Image by Kev from Pixabay

We thank Twyla Francois of the Animal Protection Party of Canada for initiating this petition and the Honourable Alexandre Boulerice of the New Democratic Party for sponsoring it. If you are a citizen or other resident of Canada, please take a moment to sign.

Petition to the Minister of Environment and Climate Change

Whereas:

• Long-tailed macaques are the monkey species most heavily traded for use in primate experimentation;
• The country from which Canada most frequently imports monkeys is Cambodia;
• In February 2023, the United States stopped accepting monkeys from Cambodia because authorities amassed evidence that export permits were falsified by claiming wild-caught monkeys were captive-bred;
• The practice of falsifying export permits is against international treaties designed to protect animals from extinction;
• In 2022, the International Union for Conservation of Nature raised the classification of long-tailed macaques from “vulnerable” to “endangered,” pointing to their exploitation by the experimentation industry as a factor in the species’ plummeting numbers and heightened risk of extinction;
• From 2022 to 2023, imports of Cambodian long-tailed macaques to Canada increased by nearly 350%;
• The Minister of Environment and Climate Change Canada is responsible for administering and enforcing the Convention on the International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Flora and Fauna (CITES) and the Wild Animal and Plant Protection and Regulation of International and Interprovincial Trade Act (WAPPRIITA), which includes verifying the origin of any endangered species imported into the country;
• Canada has an ethical responsibility to apply the same level of scrutiny over these imports as the United States to protect this endangered species.

We, the undersigned, Citizens and Residents of Canada, call upon the Minister of Environment and Climate Change to order an immediate suspension of all endangered monkey imports from Cambodia.