that is less well known is the link between a diet high in animal foods and all causes of dementia, including Alzheimer’s disease...

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The precautionary principle
Vegan Society of Canada News, October 14th 2022

The precautionary principle in veganism is a crucial pillar, and without it, veganism would crumble or become a mindless list of things we avoid without any reason or logic to help explain it. We are dedicating an entire article to this principle...

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Flights will soon be not vegan certifiable
Vegan Society of Canada News, September 16th 2022

For some time now, we have known the toll on the environment from the aviation industry. The emissions are significant as only one transatlantic flight or two medium-distance flights is roughly equal to all the emissions saved from switching to eating foods suitable for vegans for an entire year...

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Exploiting Animals as Workers
Vegan Society of Canada News, September 2nd 2022

We will not certify any products that exploit animals as workers, but regrettably many others do. Transportation, security, powering machinery, retrieving, searching or land clearing, are all ways animals are exploited...

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Salt may corrode people
Vegan Society of Canada News, August 12th 2022

Once again there seems to have been some corruption in our government regarding the new packaging labelling laws that will take effect on January 1st, 2026. Let’s begin with the positive aspects of this new regulation. High sodium consumption globally is a health problem. It is not our first choice of health issue to address...

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Issues with the veganic label
Vegan Society of Canada News, July 15th 2022

Vegan certification, with its numerous serious issues like the animal testing loophole, the exploitation of non-human and human animals in part via slavery and slavery-like conditions, and the fallacy that plants are inherently better are among issues we consider to be akin to the wild west. By definition, anything that relies on what veganism is, like “veganic” farming certification, must also be similarly labelled...

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Apathy towards animals
Vegan Society of Canada News, June 16th 2022

One cannot help but notice a distinct contradiction when it comes to animal exploitation. As research has shown, in one sense, most people are horrified when a dog or cat is abused, but they are much more apathetic toward animals in the agricultural industry and even more indifferent to animals used in testing laboratories. The level of concern for invertebrates is nonexistent...

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"PlantGate" at the IPCC
Vegan Society of Canada News, May 17th 2022

Despite CO2 levels in the atmosphere continuing to rise, we no longer seem to be talking about the climate crisis. We have coined the term "PlantGate" upon reviewing the latest IPCC report, and we aim to bring climate change back to the forefront...

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Methionine: A double-edged sword
Vegan Society of Canada News, April 18th 2022

We have discussed many times in the past the health benefits of a vegan lifestyle. Unfortunately, as we discussed in our article about superbugs, our current economic system fails when it comes to producing cures that are not profitable, such as antibiotics. This also applies to the health benefits of a vegan lifestyle, which unlike traditional medicine is hard to monetize for businesses...

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Introducing our mental health support
Vegan Society of Canada News, March 25th 2022

The Vegan Support Line is a free chat and email based mental health support line. All our volunteer responders self-identify as vegans and have work experience in the field of mental health, clinical health, or social work. It’s open to anyone who would benefit from emotional and mental support and prefers to chat with those who self-identify as vegans, whether or not it is related to veganism...

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The animal testing loophole
Vegan Society of Canada News, March 18th 2022

There are various practices we strongly oppose, including what we refer to as the animal testing loophole. We briefly touched on this issue in the ban of ISO-23662 article, but, unfortunately, most if not all organizations, including members of the Vegan World Alliance (VWA), continue to use this loophole...

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Food plate for the planet
Vegan Society of Canada News, February 17th 2022

For far too long, we had to contend with food plate diagrams that encourage the exploitation of animals. The latest version of the food guide from our government is certainly progressing in the right direction, but as climate incidents have shown us too often, we no longer have the luxury of time...

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Exploitation in the cocoa industry
Vegan Society of Canada News, January 14th 2022

September 2021 was the 20th anniversary of the failure of The Harkin-Engel Protocol. Twenty years later, most chocolate remains unsuitable for vegans and we will ban from vegan certification Nestlé’s plant-based KitKat, and Cadbury’s Plant Bar...

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Thank you: An overview of our work in 2021 and a look at 2022
Vegan Society of Canada News, December 23rd 2021

Thank you to all our donors and volunteers for your continued support throughout 2021. What follows is a brief update of our activities and a forecast for 2022...

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Sustainable population
Vegan Society of Canada News, December 16th 2021

When we discuss our vision, we usually encourage everyone to end animal exploitation in their own life. However, it is part of a bigger equation that, overly simplified, looks like this...

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We are banning Lush products
Vegan Society of Canada News, November 15th 2021

We have written in the past about the serious issues with vegan labelling that threaten the achievement of our vision. As we explained in more detail in our ISO-23662 ban article, it is incorrect to think that the most popular certification schemes are the most stringent...

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Veganism
Vegan Society of Canada News, October 15th 2021

As we discussed in one of our articles, there is the possibility that veganism as practiced today will not bring about our vision. You may have noticed that our vision is vegan agnostic. Our commitment to our vision is steadfast. We hope the following analysis...

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When plants conflict with our vision
Vegan Society of Canada News, September 16th 2021

This may sound counterintuitive, but everything made from plants will not result in the achievement of our vision, because veganism is not about ingredients, and plants are not inherently better than anything else. We are not opposed to the molecular structure of meat or dairy, we are opposed to the animal exploitation behind it...

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Climate offenders
Vegan Society of Canada News, September 2nd 2021

Despite the floods and wildfires in Europe and the record-shattering heat wave in North America that killed countless animals, we continue to ignore reality and are not taking steps toward preventing further disasters or a full-blown catastrophe...

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Selling good behavior
Vegan Society of Canada News, August 12th 2021

For the most part, people are willing to use paper straws, purchase energy-efficient light bulbs and deal with a slightly less effective showerhead to conserve water—products that are sold to the consuming public under the guise of serving some public good. The effectiveness of these products isn't our focus, but rather the marketing strategies used by these corporations that prey on a seeming preference in the population to purchase products that appear to support some public concern...

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Summer giveaway for our donors
Vegan Society of Canada News, July 10th 2021

The Vegan Society of Canada has been running on 100% volunteer power since the beginning. All donations are used only for the benefit of the organization. No volunteers, including directors, receive salaries or any other forms of payment...

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Why we don't care
Vegan Society of Canada News, June 4th 2021

The reason for the writing of this article was two simple questions “why don't people care and how can we help them to do so?” Naturally, these are very broad questions that could have any number of aspects explored and analyzed...

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Canada's proposed changes to novel food regulations
Vegan Society of Canada News, May 6th 2021

Canadian government practices, policies, laws and regulations make being vegan in Canada challenging. We feel it’s mandatory to disclose as much information as possible to consumers. If we don’t have the necessary information to make informed decisions, we could be unwittingly supporting animal exploitation with our consumer dollars...

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Lost in translation
Vegan Society of Canada News, April 23rd 2021

The French word “végétalien” is not equivalent to vegan. Unfortunately, it’s not uncommon to have misleading, confusing or outright incorrect translations on food labels. The word “végétalien” in French is defined by Larousse broadly as a person who follows a diet excluding any foods of animal origin...

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Arthropods are important to the earth's ecosystems
Vegan Society of Canada News, April 6th 2021

If animals were represented using a proportional voting system, we would be spending a vast majority of our time discussing the exploitation of arthropods. The diagram below derives from the latest research on the biomass distribution on earth...

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Organic meat fallacy and an update on worrisome animal agriculture research
Vegan Society of Canada News, March 5th 2021

It’s been the scientific consensus for a long time that a vegan way of life has a significantly lesser carbon footprint than a typical North American way of life. There are some who claim that a lifestyle that includes eating organically raised animals is better for the environment than non-organically raised animals...

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Your fruits and vegetables may not be vegan certifiable
Vegan Society of Canada News, February 4th 2021

Animal exploitation isn’t limited to industries that directly use animals; it exists in the production of fruits and vegetables as well. In order to maintain our vision and to be in integrity, we are shedding light on this exploitation in plant agriculture. We have reached out to various organizations, including those that are representing migrant rights, and are simultaneously launching our whistleblower program along with our new toll free number...

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Plant-based labels are changing
Vegan Society of Canada News, January 21st 2021

We haven’t used the term “plant-based” as a broad substitute for various concepts in veganism for a while. Instead, while we still use plant as an adjective, we use phrases like “food suitable for vegans” or “this food is vegan certifiable”...

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The truth about Canada's emissions
Vegan Society of Canada News, January 4th 2021

In a recent report, the World Meteorological Organization had some sobering projections. They forecast that we have a 24% chance of exceeding 1.5 degrees Celsius before 2024 and a 70% chance...

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Call for volunteers
Vegan Society of Canada News, December 23rd 2020

This year has been a challenging one for all animals for various reasons, and while we expect challenges to continue, we look forward to the many ways and opportunities to benefit all animals in the coming years...

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Thank you: An overview of our work in 2020 and a look at 2021
Vegan Society of Canada News, December 20th 2020

Thank you to all our donors and volunteers for your continued support throughout 2020! What follows is a brief update of our activities we did not discuss in previous articles, and a forecast for 2021...

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Coronavirus mutation in Danish minks
Vegan Society of Canada News, December 4th 2020

On November 4th, the Danish government announced, then later retracted, that it will kill all minks being raised on farms, about 17 millions individuals, due to a very serious mutation of the virus in minks that potentially puts the effectiveness of vaccines currently being developed at risk...

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Non-compliant certification schemes
Vegan Society of Canada News, November 21st 2020

We are aware of various certifications or standards currently available in and outside of Canada that we have banned. We have had limited success in having the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) change their definition of what is vegan...

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Ocean of trauma
Vegan Society of Canada News, November 3rd 2020

While human animal exploitation in slaughterhouses is horrendous, the suffering and abuse of workers in the global fisheries industry surpasses it...

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Fundraising campaign
Vegan Society of Canada News, October 16th 2020

The Vegan Society of Canada has been running on 100% volunteer power since the beginning. All donations are used only for the benefit of the organization. No volunteers, including directors, receive salaries or any other forms of payment.

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Celebrate World Egg-Free Day on October 9th
Vegan Society of Canada News, September 23rd 2020

Mark October 9th on your calendars and get ready to join us and vegans across the world as we celebrate veganism on World Egg-Free Day...

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Don’t get cracking: How egg lobbies skew research
Vegan Society of Canada News, September 23rd 2020

As a prelude to World Egg-Free Day on October 9th, 2020, here is the latest research on the health concerns of egg consumption...

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Slaughterhouses and COVID-19
Vegan Society of Canada News, September 11th 2020

As we do our part by wearing masks and physically distancing, experts and government agencies are trying to contain and control COVID-19, while the cost is spiralling out of control. But it seems we need to be reminded that, most regrettably, we brought this upon ourselves...

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Are we courting another pandemic?
Vegan Society of Canada News, August 12th 2020

As we do our part by wearing masks and physically distancing, experts and government agencies are trying to contain and control COVID-19, while the cost is spiralling out of control. But it seems we need to be reminded that, most regrettably, we brought this upon ourselves...

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The dairy industry’s toll on our planet
Vegan Society of Canada News, July 7th 2020

As we have shared before, dairy is problematic for many reasons, including our health as well as environmental and ethical concerns. The latest report by the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy (IATP) provides us with an update of the dairy industry’s toll on our planet...

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Celebrating veganism on World Vegan Burger Day
Vegan Society of Canada News, May 23rd 2020

Mark May 28th on your calendars and get ready to join us and vegans across the world as we celebrate veganism on World Vegan Burger Day!

The Vegan World Alliance and BEVegan, Belgium’s vegan association, have chosen May 28th as the day to come together to recognize the benefits of switching from traditional meat-based burgers to flavourful and healthier vegan burgers.

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Our review of new research into vitamin B12
Vegan Society of Canada News, May 16th 2020

In the last few years, there has been interesting new research shedding light on the contentious issues surrounding vitamin B12. In light of this, we are updating our recommendations and remind everyone who self-identifies as vegans to supplement and monitor their B12 levels...

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The dairy and breast cancer connection
Vegan Society of Canada News, April 14th 2020

A new study, funded by the World Cancer Research Fund (WCRF) and the National Cancer Institute at the National Institute of Health (NIH), finally sheds some light on the relation between dairy and breast cancer...

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Motivation: Preventing future pandemics
Vegan Society of Canada News, February 14th 2020

Some effects of animal agriculture get very little attention. And while they may not lead to mass extinction like our climate emergency, they have caused millions of deaths over the centuries, which will continue if the status quo prevails...

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Demystifying our inflated calcium intake recommendations
Vegan Society of Canada News, January 23rd 2020

Let’s continue to explore the broad impact of animal agriculture influence by looking at the inflated Canadian calcium recommendation. There is a lot of scientific evidence to go through and there is still more we do not know...

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Show me the money: Following the money trail of animal agriculture
Vegan Society of Canada News, January 4th 2020

When things in our society do not make sense, it is often helpful to follow the money. In the case of tobacco, lead and asbestos it took decades before the scientific evidence reached the mainstream and countless had to suffer the consequences. The money trail of tobacco, now publicly available in history books, gives us an important piece of the puzzle as to why so many people had to die before things started to change...

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Thank you: An overview of our work in 2019 and a look at 2020
Vegan Society of Canada News, December 27th 2019

With the end of the year approaching, it is a good time to thank all our donors and volunteers for their continued support and provide an update of our activities in 2019 as well as a forecast for 2020...

