“It’s rare to see a legislative proposal unite people so clearly regardless of political affiliation,” said Monica Engebretson, Head of Public Affairs for Cruelty Free International in North America. “This is good news for a minority government as they should be able to count on opposition party support.”
Support for a ban crosses party lines, with 87% of Liberal, 85% of Conservative, 90% NDP and 87% Green Party supporters in favour.
“We have seen first-hand how strongly Canadians feel about this issue – we received over 900,000 signatures on our petition last year to end cosmetic animal testing,” said Hilary Lloyd, Vice President of Marketing & Corporate Responsibility for The Body Shop North America. “As the first international beauty brand to campaign against cosmetic animal testing in the 1980s, we have since watched the cruelty-free market explode. Consumers are demanding it and the Canadian government should act to ensure all cosmetics are free from cruelty.”
Cruelty Free International and its partner The Body Shop launched a campaign in 2017 to end the sale and manufacture of animal tested cosmetics in Canada [3]. This campaign has brought awareness to millions of Canadians about the need to ban cosmetic animal testing and helped Bill S-214 (The Cruelty-Free Cosmetics Act) get to Second Reading in the House of Commons – the furthest any bill on this issue has ever made it in the legislative process. Despite work by several groups that won cross-party support, the bill ran out of legislative time just before the 2019 election.
“Ending cosmetic animal testing would align Canada with the European Union, one of the world’s largest cosmetics markets and a key trading partner,” said Engebretson. “The United States is also moving towards a ban, with a federal bipartisan bill under consideration. If Canada doesn’t act soon, it risks falling further behind its international peers. With modern non-animal testing methods usually cheaper, faster and more accurate than animal tests, it just makes sense.”
Cruelty Free International and The Body Shop are calling on the federal government to move quickly in the New Year to finally end cosmetic animal testing and send a strong signal that Canadians are saying no to cruel cosmetics.
Cruelty Free International is one of the world’s longest standing and most respected animal protection organizations. The organization is widely regarded as an authority on animal testing issues and is frequently called upon by governments, media, corporations and official bodies for its advice or expert opinion. www.crueltyfreeinternational.org
1. SurveyUSA interviewed 800 adults across the whole of Canada . Research was conducted from 11/21/19 through to 11/24/19 . The research was conducted online bilingually in English and in French . For the complete survey results, click here
2. A summary of the findings is available here: https://www.crueltyfreeinternational.org/sites/default/files/Canada%20Poll%202019.pdf
