Law & Policy Active Updated Oct 13, 2026
Ontario's horse slaughter ban
Where it stands, Oct 13, 2026 Animal Justice welcomed Ontario's proposal but said a major loophole remains: horses can still be sold and transported within and through the province to slaughter elsewhere, including to Canada's one remaining horse slaughterhouse in Quebec and to feedlots and export flights bound for Japan.
Ontario proposed banning horse, donkey and mule slaughter at its provincially licensed meat plants and barring those plants from processing horse meat arriving from federally licensed facilities elsewhere. The move follows Alberta's largest horse slaughterhouse closing, leaving only one operating in Canada, in Quebec, while Canada and the US together still send more than 10,000 horses a year to slaughter. The fight is whether Ontario adds a ban on transporting horses through the province bound for slaughter elsewhere.
What the brief said to watch
- Due Oct 23, 2026 The public comment period closes October 23, 2026, and Animal Justice is asking Ontario to add a ban on selling and transporting equines for slaughter [101].
The story so far
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Oct 13, 2026 Latest
Animal Justice welcomed Ontario's proposal but said a major loophole remains: horses can still be sold and transported within and through the province to slaughter elsewhere, including to Canada's one remaining horse slaughterhouse in Quebec and to feedlots and export flights bound for Japan. The group said California, New Jersey and New York already outlaw the sale or transport of horses for slaughter.
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Sep 22, 2026
Ontario proposed updating its Food Safety and Quality Act to ban killing horses, donkeys and mules at provincially licensed slaughterhouses and to bar those plants from processing or distributing horse meat arriving from federally licensed facilities. Only one horse slaughterhouse remains operating in Canada, in Quebec, after Alberta's largest one closed, and more than 10,000 horses from Canada and the US are estimated to be slaughtered each year.
This fight, in numbers
Every sourced figure the brief has published on this storyline, newest first.
- 28 hours is the legal limit for transporting horses without food, water and rest, a limit Animal Justice and Japan-based Life Investigation Agency say export shipments frequently exceed
- 95 percent of the nearly 4,000 horses in one Canadian transport-to-slaughter study came from just five US states, on median journeys of 15 to 36 hours
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