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Torment and butchery or torment in butchery
Vegan Society of Canada News, December 2nd 2019

The follow up report by Human Rights Watch on the cruelty, torture and exploitation of human animals in slaugtherhouses is out, and unfortunately nothing since their 2005 initial report or the Oxfam 2015 report we covered here has changed. In fact, conditions seem to be much worse...

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Another romaine lettuce E. coli outbreak
Vegan Society of Canada News, November 23rd 2019

Unfortunately, it seems animal agriculture once again cross-contaminated some romaine lettuce. The Public Health Agency of Canada recommends that people avoid any romaine lettuce harvested from the Salinas, California growing region in the U.S...

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Ocean rising: Special report on the ocean and cryosphere
Vegan Society of Canada News, November 15th 2019

The new Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) special report on the ocean and cryosphere is out and not surprisingly confirms that we are selfishly destroying our oceans and all its inhabitants. The oceans have already done much for us to protect us from our own selfishness...

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Broad recall of Compliments brand fresh-cut vegetables
Vegan Society of Canada News, November 3rd 2019

We wanted to warn the Canadian public of a broad recall by the CFIA of Compliments brand fresh-cut vegetable products due to possible Listeria monocytogenes...

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Discussion of vegan labelling
Vegan Society of Canada News, October 21st 2019

We have discussed before the issues with the word vegan being used on products that are not vegan certified. Today we will not cover why having independent third-party certification is a good idea as this is the same reasoning that all Canadians have already accepted with regards to organic, kosher, halal and many other non food certifications in Canadian society...

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Got misery?
Vegan Society of Canada News, October 6th 2019

As we have discussed before, the people working in slaughterhouses, who kill the animals that eventually land on our plates, go to work each day doing a job that most of us would never do. Nevertheless, we are schedule to import this misery starting in early 2020...

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Climate Emergency: What Are Canadians Willing to Do About It?
Vegan Society of Canada News, September 15th 2019

The results of this new survey published by the CBC should be of grave concern. On the one hand it’s a good sign that Canadians do not seem to have a bias against giving up meat. On the other hand, the reason we do not have a bias against giving up meat in particular is simply because we seem to be disinclined to do anything at all...

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A review of the scientific evidence on the health risks of dairy products
Vegan Society of Canada News, August 3rd 2019

When the new Canadian food guide made water their beverage of choice, we were glad that scientific evidence and common sense prevailed over profit and disease. Let’s review the current scientific evidence with regard to the health risks of dairy...

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More vegan labelled product containing dairy recalled by CFIA
Vegan Society of Canada News, July 19th 2019

Once again we wanted to warn vegans, and the Canadian public at large, of a series of products labelled vegan under the Probar and Chocolats Favoris brand containing milk...

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The verdict on tackling our climate emergency in 2018: We failed
Vegan Society of Canada News, July 13th 2019

We know we are in trouble when a major fossil fuel corporation tell us we have grounds to be concerned. While 2018 saw many promesses of the climate emergency being taken seriously, unfortunately it turns it these were just empty words...

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A plant diet increases many biomarkers indicative of good health
Vegan Society of Canada News, July 6th 2019

There are a barrage of research being published constantly and much of it has various problems from simply being early research that needs broader validation to having some strong conflict of interest. Today we will go over one of those papers that shows some promise but that we would normally skip...

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Warning of food labelled as "plant-based" that contains animal-based ingredients like meat, eggs or dairy
Vegan Society of Canada News, June 30th 2019

We are continuing to work with the CFIA to fix their errors with regards to their definition of vegan labelling and will update you as soon as possible. For the time being we wanted to further issue a warning concerning practices of labelling food...

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Unexpected methane rising
Vegan Society of Canada News, June 27th 2019

We have no safety margin in the Paris climate agreement target, so when researchers published a paper a few months ago highlighting the unexpected rise of methane this could well be the push that make this whole house of card tumble...

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Biodiversity loss: Nature’s dangerous decline unprecedented
Vegan Society of Canada News, June 12th 2019

A new report by the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) on the unprecented decline of nature globally was recently published and we spent some time going through it...

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Objective profit: How to save 1.2 trillion USD
Vegan Society of Canada News, May 18th 2019

Today we're going to look at a very important part of motivation: Profit. We could discuss how profit is not the best motivation to have and we could even discuss why having legal entities whose sole purpose is to maximize profit was not one of our brightest idea and is probably one of the cause we are where we are today. Nevertheless, it would be foolish to ignore that for many entities profit is the driving motivation...

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Government of Canada tries to redefine what food are suitable for vegans
Vegan Society of Canada News, May 15th 2019

We noticed in the last year an influx of businesses being confused about the word vegan, contacting us having trouble with overseas customs and requiring urgent certification, and an increase of Canadian products being labeled vegan that are not suitable for vegans and not vegan certifiable. We were puzzled as to why this was happening until we became aware of the Canadian Food Inspection Agency’s (CFIA) information...

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Canada's changing climate report
Vegan Society of Canada News, April 4th 2019

According to a new climate change report published by the Government of Canada the Canadian story is more catastrophic then the global one as we are warming up at double the global rate...

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Review of the new Health Canada food guide
Vegan Society of Canada News, March 5th 2019

After doing some more extensive research, our initial conclusion on the new Canadian food guide is largely unchanged.

However, while crunching numbers, we came upon some interesting results with regards to similarities between the new Canadian food guide and the EAT-Lancet planetary health diet...

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Strengthening our motivation: Compassion and protecting the health of animal agriculture workers
Vegan Society of Canada News, February 6th 2019

We have anything but great compassion for those who have to work in animal agriculture, more specifically those who do the actual killing for us in slaughterhouses...

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The new Health Canada food guide
Vegan Society of Canada News, January 23rd 2019

After years of reviewing all the scientific evidences, Health Canada released their new food guide. We will have more extensive coverage in the weeks to come but for now we will like to share major changes that are in the new guide. One of such change is that Health Canada recommends our plates be proportionally filled with at least 88% of plant-based foods.

In addition, to make sure nobody ignore the science and is tempted to get stuck in the past Health Canada makes it clear: The drink of choice is water...

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EAT-Lancet report: A discussion of the shift to a plant-based world
Vegan Society of Canada News, January 19th 2019

The new 'planetary health diet' released by the EAT-Lancet commission is in many ways similar to the previously released Greenpeace’s report, in this article will explore the many implications...

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Is 2019 the year of lab-grown meat?
Vegan Society of Canada News, January 5th 2019

There has been tremendous progress in lab-grown meat and the beginning of the end seem to be coming for conventional animal agriculture...

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Charges laid against corporations in animal cruelty case
Vegan Society of Canada News, December 31st 2018

As a Canadian rarity, charges were laid against two corporations under the federal Health of Animals Regulation. Usually individuals are charged and corporations themselves escape any consequences claiming that all of these incidents are isolated...

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We must not become complacent about climate change
Vegan Society of Canada News, December 28th 2018

Are we starting to forget about climate change? Perhaps we think that our representative at the climate change conference COP24 would sort it all out? Unfortunately we would be severely mistaken...

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Thank you: An overview of our work in 2018 and a look at 2019
Vegan Society of Canada News, December 21st 2018

As the year end is approaching we thought it was a good time to thank all our donors and volunteers for their continued support and provide an update of our activities in 2018 and a forecast for 2019...

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An update on our work with Nestle
Vegan Society of Canada News, December 3rd 2018

We wanted to give you an update on our work with Nestle. There seem to have been some miscommunication and little progress has been made since we originally contacted. Nevertheless, we found out that non-dairy Häagen-Dazs® is unsuitable for a vegan diet because of the sugar it contains...

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Deciphering labels: We eat meat without knowing
Vegan Society of Canada News, December 3rd 2018

In the context of our recent update on Nestle, we wanted to discuss more broadly the difficulty we face in deciphering products on a daily basis...

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Another romaine lettuce outbreak in Canada
Vegan Society of Canada News, November 21st 2018

Unfortunately, it seems animal agriculture once again cross-contaminated some romaine lettuce. The Public Health Agency of Canada recommend that people in Ontario and Quebec avoid eating romaine lettuce for the time being...

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Strengthening our motivation: Water shortage
Vegan Society of Canada News, November 12th 2018

In our series aim at strengthening our motivation we wanted to discuss the fresh water crisis, accentuated by climate change and our dependence on animal agriculture...

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Vegan product containing dairy recalled by CFIA
Vegan Society of Canada News, October 23rd 2018

We wanted to warn vegans, and the Canadian public at large, of two products under the brand Emborg and Nora's that are marketed as vegan but contained milk...

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We must do more to prevent human caused climate change
Vegan Society of Canada News, October 14th 2018

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released another report ahead of the COP24 summit in Poland later this year. The report is titled "Global Warming of 1.5c", continues to remind us that

Limiting warming to 1.5°C is possible within the laws of chemistry and physics but doing so would require unprecedented changes
Some of those unprecedented changes of course have to do with animal agriculture and our diet...

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Dairy farmer aid package
Vegan Society of Canada News, October 2nd 2018

Are you against the dairy concession made in the new NAFTA agreement USMCA? Do you feel like you keep fighting for a smaller and smaller share of the pie amid globally slumping sales...

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Balanced plant-based diet one of the healthiest
Vegan Society of Canada News, September 28th 2018

It should now be clear that a simple balanced plant-based diet is one of the healthiest diet. In case there is still some doubt one of the most comprehensive study just published talks about the dangers of low or high carbohydrate diet and the benefits of plant-based foods...

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Our economy needs change: The UN Global Sustainable Development Report
Vegan Society of Canada News, August 28th 2018

The input document on the economic transformation that will be required for a sustainable future, which will be used in the upcoming UN global sustainable development report 2019 is out. Like many others they also realized that a sustainable future will require drastic change to the way we eat...

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Strengthening our motivation: Fostering peace, preventing conflict and the illusion of sustainable animal agriculture
Vegan Society of Canada News, August 26th 2018

In our series aim at strengthening our motivation we wanted to discuss the illusion of sustainable and organic animal agriculture and how plant-based food foster peace and prevent conflicts...

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Discussions of Greenpeace's meat and dairy consumption target
Vegan Society of Canada News, August 10th 2018

We wanted to both congratulate and discuss Greenpeace's meat and dairy consumption target for 2050...

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We must do more
Vegan Society of Canada News, August 7th 2018

We must do more. The latest estimate for meat consumption for 2018 and projection for 2019 for the USA are out and apart from milk, we can see the US is breaking all time high records and Canada is also following in their footstep increasing since 2014...

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Emission impossible: How big meat and dairy are heating up the planet
Vegan Society of Canada News, August 2nd 2018

Did we talk about climate change yet? Of course we are biased: We have a bias against human caused mass extinction events and the suffering it will cause to all animals including human beings. This new report confirms our internal calculations...

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Strengthening our motivation: Superbugs and antibiotic resistance crisis
Vegan Society of Canada News, July 17th 2018

In our series aimed at strengthening our motivation we will now take a closer look at the antibiotics crisis. It may not seem like it but we are on the verge of being thrown back to the dark ages of medicine...

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Strengthening our motivation: Climate change
Vegan Society of Canada News, July 7th 2018

In the context of extreme heat wave and all the suffering that ensue we thought it was a good time for another series aimed at strengthening our motivation, this time on climate change...

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Peacebird vegan eco-village
Vegan Society of Canada News, July 6th 2018

You have been contacting us with interest in vegan communities so we went searching. In this article we will look at the vegan eco-village Peacebird in Ontario and an upcoming offshoot in British-Columbia.

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New partnership and call for increase cooperation
Vegan Society of Canada News, July 1st 2018

Today we are announcing the start of our initiative to partner with another vegan organization in order to maximize our impact and efficiency. We are hoping to announce in the weeks and months to come shared initiatives and increased cooperation where we take the best of what others have done for decades and use them in Canada and we cooperate on projects where we have made good progress like vegan financial services. Read on and happy Canada day...

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Strengthening our motivation: Health
Vegan Society of Canada News, June 28th 2018

In our series aimed at strengthening our motivation we will start with health reasons: Going vegan is the 2nd best thing someone can do to prevent cancer after not smoking...

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New tariffs on food coming July 1st 2018
Vegan Society of Canada News, June 21st 2018

New tariffs will come into effect July 1st 2018. In this article we look at the impact this will have for vegans in Canada.

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VegFest best practices
Vegan Society of Canada News, June 16th 2018

To avoid confusion and recent problems at some VegFest here are some best practices to follow for event organizers...

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New Vegan Society of Canada gear
Vegan Society of Canada News, June 15th 2018

We are currently working on various branded gear and we have some special gift for our donors...

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Vegan abandonment
Vegan Society of Canada News, June 5th 2018

Unfortunately a recent survey conducted by Kellogg’s only reinforce a 2014 study which indicated that many people who change to a vegan lifestyle abandon within the first year. In this article we will explore this further.

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Avoiding meat and dairy is ‘single biggest way’ to reduce your impact on Earth
The Guardian, June 2nd 2018

It has been said for a while and now this latest comprehensive study on the subject confirms what everyone has been saying for a while.

"A vegan diet is probably the single biggest way to reduce your impact on planet Earth, not just greenhouse gases, but global acidification, eutrophication, land use and water use"

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The costs of a plant based diet
Vegan Society of Canada News, March 31st 2018

We wanted to address some discussion currently in the media surrounding the cost of following a diet compatible with the vegan philosophy. Read over our article and make your own opinion.

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The first vegan ETF in the world
Vegan Society of Canada News, March 6th 2018

Ethical financial services will be an important building block of a sustainable future. That is why we are launching today the first Vegan ETF in the world. If you have a sizable portfolio and are interested in shaping the first Vegan ETF in the world contact us for more details.

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Health

Perils of plastic pollution
Vegan Society of Canada News, April 14th 2023

We’ve known for a while that plastics are ubiquitous. They are part of pretty much all consumer products made in the last decades and have been polluting our oceans, lands and foods since. We are now investigating how ubiquitous plastics are...

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Water shortage caused by dairy and other beverages
Vegan Society of Canada News, March 17th 2023

There are a lot of negative externalities from the dairy industry, not the least of which is the killing and exploitation of animals. But what is often ignored and causes suffering is no access to potable water...

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Alzheimer's disease, dementia and the cholesterol link
Vegan Society of Canada News, November 18th 2022

We have known the health risks of cholesterol for a while. However, something that is less well known is the link between a diet high in animal foods and all causes of dementia, including Alzheimer’s disease...

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Methionine: A double-edged sword
Vegan Society of Canada News, April 18th 2022

We have discussed many times in the past the health benefits of a vegan lifestyle. Unfortunately, as we discussed in our article about superbugs, our current economic system fails when it comes to producing cures that are not profitable, such as antibiotics. This also applies to the health benefits of a vegan lifestyle, which unlike traditional medicine is hard to monetize for businesses...

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Introducing our mental health support
Vegan Society of Canada News, March 25th 2022

The Vegan Support Line is a free chat and email based mental health support line. All our volunteer responders self-identify as vegans and have work experience in the field of mental health, clinical health, or social work. It’s open to anyone who would benefit from emotional and mental support and prefers to chat with those who self-identify as vegans, whether or not it is related to veganism...

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Food plate for the planet
Vegan Society of Canada News, February 17th 2022

For far too long, we had to contend with food plate diagrams that encourage the exploitation of animals. The latest version of the food guide from our government is certainly progressing in the right direction, but as climate incidents have shown us too often, we no longer have the luxury of time...

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Plant-based labels are changing
Vegan Society of Canada News, January 21st 2021

We haven’t used the term “plant-based” as a broad substitute for various concepts in veganism for a while. Instead, while we still use plant as an adjective, we use phrases like “food suitable for vegans” or “this food is vegan certifiable”...

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Coronavirus mutation in Danish minks
Vegan Society of Canada News, December 4th 2020

On November 4th, the Danish government announced, then later retracted, that it will kill all minks being raised on farms, about 17 millions individuals, due to a very serious mutation of the virus in minks that potentially puts the effectiveness of vaccines currently being developed at risk...

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Celebrate World Egg-Free Day on October 9th
Vegan Society of Canada News, September 23rd 2020

Mark October 9th on your calendars and get ready to join us and vegans across the world as we celebrate veganism on World Egg-Free Day...

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Don’t get cracking: How egg lobbies skew research
Vegan Society of Canada News, September 23rd 2020

As a prelude to World Egg-Free Day on October 9th, 2020, here is the latest research on the health concerns of egg consumption...

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Slaughterhouses and COVID-19
Vegan Society of Canada News, September 11th 2020

As we do our part by wearing masks and physically distancing, experts and government agencies are trying to contain and control COVID-19, while the cost is spiralling out of control. But it seems we need to be reminded that, most regrettably, we brought this upon ourselves...

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Are we courting another pandemic?
Vegan Society of Canada News, August 12th 2020

As we do our part by wearing masks and physically distancing, experts and government agencies are trying to contain and control COVID-19, while the cost is spiralling out of control. But it seems we need to be reminded that, most regrettably, we brought this upon ourselves...

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The dairy industry’s toll on our planet
Vegan Society of Canada News, July 7th 2020

As we have shared before, dairy is problematic for many reasons, including our health as well as environmental and ethical concerns. The latest report by the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy (IATP) provides us with an update of the dairy industry’s toll on our planet...

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Celebrating veganism on World Vegan Burger Day
Vegan Society of Canada News, May 23rd 2020

Mark May 28th on your calendars and get ready to join us and vegans across the world as we celebrate veganism on World Vegan Burger Day!

The Vegan World Alliance and BEVegan, Belgium’s vegan association, have chosen May 28th as the day to come together to recognize the benefits of switching from traditional meat-based burgers to flavourful and healthier vegan burgers.

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Our review of new research into vitamin B12
Vegan Society of Canada News, May 16th 2020

In the last few years, there has been interesting new research shedding light on the contentious issues surrounding vitamin B12. In light of this, we are updating our recommendations and remind everyone who self-identifies as vegans to supplement and monitor their B12 levels...

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The dairy and breast cancer connection
Vegan Society of Canada News, April 14th 2020

A new study, funded by the World Cancer Research Fund (WCRF) and the National Cancer Institute at the National Institute of Health (NIH), finally sheds some light on the relation between dairy and breast cancer...

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Motivation: Preventing future pandemics
Vegan Society of Canada News, February 14th 2020

Some effects of animal agriculture get very little attention. And while they may not lead to mass extinction like our climate emergency, they have caused millions of deaths over the centuries, which will continue if the status quo prevails...

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Just the facts: How much calcium do we really need?
Vegan Society of Canada News, January 23rd 2020

We have explored this question in our article titled “Demystifying our inflated calcium intake recommendations”. In summary, we recommend at least 400mg/day for people on a 100% plant-based diet whose sodium intake as at or below Health Canada’s recommendation of 1500mg/day. Otherwise, we recommend 500-700mg/day.

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Demystifying our inflated calcium intake recommendations
Vegan Society of Canada News, January 23rd 2020

Let’s continue to explore the broad impact of animal agriculture influence by looking at the inflated Canadian calcium recommendation. There is a lot of scientific evidence to go through and there is still more we do not know...

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Another romaine lettuce E. coli outbreak
Vegan Society of Canada News, November 23rd 2019

Unfortunately, it seems animal agriculture once again cross-contaminated some romaine lettuce. The Public Health Agency of Canada recommends that people avoid any romaine lettuce harvested from the Salinas, California growing region in the U.S...

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A review of the scientific evidence on the health risks of dairy products
Vegan Society of Canada News, August 3rd 2019

When the new Canadian food guide made water their beverage of choice, we were glad that scientific evidence and common sense prevailed over profit and disease. Let’s review the current scientific evidence with regard to the health risks of dairy...

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A plant diet increases many biomarkers indicative of good health
Vegan Society of Canada News, July 6th 2019

There are a barrage of research being published constantly and much of it has various problems from simply being early research that needs broader validation to having some strong conflict of interest. Today we will go over one of those papers that shows some promise but that we would normally skip...

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Review of the new Health Canada food guide
Vegan Society of Canada News, March 5th 2019

After doing some more extensive research, our initial conclusion on the new Canadian food guide is largely unchanged.

However, while crunching numbers, we came upon some interesting results with regards to similarities between the new Canadian food guide and the EAT-Lancet planetary health diet...

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The new Health Canada food guide
Vegan Society of Canada News, January 23rd 2019

After years of reviewing all the scientific evidences, Health Canada released their new food guide. We will have more extensive coverage in the weeks to come but for now we will like to share major changes that are in the new guide. One of such change is that Health Canada recommends our plates be proportionally filled with at least 88% of plant-based foods.

In addition, to make sure nobody ignore the science and is tempted to get stuck in the past Health Canada makes it clear: The drink of choice is water...

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EAT-Lancet report: A discussion of the shift to a plant-based world
Vegan Society of Canada News, January 19th 2019

The new 'planetary health diet' released by the EAT-Lancet commission is in many ways similar to the previously released Greenpeace’s report, in this article will explore the many implications...

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Deciphering labels: We eat meat without knowing
Vegan Society of Canada News, December 3rd 2018

In the context of our recent update on Nestle, we wanted to discuss more broadly the difficulty we face in deciphering products on a daily basis...

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Another romaine lettuce outbreak in Canada
Vegan Society of Canada News, November 21st 2018

Unfortunately, it seems animal agriculture once again cross-contaminated some romaine lettuce. The Public Health Agency of Canada recommend that people in Ontario and Quebec avoid eating romaine lettuce for the time being...

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Balanced plant-based diet one of the healthiest
Vegan Society of Canada News, September 28th 2018

It should now be clear that a simple balanced plant-based diet is one of the healthiest diet. In case there is still some doubt one of the most comprehensive study just published talks about the dangers of low or high carbohydrate diet and the benefits of plant-based foods...

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Just the facts: Alcohol, health and which ones are not vegan certifiable
Vegan Society of Canada News, September 14th 2018

It may come as a surprise that the top wines sold in Canada are not vegan certifiable, and no amount of alcohol consumption is safe...

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Just the facts: Vitamin B12
Vegan Society of Canada News, August 12th 2018

We wanted to discuss vitamin B12 and dispel the wrong information we often see being repeated...

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New Gallup polls on veganism
Vegan Society of Canada News, August 7th 2018

A new Gallup poll should help lay to rest, as we have discussed before, the misconception that following a diet compatible with the vegan philosophy is only for the rich and famous

Americans earning less than $30,000 annually are more likely to identify as vegetarian. Nine percent of this group say they are vegetarian, a higher percentage than is true of Americans in the two higher-income groups. Differences in levels of veganism among these three groups are not statistically significant.

Unfortunately it also confirm once more that the rate of veganism has been stagnant for a long time.

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Strengthening our motivation: Superbugs and antibiotic resistance crisis
Vegan Society of Canada News, July 17th 2018

In our series aimed at strengthening our motivation we will now take a closer look at the antibiotics crisis. It may not seem like it but we are on the verge of being thrown back to the dark ages of medicine...

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Strengthening our motivation: Health
Vegan Society of Canada News, June 28th 2018

In our series aimed at strengthening our motivation we will start with health reasons: Going vegan is the 2nd best thing someone can do to prevent cancer after not smoking...

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Stop spreading cancer
Vegan Society of Canada News, March 15th 2018

We would like to renew our call to stop the advertising of processed and red meat. While surprisingly legal this practice is highly unethical. Nevertheless, it is surprising that we must plead to stop encouraging people from getting cancer by advertising the consumption of level 1 and level 2 carcinogenic substances. Let’s not wait until this become illegal to change, we will work with any business to replace their cancer spreading advertisement to vegan flyers and inserts, contact us to make the change today.

Resolution urges OEHHA to add cancer-causing processed meat to prop 65
Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, February 14th 2018

We welcome the proposed resolution to label processed meat as the dangerous level 1 carcinogenic substance that it is. In addition, while we do not have such regulations in Canada we would ask that producers adopt this voluntary labeling measures. Furthermore, we ask that grocers do the ethical thing as well and stop encouraging people to get cancer by advertising processed meat in their flyers. Profits should not come before lives.

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Veganism

Unintentional versus intentional actions
Vegan Society of Canada News, October 12th 2023

There has been much debate over what constitutes “intentional” versus “unintentional” exploitation and what this means for human animals and other animal rights. Regarding killing within the human species, Pnevmatikos explains that intent is the mitigating factor in determining guilt in a court of law, specifically when killing in self-defence or accidentally...

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Vegan printing and our new ebook
Vegan Society of Canada News, September 15th 2023

After much dedicated effort by numerous individuals, we are thrilled to announce the release of our ebook centered around veganism. Initially it will only be available through Google but within the next months we expect to be available on ITunes as well...

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Burger veganism and greenhouse farming
Vegan Society of Canada News, June 15th 2023

There have been many arguments, both academically and among laypersons, about the impacts of crop agriculture versus animal agriculture. One popular argument against veganism is that more animals have to be harmed to produce fruits and vegetables...

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Perils of plastic pollution
Vegan Society of Canada News, April 14th 2023

We’ve known for a while that plastics are ubiquitous. They are part of pretty much all consumer products made in the last decades and have been polluting our oceans, lands and foods since. We are now investigating how ubiquitous plastics are...

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The cycle of exploitation
Vegan Society of Canada News, February 17th 2023

We should be eternally grateful that a vast majority of animals are incapable of enacting revenge on human animals for how they are treated. But, we have seen the many ways exploiting animals comes back to bite us–whether that’s in the form...

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Country of origin labelling issues
Vegan Society of Canada News, January 20th 2023

Country of origin labelling continues to be a contentious issue at the public level as it pertains to animal exploitation. The narrative concerning the interconnectedness of animal exploitation has long sought to unify the rights of all animals...

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The REACH animal testing loophole
Vegan Society of Canada News, December 16th 2022

The Registration, Evaluation, Authorization and Restriction of Chemicals (REACH) animal testing loopholes in Europe are similar to what we’ve discussed before but different in some key aspects. It is misleading countless people...

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The precautionary principle
Vegan Society of Canada News, October 14th 2022

The precautionary principle in veganism is a crucial pillar, and without it, veganism would crumble or become a mindless list of things we avoid without any reason or logic to help explain it. We are dedicating an entire article to this principle...

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Flights will soon be not vegan certifiable
Vegan Society of Canada News, September 16th 2022

For some time now, we have known the toll on the environment from the aviation industry. The emissions are significant as only one transatlantic flight or two medium-distance flights is roughly equal to all the emissions saved from switching to eating foods suitable for vegans for an entire year...

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Exploiting Animals as Workers
Vegan Society of Canada News, September 2nd 2022

We will not certify any products that exploit animals as workers, but regrettably many others do. Transportation, security, powering machinery, retrieving, searching or land clearing, are all ways animals are exploited...

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Salt may corrode people
Vegan Society of Canada News, August 12th 2022

Once again there seems to have been some corruption in our government regarding the new packaging labelling laws that will take effect on January 1st, 2026. Let’s begin with the positive aspects of this new regulation. High sodium consumption globally is a health problem. It is not our first choice of health issue to address...

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Issues with the veganic label
Vegan Society of Canada News, July 15th 2022

Vegan certification, with its numerous serious issues like the animal testing loophole, the exploitation of non-human and human animals in part via slavery and slavery-like conditions, and the fallacy that plants are inherently better are among issues we consider to be akin to the wild west. By definition, anything that relies on what veganism is, like “veganic” farming certification, must also be similarly labelled...

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The animal testing loophole
Vegan Society of Canada News, March 18th 2022

There are various practices we strongly oppose, including what we refer to as the animal testing loophole. We briefly touched on this issue in the ban of ISO-23662 article, but, unfortunately, most if not all organizations, including members of the Vegan World Alliance (VWA), continue to use this loophole...

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Food plate for the planet
Vegan Society of Canada News, February 17th 2022

For far too long, we had to contend with food plate diagrams that encourage the exploitation of animals. The latest version of the food guide from our government is certainly progressing in the right direction, but as climate incidents have shown us too often, we no longer have the luxury of time...

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Exploitation in the cocoa industry
Vegan Society of Canada News, January 14th 2022

September 2021 was the 20th anniversary of the failure of The Harkin-Engel Protocol. Twenty years later, most chocolate remains unsuitable for vegans and we will ban from vegan certification Nestlé’s plant-based KitKat, and Cadbury’s Plant Bar...

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Sustainable population
Vegan Society of Canada News, December 16th 2021

When we discuss our vision, we usually encourage everyone to end animal exploitation in their own life. However, it is part of a bigger equation that, overly simplified, looks like this...

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We are banning Lush products
Vegan Society of Canada News, November 15th 2021

We have written in the past about the serious issues with vegan labelling that threaten the achievement of our vision. As we explained in more detail in our ISO-23662 ban article, it is incorrect to think that the most popular certification schemes are the most stringent...

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Veganism
Vegan Society of Canada News, October 15th 2021

As we discussed in one of our articles, there is the possibility that veganism as practiced today will not bring about our vision. You may have noticed that our vision is vegan agnostic. Our commitment to our vision is steadfast. We hope the following analysis...

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When plants conflict with our vision
Vegan Society of Canada News, September 16th 2021

This may sound counterintuitive, but everything made from plants will not result in the achievement of our vision, because veganism is not about ingredients, and plants are not inherently better than anything else. We are not opposed to the molecular structure of meat or dairy, we are opposed to the animal exploitation behind it...

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Broad recall of Compliments brand fresh-cut vegetables
Vegan Society of Canada News, November 3rd 2019

We wanted to warn the Canadian public of a broad recall by the CFIA of Compliments brand fresh-cut vegetable products due to possible Listeria monocytogenes...

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More vegan labelled product containing dairy recalled by CFIA
Vegan Society of Canada News, July 19th 2019

Once again we wanted to warn vegans, and the Canadian public at large, of a series of products labelled vegan under the Probar and Chocolats Favoris brand containing milk...

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Vegan product containing dairy recalled by CFIA
Vegan Society of Canada News, October 23rd 2018

We wanted to warn vegans, and the Canadian public at large, of two products under the brand Emborg and Nora's that are marketed as vegan but contained milk...

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One of the last largest meat producer joins Cargill and Tyson into the future of plant protein
Vegan Society of Canada News, September 7th 2018

While we doubt this decision was made out of any ethical concerns, we nonetheless welcome it as a sign of change. Why not make it easier for others like them to make the change by going vegan yourself? Join one of the local communities in your area or contact us for help on how to get started.

If you are another old-fashioned animal protein company looking to make the switch to being a "trusted name in premium protein" contact us, we will help anyone trying to make the transition.

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Just the facts: Veganism and human rights
Vegan Society of Canada News, August 22nd 2018

We wanted to discuss veganism with regards to human rights...

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We must do more
Vegan Society of Canada News, August 7th 2018

We must do more. The latest estimate for meat consumption for 2018 and projection for 2019 for the USA are out and apart from milk, we can see the US is breaking all time high records and Canada is also following in their footstep increasing since 2014...

Read More

Veganism is protected by human rights
Vegan Society of Canada News, August 1st 2018

Veganism is protected by Canadian and international human rights law and you are entitled to basic respect from colleagues, bosses and peers. If you have some problems with public institutions contact your schools, hospital dietician, or appropriate manager to discuss these issues with them. If you are having some problems that cannot be resolved contact us we would like to hear from you.

New partnership and call for increase cooperation
Vegan Society of Canada News, July 1st 2018

Today we are announcing the start of our initiative to partner with another vegan organization in order to maximize our impact and efficiency. We are hoping to announce in the weeks and months to come shared initiatives and increased cooperation where we take the best of what others have done for decades and use them in Canada and we cooperate on projects where we have made good progress like vegan financial services. Read on and happy Canada day...

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Vegan abandonment
Vegan Society of Canada News, June 5th 2018

Unfortunately a recent survey conducted by Kellogg’s only reinforce a 2014 study which indicated that many people who change to a vegan lifestyle abandon within the first year. In this article we will explore this further.

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FrontPage

We have updated our FAQ on human animal rights and veganism
Vegan Society of Canada News, February 23rd 2024

We have updated our FAQ on human animal rights and veganism with new information on legal development and recommendation.

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We have updated our article on the misleading calcium recommendations
Vegan Society of Canada News, January 23rd 2024

We have updated our article on the misleading calcium recommendations with new information on cardiovascular health research and downloadable infographics.

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We have updated our article on the exploitation in the fishing industry
Vegan Society of Canada News, August 31st 2023

We have updated our article on the exploitation in the fishing industry with new downloadable infographics.

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Call for volunteer
Vegan Society of Canada News, May 16th 2023

Not too sure what to do? One is never too young or too old to start making a difference. We have many open positions and ask that people be able to commit at least 4 hours per week for 6 months. Come and join us as a volunteer and change the world.

We have updated our article on cholesterol and dementia
Vegan Society of Canada News, March 31st 2023

We have updated our article on the effect of cholesterol on dementia and Alzheimer's disease with new information on dementia and downloadable infographics.

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We have updated our article on the health risks of eggs and cholesterol
Vegan Society of Canada News, November 23rd 2022

We have updated our review of the scientific evidence on the health risks of eggs and cholesterol with new information on dementia and Alzheimer's disease, as well as downloadable infographics.

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We have updated our article on the exploitation in the cocoa industry
Vegan Society of Canada News, November 20th 2022

We have updated our article on the exploitation of animals in the cocoa and chocolate industry with downloadable infographics.

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A call for Veganism on International Day of Non-Violence
Vegan Society of Canada News, September 25th 2022

Mark October 2nd on your calendars and get ready to join us and vegans across the world as we mark the United Nations International Day of Non-Violence! Together we will voice and promote the non-violent principles of practising a vegan lifestyle...

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We have updated our article on the health risks of dairy
Vegan Society of Canada News, September 1st 2022

We have updated our review of the scientific evidence on the health risks of dairy products with new graphics and downloadable infographics.

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Vegan Impact joined the Vegan World Alliance
Vegan Society of Canada News, July 20th 2020

We are delighted to announce that Vegan Impact, France's vegan association, has joined the Vegan World Alliance...

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Be Vegan has joined the Vegan World Alliance
Vegan Society of Canada News, July 19th 2020

We are delighted to welcome Be Vegan, Belgium’s vegan association, to the Vegan World Alliance...

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Vegan World Alliance rejects ISO-23662
Vegan Society of Canada News, June 7th 2020

Alongside the Vegan World Alliance we strongly support this ban of ISO-23662, which we are simultaneously putting into effect, and the condemnation of ISO and its members for its questionable practices.

The practice of astroturfing—hiding who is really behind the message—is being used by those who profit from the killing, torture, cruelty and harm of animals. Because of this, it’s imperative that the vegan community remains vigilant. We must, at all costs, prevent a situation where products and services are undeservedly labelled vegan, because that brings us no closer to achieving our vision than we are today.

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Launch of the Vegan World Alliance (VWA)
Vegan Society of Canada News, August 26th 2019

After many months of work we are glad to publicly announce the Vegan World Alliance. As a way to be a unified voice for the unheard, the following organizations have joined to form the Vegan World Alliance...

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Update on E. coli romaine lettuce outbreak
Vegan Society of Canada News, November 22nd 2018

New Brunswick has now been added to the list of provinces where the Public Health Agency of Canada recommends residents should avoid eating romaine lettuce. Please see our earlier article, or the Public Health Agency of Canada notice below for more details.

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One of the last largest meat producer joins Cargill and Tyson into the future of plant protein
Vegan Society of Canada News, September 7th 2018

While we doubt this decision was made out of any ethical concerns, we nonetheless welcome it as a sign of change. Why not make it easier for others like them to make the change by going vegan yourself? Join one of the local communities in your area or contact us for help on how to get started.

If you are another old-fashioned animal protein company looking to make the switch to being a "trusted name in premium protein" contact us, we will help anyone trying to make the transition.

Read More

The first vegan ETF in the world
Vegan Society of Canada News, August 20th 2018

Just a quick reminder that we are still looking for investors for the first vegan exchange traded fund (ETF) in the world. Vegan financial services will be an important building block of a sustainable future. If you have a sizable portfolio and are interested in shaping the first Vegan ETF contact us for more details.

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New Gallup polls on veganism
Vegan Society of Canada News, August 7th 2018

A new Gallup poll should help lay to rest, as we have discussed before, the misconception that following a diet compatible with the vegan philosophy is only for the rich and famous

Americans earning less than $30,000 annually are more likely to identify as vegetarian. Nine percent of this group say they are vegetarian, a higher percentage than is true of Americans in the two higher-income groups. Differences in levels of veganism among these three groups are not statistically significant.

Unfortunately it also confirm once more that the rate of veganism has been stagnant for a long time.

Read More

Veganism is protected by human rights
Vegan Society of Canada News, August 1st 2018

Veganism is protected by Canadian and international human rights law and you are entitled to basic respect from colleagues, bosses and peers. If you have some problems with public institutions contact your schools, hospital dietician, or appropriate manager to discuss these issues with them. If you are having some problems that cannot be resolved contact us we would like to hear from you.

Volunteer for the summer
Vegan Society of Canada News, May 25th 2018

Not too sure what to do of your summer? One is never too young to start changing the world. Come and join us to volunteer for the summer or longer.

US civil rights group hails historic progress
Independent, May 19th 2018

While this case was ultimately lost it is the statement by Associate Judge Eugene M Fahey, which finally shows the shift in our society being taking into account in the courtroom:

"The issue whether a nonhuman animal has a fundamental right to liberty protected by the writ of habeas corpus is profound and far-reaching. It speaks to our relationship with all the life round us. Ultimately, we will not be able to ignore it."

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More than half of all canadians eat vegan meat
Vegan Society of Canada News, May 12th 2018

While we are encouraged that a recent study shows that 53% of Canadians eat meat alternatives we hope to be able to raise the amount of people who are committed to Veganism from 2%. Hopefully new products will make it easier for the 69% of people who prefer meat to make the move. Until then contact us and you local community for support in your lifestyle change.

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U.K. supermarket chain to offer 'snowflake chicken' for those afraid to touch raw meat
National Post, April 17th 2018

If one has issues with calling bacon "pig flesh", fuzzy lamb on pork chops label, the use of animal names instead of types of meat, the meat paradox and touching meat we have another solution to try out: Go vegan. It is easier and the symptoms above should disappear shortly after making the change. Join one of our local community in your area or contact us for help on how to get started.

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Financial aid available for VegFest
Vegan Society of Canada News, April 12th 2018

We are looking to provide financial aid for VegFest in order to help them become financially sustainable. If you are looking to start a VegFest or just few years away from being self-financing contact us and let see if we can work together.

Stop spreading cancer
Vegan Society of Canada News, March 15th 2018

We would like to renew our call to stop the advertising of processed and red meat. While surprisingly legal this practice is highly unethical. Nevertheless, it is surprising that we must plead to stop encouraging people from getting cancer by advertising the consumption of level 1 and level 2 carcinogenic substances. Let’s not wait until this become illegal to change, we will work with any business to replace their cancer spreading advertisement to vegan flyers and inserts, contact us to make the change today.

We can clone pet dogs. But is that a good idea
National Geographic, March 2nd 2018

We understand that a strong bond can develop between sentient beings. However, life is changing moment to moment, trying to oppose this change and wishing things to remain static will probably cause much dissatisfaction down the road. We oppose cloning of companion animals for many reasons, the least of which is that many sentient beings are facing death waiting to be adopted. Please don’t clone and adopt instead, it will not be the same but the benefits of saving another sentient being from death should hopefully make it even better.

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Resolution urges OEHHA to add cancer-causing processed meat to prop 65
Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, February 14th 2018

We welcome the proposed resolution to label processed meat as the dangerous level 1 carcinogenic substance that it is. In addition, while we do not have such regulations in Canada we would ask that producers adopt this voluntary labeling measures. Furthermore, we ask that grocers do the ethical thing as well and stop encouraging people to get cancer by advertising processed meat in their flyers. Profits should not come before lives.

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Taxing meat could help offset environmental, health problems
CBC News, January 7th 2018

We strongly support the polluter pays principle that is so prevalent in the rest of our society. There are no reasons that the whole of society should bear the cost of harmful behavior like pollution, climate change, alcohol, tobacco, animal agriculture and others so that corporations can have disproportionate profit because our rules and regulations are outdated and do not properly hold responsible those who create negative externalities.

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Ethics

Unintentional versus intentional actions
Vegan Society of Canada News, October 12th 2023

There has been much debate over what constitutes “intentional” versus “unintentional” exploitation and what this means for human animals and other animal rights. Regarding killing within the human species, Pnevmatikos explains that intent is the mitigating factor in determining guilt in a court of law, specifically when killing in self-defence or accidentally...

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Water shortage caused by dairy and other beverages
Vegan Society of Canada News, March 17th 2023

There are a lot of negative externalities from the dairy industry, not the least of which is the killing and exploitation of animals. But what is often ignored and causes suffering is no access to potable water...

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The cycle of exploitation
Vegan Society of Canada News, February 17th 2023

We should be eternally grateful that a vast majority of animals are incapable of enacting revenge on human animals for how they are treated. But, we have seen the many ways exploiting animals comes back to bite us–whether that’s in the form...

Read More

Country of origin labelling issues
Vegan Society of Canada News, January 20th 2023

Country of origin labelling continues to be a contentious issue at the public level as it pertains to animal exploitation. The narrative concerning the interconnectedness of animal exploitation has long sought to unify the rights of all animals...

Read More

The REACH animal testing loophole
Vegan Society of Canada News, December 16th 2022

The Registration, Evaluation, Authorization and Restriction of Chemicals (REACH) animal testing loopholes in Europe are similar to what we’ve discussed before but different in some key aspects. It is misleading countless people...

Read More

The precautionary principle
Vegan Society of Canada News, October 14th 2022

The precautionary principle in veganism is a crucial pillar, and without it, veganism would crumble or become a mindless list of things we avoid without any reason or logic to help explain it. We are dedicating an entire article to this principle...

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A call for Veganism on International Day of Non-Violence
Vegan Society of Canada News, September 25th 2022

Mark October 2nd on your calendars and get ready to join us and vegans across the world as we mark the United Nations International Day of Non-Violence! Together we will voice and promote the non-violent principles of practising a vegan lifestyle...

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Flights will soon be not vegan certifiable
Vegan Society of Canada News, September 16th 2022

For some time now, we have known the toll on the environment from the aviation industry. The emissions are significant as only one transatlantic flight or two medium-distance flights is roughly equal to all the emissions saved from switching to eating foods suitable for vegans for an entire year...

Read More

Exploiting Animals as Workers
Vegan Society of Canada News, September 2nd 2022

We will not certify any products that exploit animals as workers, but regrettably many others do. Transportation, security, powering machinery, retrieving, searching or land clearing, are all ways animals are exploited...

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Apathy towards animals
Vegan Society of Canada News, June 16th 2022

One cannot help but notice a distinct contradiction when it comes to animal exploitation. As research has shown, in one sense, most people are horrified when a dog or cat is abused, but they are much more apathetic toward animals in the agricultural industry and even more indifferent to animals used in testing laboratories. The level of concern for invertebrates is nonexistent...

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The animal testing loophole
Vegan Society of Canada News, March 18th 2022

There are various practices we strongly oppose, including what we refer to as the animal testing loophole. We briefly touched on this issue in the ban of ISO-23662 article, but, unfortunately, most if not all organizations, including members of the Vegan World Alliance (VWA), continue to use this loophole...

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Exploitation in the cocoa industry
Vegan Society of Canada News, January 14th 2022

September 2021 was the 20th anniversary of the failure of The Harkin-Engel Protocol. Twenty years later, most chocolate remains unsuitable for vegans and we will ban from vegan certification Nestlé’s plant-based KitKat, and Cadbury’s Plant Bar...

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Sustainable population
Vegan Society of Canada News, December 16th 2021

When we discuss our vision, we usually encourage everyone to end animal exploitation in their own life. However, it is part of a bigger equation that, overly simplified, looks like this...

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We are banning Lush products
Vegan Society of Canada News, November 15th 2021

We have written in the past about the serious issues with vegan labelling that threaten the achievement of our vision. As we explained in more detail in our ISO-23662 ban article, it is incorrect to think that the most popular certification schemes are the most stringent...

Read More

Veganism
Vegan Society of Canada News, October 15th 2021

As we discussed in one of our articles, there is the possibility that veganism as practiced today will not bring about our vision. You may have noticed that our vision is vegan agnostic. Our commitment to our vision is steadfast. We hope the following analysis...

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When plants conflict with our vision
Vegan Society of Canada News, September 16th 2021

This may sound counterintuitive, but everything made from plants will not result in the achievement of our vision, because veganism is not about ingredients, and plants are not inherently better than anything else. We are not opposed to the molecular structure of meat or dairy, we are opposed to the animal exploitation behind it...

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Selling good behavior
Vegan Society of Canada News, August 12th 2021

For the most part, people are willing to use paper straws, purchase energy-efficient light bulbs and deal with a slightly less effective showerhead to conserve water—products that are sold to the consuming public under the guise of serving some public good. The effectiveness of these products isn't our focus, but rather the marketing strategies used by these corporations that prey on a seeming preference in the population to purchase products that appear to support some public concern...

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Why we don't care
Vegan Society of Canada News, June 4th 2021

The reason for the writing of this article was two simple questions “why don't people care and how can we help them to do so?” Naturally, these are very broad questions that could have any number of aspects explored and analyzed...

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Your fruits and vegetables may not be vegan certifiable
Vegan Society of Canada News, February 4th 2021

Animal exploitation isn’t limited to industries that directly use animals; it exists in the production of fruits and vegetables as well. In order to maintain our vision and to be in integrity, we are shedding light on this exploitation in plant agriculture. We have reached out to various organizations, including those that are representing migrant rights, and are simultaneously launching our whistleblower program along with our new toll free number...

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Ocean of trauma
Vegan Society of Canada News, November 3rd 2020

While human animal exploitation in slaughterhouses is horrendous, the suffering and abuse of workers in the global fisheries industry surpasses it...

Read More

Slaughterhouses and COVID-19
Vegan Society of Canada News, September 11th 2020

As we do our part by wearing masks and physically distancing, experts and government agencies are trying to contain and control COVID-19, while the cost is spiralling out of control. But it seems we need to be reminded that, most regrettably, we brought this upon ourselves...

Read More

Vegan World Alliance rejects ISO-23662
Vegan Society of Canada News, June 7th 2020

Alongside the Vegan World Alliance we strongly support this ban of ISO-23662, which we are simultaneously putting into effect, and the condemnation of ISO and its members for its questionable practices.

The practice of astroturfing—hiding who is really behind the message—is being used by those who profit from the killing, torture, cruelty and harm of animals. Because of this, it’s imperative that the vegan community remains vigilant. We must, at all costs, prevent a situation where products and services are undeservedly labelled vegan, because that brings us no closer to achieving our vision than we are today.

Read More

Show me the money: Following the money trail of animal agriculture
Vegan Society of Canada News, January 4th 2020

When things in our society do not make sense, it is often helpful to follow the money. In the case of tobacco, lead and asbestos it took decades before the scientific evidence reached the mainstream and countless had to suffer the consequences. The money trail of tobacco, now publicly available in history books, gives us an important piece of the puzzle as to why so many people had to die before things started to change...

Read More

Torment and butchery or torment in butchery
Vegan Society of Canada News, December 2nd 2019

The follow up report by Human Rights Watch on the cruelty, torture and exploitation of human animals in slaugtherhouses is out, and unfortunately nothing since their 2005 initial report or the Oxfam 2015 report we covered here has changed. In fact, conditions seem to be much worse...

Read More

Got misery?
Vegan Society of Canada News, October 6th 2019

As we have discussed before, the people working in slaughterhouses, who kill the animals that eventually land on our plates, go to work each day doing a job that most of us would never do. Nevertheless, we are schedule to import this misery starting in early 2020...

Read More

Strengthening our motivation: Compassion and protecting the health of animal agriculture workers
Vegan Society of Canada News, February 6th 2019

We have anything but great compassion for those who have to work in animal agriculture, more specifically those who do the actual killing for us in slaughterhouses...

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US civil rights group hails historic progress
Independent, May 19th 2018

While this case was ultimately lost it is the statement by Associate Judge Eugene M Fahey, which finally shows the shift in our society being taking into account in the courtroom:

"The issue whether a nonhuman animal has a fundamental right to liberty protected by the writ of habeas corpus is profound and far-reaching. It speaks to our relationship with all the life round us. Ultimately, we will not be able to ignore it."

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ClimateChange

More compassion needed
Vegan Society of Canada News, March 21st 2024

We once thought that lofty promises of change seemed theoretically possible by 2030, but since that’s only six years away, let’s look at how we are doing. The latest IEA report for 2023 shows that, instead of reducing emissions, we once again increased overall emissions by 1.1% with most of the increase coming from China...

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Climate and pollution update
Vegan Society of Canada News, November 16th 2023

Several significant developments have occurred since our last climate change update. While none of them on their own warrant a lengthy discussion, this compilation provides a brief summary of four key areas...

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"PlantGate" at the IPCC
Vegan Society of Canada News, May 17th 2022

Despite CO2 levels in the atmosphere continuing to rise, we no longer seem to be talking about the climate crisis. We have coined the term "PlantGate" upon reviewing the latest IPCC report, and we aim to bring climate change back to the forefront...

Read More

Sustainable population
Vegan Society of Canada News, December 16th 2021

When we discuss our vision, we usually encourage everyone to end animal exploitation in their own life. However, it is part of a bigger equation that, overly simplified, looks like this...

Read More

Veganism
Vegan Society of Canada News, October 15th 2021

As we discussed in one of our articles, there is the possibility that veganism as practiced today will not bring about our vision. You may have noticed that our vision is vegan agnostic. Our commitment to our vision is steadfast. We hope the following analysis...

Read More

Climate offenders
Vegan Society of Canada News, September 2nd 2021

Despite the floods and wildfires in Europe and the record-shattering heat wave in North America that killed countless animals, we continue to ignore reality and are not taking steps toward preventing further disasters or a full-blown catastrophe...

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Organic meat fallacy and an update on worrisome animal agriculture research
Vegan Society of Canada News, March 5th 2021

It’s been the scientific consensus for a long time that a vegan way of life has a significantly lesser carbon footprint than a typical North American way of life. There are some who claim that a lifestyle that includes eating organically raised animals is better for the environment than non-organically raised animals...

Read More

The truth about Canada's emissions
Vegan Society of Canada News, January 4th 2021

In a recent report, the World Meteorological Organization had some sobering projections. They forecast that we have a 24% chance of exceeding 1.5 degrees Celsius before 2024 and a 70% chance...

Read More

Ocean rising: Special report on the ocean and cryosphere
Vegan Society of Canada News, November 15th 2019

The new Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) special report on the ocean and cryosphere is out and not surprisingly confirms that we are selfishly destroying our oceans and all its inhabitants. The oceans have already done much for us to protect us from our own selfishness...

Read More

Climate Emergency: What Are Canadians Willing to Do About It?
Vegan Society of Canada News, September 15th 2019

The results of this new survey published by the CBC should be of grave concern. On the one hand it’s a good sign that Canadians do not seem to have a bias against giving up meat. On the other hand, the reason we do not have a bias against giving up meat in particular is simply because we seem to be disinclined to do anything at all...

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The verdict on tackling our climate emergency in 2018: We failed
Vegan Society of Canada News, July 13th 2019

We know we are in trouble when a major fossil fuel corporation tell us we have grounds to be concerned. While 2018 saw many promesses of the climate emergency being taken seriously, unfortunately it turns it these were just empty words...

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Unexpected methane rising
Vegan Society of Canada News, June 27th 2019

We have no safety margin in the Paris climate agreement target, so when researchers published a paper a few months ago highlighting the unexpected rise of methane this could well be the push that make this whole house of card tumble...

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Biodiversity loss: Nature’s dangerous decline unprecedented
Vegan Society of Canada News, June 12th 2019

A new report by the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) on the unprecented decline of nature globally was recently published and we spent some time going through it...

Read More

Objective profit: How to save 1.2 trillion USD
Vegan Society of Canada News, May 18th 2019

Today we're going to look at a very important part of motivation: Profit. We could discuss how profit is not the best motivation to have and we could even discuss why having legal entities whose sole purpose is to maximize profit was not one of our brightest idea and is probably one of the cause we are where we are today. Nevertheless, it would be foolish to ignore that for many entities profit is the driving motivation...

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Canada's changing climate report
Vegan Society of Canada News, April 4th 2019

According to a new climate change report published by the Government of Canada the Canadian story is more catastrophic then the global one as we are warming up at double the global rate...

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EAT-Lancet report: A discussion of the shift to a plant-based world
Vegan Society of Canada News, January 19th 2019

The new 'planetary health diet' released by the EAT-Lancet commission is in many ways similar to the previously released Greenpeace’s report, in this article will explore the many implications...

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We must not become complacent about climate change
Vegan Society of Canada News, December 28th 2018

Are we starting to forget about climate change? Perhaps we think that our representative at the climate change conference COP24 would sort it all out? Unfortunately we would be severely mistaken...

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We must do more to prevent human caused climate change
Vegan Society of Canada News, October 14th 2018

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released another report ahead of the COP24 summit in Poland later this year. The report is titled "Global Warming of 1.5c", continues to remind us that

Limiting warming to 1.5°C is possible within the laws of chemistry and physics but doing so would require unprecedented changes
Some of those unprecedented changes of course have to do with animal agriculture and our diet...

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Our economy needs change: The UN Global Sustainable Development Report
Vegan Society of Canada News, August 28th 2018

The input document on the economic transformation that will be required for a sustainable future, which will be used in the upcoming UN global sustainable development report 2019 is out. Like many others they also realized that a sustainable future will require drastic change to the way we eat...

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Discussions of Greenpeace's meat and dairy consumption target
Vegan Society of Canada News, August 10th 2018

We wanted to both congratulate and discuss Greenpeace's meat and dairy consumption target for 2050...

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Emission impossible: How big meat and dairy are heating up the planet
Vegan Society of Canada News, August 2nd 2018

Did we talk about climate change yet? Of course we are biased: We have a bias against human caused mass extinction events and the suffering it will cause to all animals including human beings. This new report confirms our internal calculations...

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Strengthening our motivation: Climate change
Vegan Society of Canada News, July 7th 2018

In the context of extreme heat wave and all the suffering that ensue we thought it was a good time for another series aimed at strengthening our motivation, this time on climate change...

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Avoiding meat and dairy is ‘single biggest way’ to reduce your impact on Earth
The Guardian, June 2nd 2018

It has been said for a while and now this latest comprehensive study on the subject confirms what everyone has been saying for a while.

"A vegan diet is probably the single biggest way to reduce your impact on planet Earth, not just greenhouse gases, but global acidification, eutrophication, land use and water use"

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Motivation

Decolonization
Vegan Society of Canada News, April 19th 2024

There are various reasons to leave the typical North American diet behind, from health to the environment and ethics. However, today we will touch on decolonization, a motivation we don’t often hear about in Canada, the US and most of the G-20. But for some people, decolonization can be a major factor in the adoption of veganism or a change of diet...

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The cycle of exploitation
Vegan Society of Canada News, February 17th 2023

We should be eternally grateful that a vast majority of animals are incapable of enacting revenge on human animals for how they are treated. But, we have seen the many ways exploiting animals comes back to bite us–whether that’s in the form...

Read More

Organic meat fallacy and an update on worrisome animal agriculture research
Vegan Society of Canada News, March 5th 2021

It’s been the scientific consensus for a long time that a vegan way of life has a significantly lesser carbon footprint than a typical North American way of life. There are some who claim that a lifestyle that includes eating organically raised animals is better for the environment than non-organically raised animals...

Read More

The truth about Canada's emissions
Vegan Society of Canada News, January 4th 2021

In a recent report, the World Meteorological Organization had some sobering projections. They forecast that we have a 24% chance of exceeding 1.5 degrees Celsius before 2024 and a 70% chance...

Read More

Coronavirus mutation in Danish minks
Vegan Society of Canada News, December 4th 2020

On November 4th, the Danish government announced, then later retracted, that it will kill all minks being raised on farms, about 17 millions individuals, due to a very serious mutation of the virus in minks that potentially puts the effectiveness of vaccines currently being developed at risk...

Read More

Ocean of trauma
Vegan Society of Canada News, November 3rd 2020

While human animal exploitation in slaughterhouses is horrendous, the suffering and abuse of workers in the global fisheries industry surpasses it...

Read More

Don’t get cracking: How egg lobbies skew research
Vegan Society of Canada News, September 23rd 2020

As a prelude to World Egg-Free Day on October 9th, 2020, here is the latest research on the health concerns of egg consumption...

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Slaughterhouses and COVID-19
Vegan Society of Canada News, September 11th 2020

As we do our part by wearing masks and physically distancing, experts and government agencies are trying to contain and control COVID-19, while the cost is spiralling out of control. But it seems we need to be reminded that, most regrettably, we brought this upon ourselves...

Read More

Are we courting another pandemic?
Vegan Society of Canada News, August 12th 2020

As we do our part by wearing masks and physically distancing, experts and government agencies are trying to contain and control COVID-19, while the cost is spiralling out of control. But it seems we need to be reminded that, most regrettably, we brought this upon ourselves...

Read More

The dairy industry’s toll on our planet
Vegan Society of Canada News, July 7th 2020

As we have shared before, dairy is problematic for many reasons, including our health as well as environmental and ethical concerns. The latest report by the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy (IATP) provides us with an update of the dairy industry’s toll on our planet...

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Motivation: Preventing future pandemics
Vegan Society of Canada News, February 14th 2020

Some effects of animal agriculture get very little attention. And while they may not lead to mass extinction like our climate emergency, they have caused millions of deaths over the centuries, which will continue if the status quo prevails...

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Show me the money: Following the money trail of animal agriculture
Vegan Society of Canada News, January 4th 2020

When things in our society do not make sense, it is often helpful to follow the money. In the case of tobacco, lead and asbestos it took decades before the scientific evidence reached the mainstream and countless had to suffer the consequences. The money trail of tobacco, now publicly available in history books, gives us an important piece of the puzzle as to why so many people had to die before things started to change...

Read More

Torment and butchery or torment in butchery
Vegan Society of Canada News, December 2nd 2019

The follow up report by Human Rights Watch on the cruelty, torture and exploitation of human animals in slaugtherhouses is out, and unfortunately nothing since their 2005 initial report or the Oxfam 2015 report we covered here has changed. In fact, conditions seem to be much worse...

Read More

Ocean rising: Special report on the ocean and cryosphere
Vegan Society of Canada News, November 15th 2019

The new Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) special report on the ocean and cryosphere is out and not surprisingly confirms that we are selfishly destroying our oceans and all its inhabitants. The oceans have already done much for us to protect us from our own selfishness...

Read More

Got misery?
Vegan Society of Canada News, October 6th 2019

As we have discussed before, the people working in slaughterhouses, who kill the animals that eventually land on our plates, go to work each day doing a job that most of us would never do. Nevertheless, we are schedule to import this misery starting in early 2020...

Read More

Biodiversity loss: Nature’s dangerous decline unprecedented
Vegan Society of Canada News, June 12th 2019

A new report by the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) on the unprecented decline of nature globally was recently published and we spent some time going through it...

Read More

Objective profit: How to save 1.2 trillion USD
Vegan Society of Canada News, May 18th 2019

Today we're going to look at a very important part of motivation: Profit. We could discuss how profit is not the best motivation to have and we could even discuss why having legal entities whose sole purpose is to maximize profit was not one of our brightest idea and is probably one of the cause we are where we are today. Nevertheless, it would be foolish to ignore that for many entities profit is the driving motivation...

Read More

Strengthening our motivation: Compassion and protecting the health of animal agriculture workers
Vegan Society of Canada News, February 6th 2019

We have anything but great compassion for those who have to work in animal agriculture, more specifically those who do the actual killing for us in slaughterhouses...

Read More

Strengthening our motivation: Water shortage
Vegan Society of Canada News, November 12th 2018

In our series aim at strengthening our motivation we wanted to discuss the fresh water crisis, accentuated by climate change and our dependence on animal agriculture...

Read More

Strengthening our motivation: Fostering peace, preventing conflict and the illusion of sustainable animal agriculture
Vegan Society of Canada News, August 26th 2018

In our series aim at strengthening our motivation we wanted to discuss the illusion of sustainable and organic animal agriculture and how plant-based food foster peace and prevent conflicts...

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Strengthening our motivation: Superbugs and antibiotic resistance crisis
Vegan Society of Canada News, July 17th 2018

In our series aimed at strengthening our motivation we will now take a closer look at the antibiotics crisis. It may not seem like it but we are on the verge of being thrown back to the dark ages of medicine...

Read More

Strengthening our motivation: Climate change
Vegan Society of Canada News, July 7th 2018

In the context of extreme heat wave and all the suffering that ensue we thought it was a good time for another series aimed at strengthening our motivation, this time on climate change...

Read More

Strengthening our motivation: Health
Vegan Society of Canada News, June 28th 2018

In our series aimed at strengthening our motivation we will start with health reasons: Going vegan is the 2nd best thing someone can do to prevent cancer after not smoking...

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Certification

The cycle of exploitation
Vegan Society of Canada News, February 17th 2023

We should be eternally grateful that a vast majority of animals are incapable of enacting revenge on human animals for how they are treated. But, we have seen the many ways exploiting animals comes back to bite us–whether that’s in the form...

Read More

Country of origin labelling issues
Vegan Society of Canada News, January 20th 2023

Country of origin labelling continues to be a contentious issue at the public level as it pertains to animal exploitation. The narrative concerning the interconnectedness of animal exploitation has long sought to unify the rights of all animals...

Read More

New Country of origin labelling requirement for our vegan certification
Vegan Society of Canada News, January 20th 2023

We cannot wait for solutions to come from the government or anywhere else. Nobody will achieve our vision for us. This is why, in addition to the many requirements in our vegan certification, we are putting in place new Country of Origin Labelling...

Read More

The REACH animal testing loophole
Vegan Society of Canada News, December 16th 2022

The Registration, Evaluation, Authorization and Restriction of Chemicals (REACH) animal testing loopholes in Europe are similar to what we’ve discussed before but different in some key aspects. It is misleading countless people...

Read More

We are banning Kashi products
Vegan Society of Canada News, November 21st 2022

We are banning Kashi brand products from vegan certification and putting the Kellogg Company under negative watch.

Many years ago, there was almost nothing labelled vegan which led to people making things from scratch. Fast forward to 2022, there are many foods labelled vegan, but we are faced with having no idea exactly what it means, even from organizations that self-identify as vegan or businesses that self-certify...

Read More

Flights will soon be not vegan certifiable
Vegan Society of Canada News, September 16th 2022

For some time now, we have known the toll on the environment from the aviation industry. The emissions are significant as only one transatlantic flight or two medium-distance flights is roughly equal to all the emissions saved from switching to eating foods suitable for vegans for an entire year...

Read More

Exploiting Animals as Workers
Vegan Society of Canada News, September 2nd 2022

We will not certify any products that exploit animals as workers, but regrettably many others do. Transportation, security, powering machinery, retrieving, searching or land clearing, are all ways animals are exploited...

Read More

Salt may corrode people
Vegan Society of Canada News, August 12th 2022

Once again there seems to have been some corruption in our government regarding the new packaging labelling laws that will take effect on January 1st, 2026. Let’s begin with the positive aspects of this new regulation. High sodium consumption globally is a health problem. It is not our first choice of health issue to address...

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Issues with the veganic label
Vegan Society of Canada News, July 15th 2022

Vegan certification, with its numerous serious issues like the animal testing loophole, the exploitation of non-human and human animals in part via slavery and slavery-like conditions, and the fallacy that plants are inherently better are among issues we consider to be akin to the wild west. By definition, anything that relies on what veganism is, like “veganic” farming certification, must also be similarly labelled...

Read More

The animal testing loophole
Vegan Society of Canada News, March 18th 2022

There are various practices we strongly oppose, including what we refer to as the animal testing loophole. We briefly touched on this issue in the ban of ISO-23662 article, but, unfortunately, most if not all organizations, including members of the Vegan World Alliance (VWA), continue to use this loophole...

Read More

Exploitation in the cocoa industry
Vegan Society of Canada News, January 14th 2022

September 2021 was the 20th anniversary of the failure of The Harkin-Engel Protocol. Twenty years later, most chocolate remains unsuitable for vegans and we will ban from vegan certification Nestlé’s plant-based KitKat, and Cadbury’s Plant Bar...

Read More

We are banning Lush products
Vegan Society of Canada News, November 15th 2021

We have written in the past about the serious issues with vegan labelling that threaten the achievement of our vision. As we explained in more detail in our ISO-23662 ban article, it is incorrect to think that the most popular certification schemes are the most stringent...

Read More

Non-compliant certification schemes
Vegan Society of Canada News, November 21st 2020

We are aware of various certifications or standards currently available in and outside of Canada that we have banned. We have had limited success in having the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) change their definition of what is vegan...

Read More

Vegan World Alliance rejects ISO-23662
Vegan Society of Canada News, June 7th 2020

Alongside the Vegan World Alliance we strongly support this ban of ISO-23662, which we are simultaneously putting into effect, and the condemnation of ISO and its members for its questionable practices.

The practice of astroturfing—hiding who is really behind the message—is being used by those who profit from the killing, torture, cruelty and harm of animals. Because of this, it’s imperative that the vegan community remains vigilant. We must, at all costs, prevent a situation where products and services are undeservedly labelled vegan, because that brings us no closer to achieving our vision than we are today.

Read More

Broad recall of Compliments brand fresh-cut vegetables
Vegan Society of Canada News, November 3rd 2019

We wanted to warn the Canadian public of a broad recall by the CFIA of Compliments brand fresh-cut vegetable products due to possible Listeria monocytogenes...

Read More

Discussion of vegan labelling
Vegan Society of Canada News, October 21st 2019

We have discussed before the issues with the word vegan being used on products that are not vegan certified. Today we will not cover why having independent third-party certification is a good idea as this is the same reasoning that all Canadians have already accepted with regards to organic, kosher, halal and many other non food certifications in Canadian society...

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More vegan labelled product containing dairy recalled by CFIA
Vegan Society of Canada News, July 19th 2019

Once again we wanted to warn vegans, and the Canadian public at large, of a series of products labelled vegan under the Probar and Chocolats Favoris brand containing milk...

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Deciphering labels: We eat meat without knowing
Vegan Society of Canada News, December 3rd 2018

In the context of our recent update on Nestle, we wanted to discuss more broadly the difficulty we face in deciphering products on a daily basis...

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Vegan product containing dairy recalled by CFIA
Vegan Society of Canada News, October 23rd 2018

We wanted to warn vegans, and the Canadian public at large, of two products under the brand Emborg and Nora's that are marketed as vegan but contained milk...

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Business

Country of origin labelling issues
Vegan Society of Canada News, January 20th 2023

Country of origin labelling continues to be a contentious issue at the public level as it pertains to animal exploitation. The narrative concerning the interconnectedness of animal exploitation has long sought to unify the rights of all animals...

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New Country of origin labelling requirement for our vegan certification
Vegan Society of Canada News, January 20th 2023

We cannot wait for solutions to come from the government or anywhere else. Nobody will achieve our vision for us. This is why, in addition to the many requirements in our vegan certification, we are putting in place new Country of Origin Labelling...

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Flights will soon be not vegan certifiable
Vegan Society of Canada News, September 16th 2022

For some time now, we have known the toll on the environment from the aviation industry. The emissions are significant as only one transatlantic flight or two medium-distance flights is roughly equal to all the emissions saved from switching to eating foods suitable for vegans for an entire year...

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Exploiting Animals as Workers
Vegan Society of Canada News, September 2nd 2022

We will not certify any products that exploit animals as workers, but regrettably many others do. Transportation, security, powering machinery, retrieving, searching or land clearing, are all ways animals are exploited...

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Salt may corrode people
Vegan Society of Canada News, August 12th 2022

Once again there seems to have been some corruption in our government regarding the new packaging labelling laws that will take effect on January 1st, 2026. Let’s begin with the positive aspects of this new regulation. High sodium consumption globally is a health problem. It is not our first choice of health issue to address...

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Issues with the veganic label
Vegan Society of Canada News, July 15th 2022

Vegan certification, with its numerous serious issues like the animal testing loophole, the exploitation of non-human and human animals in part via slavery and slavery-like conditions, and the fallacy that plants are inherently better are among issues we consider to be akin to the wild west. By definition, anything that relies on what veganism is, like “veganic” farming certification, must also be similarly labelled...

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Canada's proposed changes to novel food regulations
Vegan Society of Canada News, May 6th 2021

Canadian government practices, policies, laws and regulations make being vegan in Canada challenging. We feel it’s mandatory to disclose as much information as possible to consumers. If we don’t have the necessary information to make informed decisions, we could be unwittingly supporting animal exploitation with our consumer dollars...

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Lost in translation
Vegan Society of Canada News, April 23rd 2021

The French word “végétalien” is not equivalent to vegan. Unfortunately, it’s not uncommon to have misleading, confusing or outright incorrect translations on food labels. The word “végétalien” in French is defined by Larousse broadly as a person who follows a diet excluding any foods of animal origin...

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Plant-based labels are changing
Vegan Society of Canada News, January 21st 2021

We haven’t used the term “plant-based” as a broad substitute for various concepts in veganism for a while. Instead, while we still use plant as an adjective, we use phrases like “food suitable for vegans” or “this food is vegan certifiable”...

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Non-compliant certification schemes
Vegan Society of Canada News, November 21st 2020

We are aware of various certifications or standards currently available in and outside of Canada that we have banned. We have had limited success in having the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) change their definition of what is vegan...

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Vegan World Alliance rejects ISO-23662
Vegan Society of Canada News, June 7th 2020

Alongside the Vegan World Alliance we strongly support this ban of ISO-23662, which we are simultaneously putting into effect, and the condemnation of ISO and its members for its questionable practices.

The practice of astroturfing—hiding who is really behind the message—is being used by those who profit from the killing, torture, cruelty and harm of animals. Because of this, it’s imperative that the vegan community remains vigilant. We must, at all costs, prevent a situation where products and services are undeservedly labelled vegan, because that brings us no closer to achieving our vision than we are today.

Read More

Discussion of vegan labelling
Vegan Society of Canada News, October 21st 2019

We have discussed before the issues with the word vegan being used on products that are not vegan certified. Today we will not cover why having independent third-party certification is a good idea as this is the same reasoning that all Canadians have already accepted with regards to organic, kosher, halal and many other non food certifications in Canadian society...

Read More

Warning of food labelled as "plant-based" that contains animal-based ingredients like meat, eggs or dairy
Vegan Society of Canada News, June 30th 2019

We are continuing to work with the CFIA to fix their errors with regards to their definition of vegan labelling and will update you as soon as possible. For the time being we wanted to further issue a warning concerning practices of labelling food...

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Biodiversity loss: Nature’s dangerous decline unprecedented
Vegan Society of Canada News, June 12th 2019

A new report by the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) on the unprecented decline of nature globally was recently published and we spent some time going through it...

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Objective profit: How to save 1.2 trillion USD
Vegan Society of Canada News, May 18th 2019

Today we're going to look at a very important part of motivation: Profit. We could discuss how profit is not the best motivation to have and we could even discuss why having legal entities whose sole purpose is to maximize profit was not one of our brightest idea and is probably one of the cause we are where we are today. Nevertheless, it would be foolish to ignore that for many entities profit is the driving motivation...

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Government of Canada tries to redefine what food are suitable for vegans
Vegan Society of Canada News, May 15th 2019

We noticed in the last year an influx of businesses being confused about the word vegan, contacting us having trouble with overseas customs and requiring urgent certification, and an increase of Canadian products being labeled vegan that are not suitable for vegans and not vegan certifiable. We were puzzled as to why this was happening until we became aware of the Canadian Food Inspection Agency’s (CFIA) information...

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Just the facts: Sponsorship program
Vegan Society of Canada News, March 26th 2019

We have various sponsorship levels and associated benefits depending on your preference. Types of benefits you will receive by sponsoring us may include mentions in various material like public speech, presentation, web site, festivals, etc...

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Just the facts: Ambassador program
Vegan Society of Canada News, March 26th 2019

If you or your organisation would like to participate in furthering our mission and would like to inspire others, we would be happy to have you as our ambassador...

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Just the facts: Advertising with us
Vegan Society of Canada News, December 7th 2018

The short answer is that this is not possible, the long answer is maybe...

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JustFacts

Just the facts: Our Vegan certification
Vegan Society of Canada News, May 9th 2023

Our certification process time varies greatly and depends broadly on the complexity of the product, number of factory and/or processing plants to certify and the number of products to certify...

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Just the facts: Are soft drinks vegan certifiable
Vegan Society of Canada News, December 7th 2022

Most soft drinks are likely not vegan certifiable in part due to sugar they contain. There are also various other potential issues that affect all beverages like filtering, as some businesses use various processing aids like fish or bovine gelatin for clarification which is not vegan certifiable.

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Just the facts: Is chocolate vegan certifiable
Vegan Society of Canada News, May 21st 2022

The short answer is most cocoa and therefore chocolate, even those without dairy, are not vegan certifiable. We have covered this in more details in our article on cocoa.

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Just the facts: What is veganism?
Vegan Society of Canada News, October 15th 2021

We define veganism in relation to the agreed upon vision of veganism as a way of life and philosophy that when practiced will result in the end of the exploitation of all animals, including human animals. We expand in more details in the following article on veganism.

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Just the facts: How much calcium do we really need?
Vegan Society of Canada News, January 23rd 2020

We have explored this question in our article titled “Demystifying our inflated calcium intake recommendations”. In summary, we recommend at least 400mg/day for people on a 100% plant-based diet whose sodium intake as at or below Health Canada’s recommendation of 1500mg/day. Otherwise, we recommend 500-700mg/day.

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Just the facts: Sponsorship program
Vegan Society of Canada News, March 26th 2019

We have various sponsorship levels and associated benefits depending on your preference. Types of benefits you will receive by sponsoring us may include mentions in various material like public speech, presentation, web site, festivals, etc...

Read More

Just the facts: Ambassador program
Vegan Society of Canada News, March 26th 2019

If you or your organisation would like to participate in furthering our mission and would like to inspire others, we would be happy to have you as our ambassador...

Read More

Just the facts: Advertising with us
Vegan Society of Canada News, December 7th 2018

The short answer is that this is not possible, the long answer is maybe...

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Just the facts: Which sugar is not vegan certifiable
Vegan Society of Canada News, September 25th 2018

We have so far not certified any refined sugar as vegan, and it is likely many forms of sugars would not be vegan certifiable, due to various factors like the use of bone char, and therefore many end products containing added sugar as well...

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Just the facts: Alcohol, health and which ones are not vegan certifiable
Vegan Society of Canada News, September 14th 2018

It may come as a surprise that the top wines sold in Canada are not vegan certifiable, and no amount of alcohol consumption is safe...

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Just the facts: Veganism and human rights
Vegan Society of Canada News, August 22nd 2018

We wanted to discuss veganism with regards to human rights...

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Just the facts: Vitamin B12
Vegan Society of Canada News, August 12th 2018

We wanted to discuss vitamin B12 and dispel the wrong information we often see being repeated...

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AnimalAgriculture

Burger veganism and greenhouse farming
Vegan Society of Canada News, June 15th 2023

There have been many arguments, both academically and among laypersons, about the impacts of crop agriculture versus animal agriculture. One popular argument against veganism is that more animals have to be harmed to produce fruits and vegetables...

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Ocean of trauma
Vegan Society of Canada News, November 3rd 2020

While human animal exploitation in slaughterhouses is horrendous, the suffering and abuse of workers in the global fisheries industry surpasses it...

Read More

Slaughterhouses and COVID-19
Vegan Society of Canada News, September 11th 2020

As we do our part by wearing masks and physically distancing, experts and government agencies are trying to contain and control COVID-19, while the cost is spiralling out of control. But it seems we need to be reminded that, most regrettably, we brought this upon ourselves...

Read More

Show me the money: Following the money trail of animal agriculture
Vegan Society of Canada News, January 4th 2020

When things in our society do not make sense, it is often helpful to follow the money. In the case of tobacco, lead and asbestos it took decades before the scientific evidence reached the mainstream and countless had to suffer the consequences. The money trail of tobacco, now publicly available in history books, gives us an important piece of the puzzle as to why so many people had to die before things started to change...

Read More

Torment and butchery or torment in butchery
Vegan Society of Canada News, December 2nd 2019

The follow up report by Human Rights Watch on the cruelty, torture and exploitation of human animals in slaugtherhouses is out, and unfortunately nothing since their 2005 initial report or the Oxfam 2015 report we covered here has changed. In fact, conditions seem to be much worse...

Read More

Strengthening our motivation: Compassion and protecting the health of animal agriculture workers
Vegan Society of Canada News, February 6th 2019

We have anything but great compassion for those who have to work in animal agriculture, more specifically those who do the actual killing for us in slaughterhouses...

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Dairy farmer aid package
Vegan Society of Canada News, October 2nd 2018

Are you against the dairy concession made in the new NAFTA agreement USMCA? Do you feel like you keep fighting for a smaller and smaller share of the pie amid globally slumping sales...

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More than half of all canadians eat vegan meat
Vegan Society of Canada News, May 12th 2018

While we are encouraged that a recent study shows that 53% of Canadians eat meat alternatives we hope to be able to raise the amount of people who are committed to Veganism from 2%. Hopefully new products will make it easier for the 69% of people who prefer meat to make the move. Until then contact us and you local community for support in your lifestyle change.

Read More

U.K. supermarket chain to offer 'snowflake chicken' for those afraid to touch raw meat
National Post, April 17th 2018

If one has issues with calling bacon "pig flesh", fuzzy lamb on pork chops label, the use of animal names instead of types of meat, the meat paradox and touching meat we have another solution to try out: Go vegan. It is easier and the symptoms above should disappear shortly after making the change. Join one of our local community in your area or contact us for help on how to get started.

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Resolution urges OEHHA to add cancer-causing processed meat to prop 65
Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, February 14th 2018

We welcome the proposed resolution to label processed meat as the dangerous level 1 carcinogenic substance that it is. In addition, while we do not have such regulations in Canada we would ask that producers adopt this voluntary labeling measures. Furthermore, we ask that grocers do the ethical thing as well and stop encouraging people to get cancer by advertising processed meat in their flyers. Profits should not come before lives.

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Taxing meat could help offset environmental, health problems
CBC News, January 7th 2018

We strongly support the polluter pays principle that is so prevalent in the rest of our society. There are no reasons that the whole of society should bear the cost of harmful behavior like pollution, climate change, alcohol, tobacco, animal agriculture and others so that corporations can have disproportionate profit because our rules and regulations are outdated and do not properly hold responsible those who create negative externalities.

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AnimalRights

Unintentional versus intentional actions
Vegan Society of Canada News, October 12th 2023

There has been much debate over what constitutes “intentional” versus “unintentional” exploitation and what this means for human animals and other animal rights. Regarding killing within the human species, Pnevmatikos explains that intent is the mitigating factor in determining guilt in a court of law, specifically when killing in self-defence or accidentally...

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Exploitation in the cocoa industry
Vegan Society of Canada News, January 14th 2022

September 2021 was the 20th anniversary of the failure of The Harkin-Engel Protocol. Twenty years later, most chocolate remains unsuitable for vegans and we will ban from vegan certification Nestlé’s plant-based KitKat, and Cadbury’s Plant Bar...

Read More

We are banning Lush products
Vegan Society of Canada News, November 15th 2021

We have written in the past about the serious issues with vegan labelling that threaten the achievement of our vision. As we explained in more detail in our ISO-23662 ban article, it is incorrect to think that the most popular certification schemes are the most stringent...

Read More

Ocean of trauma
Vegan Society of Canada News, November 3rd 2020

While human animal exploitation in slaughterhouses is horrendous, the suffering and abuse of workers in the global fisheries industry surpasses it...

Read More

Slaughterhouses and COVID-19
Vegan Society of Canada News, September 11th 2020

As we do our part by wearing masks and physically distancing, experts and government agencies are trying to contain and control COVID-19, while the cost is spiralling out of control. But it seems we need to be reminded that, most regrettably, we brought this upon ourselves...

Read More

Torment and butchery or torment in butchery
Vegan Society of Canada News, December 2nd 2019

The follow up report by Human Rights Watch on the cruelty, torture and exploitation of human animals in slaugtherhouses is out, and unfortunately nothing since their 2005 initial report or the Oxfam 2015 report we covered here has changed. In fact, conditions seem to be much worse...

Read More

Got misery?
Vegan Society of Canada News, October 6th 2019

As we have discussed before, the people working in slaughterhouses, who kill the animals that eventually land on our plates, go to work each day doing a job that most of us would never do. Nevertheless, we are schedule to import this misery starting in early 2020...

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Strengthening our motivation: Compassion and protecting the health of animal agriculture workers
Vegan Society of Canada News, February 6th 2019

We have anything but great compassion for those who have to work in animal agriculture, more specifically those who do the actual killing for us in slaughterhouses...

Read More

US civil rights group hails historic progress
Independent, May 19th 2018

While this case was ultimately lost it is the statement by Associate Judge Eugene M Fahey, which finally shows the shift in our society being taking into account in the courtroom:

"The issue whether a nonhuman animal has a fundamental right to liberty protected by the writ of habeas corpus is profound and far-reaching. It speaks to our relationship with all the life round us. Ultimately, we will not be able to ignore it."

Read More

Ban

The cycle of exploitation
Vegan Society of Canada News, February 17th 2023

We should be eternally grateful that a vast majority of animals are incapable of enacting revenge on human animals for how they are treated. But, we have seen the many ways exploiting animals comes back to bite us–whether that’s in the form...

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The REACH animal testing loophole
Vegan Society of Canada News, December 16th 2022

The Registration, Evaluation, Authorization and Restriction of Chemicals (REACH) animal testing loopholes in Europe are similar to what we’ve discussed before but different in some key aspects. It is misleading countless people...

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We are banning Kashi products
Vegan Society of Canada News, November 21st 2022

We are banning Kashi brand products from vegan certification and putting the Kellogg Company under negative watch.

Many years ago, there was almost nothing labelled vegan which led to people making things from scratch. Fast forward to 2022, there are many foods labelled vegan, but we are faced with having no idea exactly what it means, even from organizations that self-identify as vegan or businesses that self-certify...

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The animal testing loophole
Vegan Society of Canada News, March 18th 2022

There are various practices we strongly oppose, including what we refer to as the animal testing loophole. We briefly touched on this issue in the ban of ISO-23662 article, but, unfortunately, most if not all organizations, including members of the Vegan World Alliance (VWA), continue to use this loophole...

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Exploitation in the cocoa industry
Vegan Society of Canada News, January 14th 2022

September 2021 was the 20th anniversary of the failure of The Harkin-Engel Protocol. Twenty years later, most chocolate remains unsuitable for vegans and we will ban from vegan certification Nestlé’s plant-based KitKat, and Cadbury’s Plant Bar...

Read More

We are banning Lush products
Vegan Society of Canada News, November 15th 2021

We have written in the past about the serious issues with vegan labelling that threaten the achievement of our vision. As we explained in more detail in our ISO-23662 ban article, it is incorrect to think that the most popular certification schemes are the most stringent...

Read More

When plants conflict with our vision
Vegan Society of Canada News, September 16th 2021

This may sound counterintuitive, but everything made from plants will not result in the achievement of our vision, because veganism is not about ingredients, and plants are not inherently better than anything else. We are not opposed to the molecular structure of meat or dairy, we are opposed to the animal exploitation behind it...

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Vegan World Alliance rejects ISO-23662
Vegan Society of Canada News, June 7th 2020

Alongside the Vegan World Alliance we strongly support this ban of ISO-23662, which we are simultaneously putting into effect, and the condemnation of ISO and its members for its questionable practices.

The practice of astroturfing—hiding who is really behind the message—is being used by those who profit from the killing, torture, cruelty and harm of animals. Because of this, it’s imperative that the vegan community remains vigilant. We must, at all costs, prevent a situation where products and services are undeservedly labelled vegan, because that brings us no closer to achieving our vision than we are today.

Read More

Biodiversity loss: Nature’s dangerous decline unprecedented
Vegan Society of Canada News, June 12th 2019

A new report by the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) on the unprecented decline of nature globally was recently published and we spent some time going through it...

Read More

Money

Show me the money: Following the money trail of animal agriculture
Vegan Society of Canada News, January 4th 2020

When things in our society do not make sense, it is often helpful to follow the money. In the case of tobacco, lead and asbestos it took decades before the scientific evidence reached the mainstream and countless had to suffer the consequences. The money trail of tobacco, now publicly available in history books, gives us an important piece of the puzzle as to why so many people had to die before things started to change...

Read More

The first vegan ETF in the world
Vegan Society of Canada News, August 20th 2018

Just a quick reminder that we are still looking for investors for the first vegan exchange traded fund (ETF) in the world. Vegan financial services will be an important building block of a sustainable future. If you have a sizable portfolio and are interested in shaping the first Vegan ETF contact us for more details.

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New Gallup polls on veganism
Vegan Society of Canada News, August 7th 2018

A new Gallup poll should help lay to rest, as we have discussed before, the misconception that following a diet compatible with the vegan philosophy is only for the rich and famous

Americans earning less than $30,000 annually are more likely to identify as vegetarian. Nine percent of this group say they are vegetarian, a higher percentage than is true of Americans in the two higher-income groups. Differences in levels of veganism among these three groups are not statistically significant.

Unfortunately it also confirm once more that the rate of veganism has been stagnant for a long time.

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New tariffs on food coming July 1st 2018
Vegan Society of Canada News, June 21st 2018

New tariffs will come into effect July 1st 2018. In this article we look at the impact this will have for vegans in Canada.

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Financial aid available for VegFest
Vegan Society of Canada News, April 12th 2018

We are looking to provide financial aid for VegFest in order to help them become financially sustainable. If you are looking to start a VegFest or just few years away from being self-financing contact us and let see if we can work together.

The costs of a plant based diet
Vegan Society of Canada News, March 31st 2018

We wanted to address some discussion currently in the media surrounding the cost of following a diet compatible with the vegan philosophy. Read over our article and make your own opinion.

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The first vegan ETF in the world
Vegan Society of Canada News, March 6th 2018

Ethical financial services will be an important building block of a sustainable future. That is why we are launching today the first Vegan ETF in the world. If you have a sizable portfolio and are interested in shaping the first Vegan ETF in the world contact us for more details.

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ActivityUpdate

Thank you: An overview of our work in 2023 and a look at 2024
Vegan Society of Canada News, December 22nd 2023

Thank you to all our donors and volunteers for your continued support throughout 2023. What follows is a brief update of our activities and a forecast for 2024...

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Thank you: An overview of our work in 2022 and a look at 2023
Vegan Society of Canada News, December 23rd 2022

Thank you to all our donors and volunteers for your continued support throughout 2022. What follows is a brief update of our activities and a forecast for 2023...

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Thank you: An overview of our work in 2021 and a look at 2022
Vegan Society of Canada News, December 23rd 2021

Thank you to all our donors and volunteers for your continued support throughout 2021. What follows is a brief update of our activities and a forecast for 2022...

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Thank you: An overview of our work in 2020 and a look at 2021
Vegan Society of Canada News, December 20th 2020

Thank you to all our donors and volunteers for your continued support throughout 2020! What follows is a brief update of our activities we did not discuss in previous articles, and a forecast for 2021...

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Thank you: An overview of our work in 2019 and a look at 2020
Vegan Society of Canada News, December 27th 2019

With the end of the year approaching, it is a good time to thank all our donors and volunteers for their continued support and provide an update of our activities in 2019 as well as a forecast for 2020...

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Thank you: An overview of our work in 2018 and a look at 2019
Vegan Society of Canada News, December 21st 2018

As the year end is approaching we thought it was a good time to thank all our donors and volunteers for their continued support and provide an update of our activities in 2018 and a forecast for 2019...

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Infographic

Alzheimer's disease, dementia and the cholesterol link
Vegan Society of Canada News, November 18th 2022

We have known the health risks of cholesterol for a while. However, something that is less well known is the link between a diet high in animal foods and all causes of dementia, including Alzheimer’s disease...

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Exploitation in the cocoa industry
Vegan Society of Canada News, January 14th 2022

September 2021 was the 20th anniversary of the failure of The Harkin-Engel Protocol. Twenty years later, most chocolate remains unsuitable for vegans and we will ban from vegan certification Nestlé’s plant-based KitKat, and Cadbury’s Plant Bar...

Read More

Ocean of trauma
Vegan Society of Canada News, November 3rd 2020

While human animal exploitation in slaughterhouses is horrendous, the suffering and abuse of workers in the global fisheries industry surpasses it...

Read More

Don’t get cracking: How egg lobbies skew research
Vegan Society of Canada News, September 23rd 2020

As a prelude to World Egg-Free Day on October 9th, 2020, here is the latest research on the health concerns of egg consumption...

Read More

Demystifying our inflated calcium intake recommendations
Vegan Society of Canada News, January 23rd 2020

Let’s continue to explore the broad impact of animal agriculture influence by looking at the inflated Canadian calcium recommendation. There is a lot of scientific evidence to go through and there is still more we do not know...

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A review of the scientific evidence on the health risks of dairy products
Vegan Society of Canada News, August 3rd 2019

When the new Canadian food guide made water their beverage of choice, we were glad that scientific evidence and common sense prevailed over profit and disease. Let’s review the current scientific evidence with regard to the health risks of dairy...

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Cancer

Methionine: A double-edged sword
Vegan Society of Canada News, April 18th 2022

We have discussed many times in the past the health benefits of a vegan lifestyle. Unfortunately, as we discussed in our article about superbugs, our current economic system fails when it comes to producing cures that are not profitable, such as antibiotics. This also applies to the health benefits of a vegan lifestyle, which unlike traditional medicine is hard to monetize for businesses...

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Don’t get cracking: How egg lobbies skew research
Vegan Society of Canada News, September 23rd 2020

As a prelude to World Egg-Free Day on October 9th, 2020, here is the latest research on the health concerns of egg consumption...

Read More

The dairy and breast cancer connection
Vegan Society of Canada News, April 14th 2020

A new study, funded by the World Cancer Research Fund (WCRF) and the National Cancer Institute at the National Institute of Health (NIH), finally sheds some light on the relation between dairy and breast cancer...

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Strengthening our motivation: Health
Vegan Society of Canada News, June 28th 2018

In our series aimed at strengthening our motivation we will start with health reasons: Going vegan is the 2nd best thing someone can do to prevent cancer after not smoking...

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Law

Charges laid against corporations in animal cruelty case
Vegan Society of Canada News, December 31st 2018

As a Canadian rarity, charges were laid against two corporations under the federal Health of Animals Regulation. Usually individuals are charged and corporations themselves escape any consequences claiming that all of these incidents are isolated...

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Veganism is protected by human rights
Vegan Society of Canada News, August 1st 2018

Veganism is protected by Canadian and international human rights law and you are entitled to basic respect from colleagues, bosses and peers. If you have some problems with public institutions contact your schools, hospital dietician, or appropriate manager to discuss these issues with them. If you are having some problems that cannot be resolved contact us we would like to hear from you.

US civil rights group hails historic progress
Independent, May 19th 2018

While this case was ultimately lost it is the statement by Associate Judge Eugene M Fahey, which finally shows the shift in our society being taking into account in the courtroom:

"The issue whether a nonhuman animal has a fundamental right to liberty protected by the writ of habeas corpus is profound and far-reaching. It speaks to our relationship with all the life round us. Ultimately, we will not be able to ignore it."

Read More

Statistics

New Gallup polls on veganism
Vegan Society of Canada News, August 7th 2018

A new Gallup poll should help lay to rest, as we have discussed before, the misconception that following a diet compatible with the vegan philosophy is only for the rich and famous

Americans earning less than $30,000 annually are more likely to identify as vegetarian. Nine percent of this group say they are vegetarian, a higher percentage than is true of Americans in the two higher-income groups. Differences in levels of veganism among these three groups are not statistically significant.

Unfortunately it also confirm once more that the rate of veganism has been stagnant for a long time.

Read More

More than half of all canadians eat vegan meat
Vegan Society of Canada News, May 12th 2018

While we are encouraged that a recent study shows that 53% of Canadians eat meat alternatives we hope to be able to raise the amount of people who are committed to Veganism from 2%. Hopefully new products will make it easier for the 69% of people who prefer meat to make the move. Until then contact us and you local community for support in your lifestyle change.

Read More

Video

New videos on veganism to foster change
Vegan Society of Canada News, January 7th 2023

We have an ongoing mandate to evaluate how we exploit animals. In collaboration with our colleagues from the Vegan World Alliance, we are releasing a series of short videos that we hope will inspire reflection and provide additional incentive...

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