Animal rights activists wearing goose and coyote masks staged a protest outside the Influence U store on Saint Catherine Street downtown over the noon hour today.
The campaigners with People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals say no store should be selling Canada Goose jackets, because of the cruelty involved in production of the down and fur.
An undercover video obtained by PETA shows workers at a Manitoba goose farm picking up geese by their necks, piling them on top of each other and stepping on them. At the bottom of the piles, some geese struggle for air.
PETA campaigner Emily Lavender says the Canada Goose clothing company is misleading consumers when it claims the geese providing the down for its jackets live lives free of fear and pain.
"Cruelty can be found in every stitch of a Canada Goose jacket," she says. "There's just really just no way to make down humane. At the end of the day they all end up going to the slaughterhouse and have a violent death."
Lavender is urging Canada Goose to ditch down, as well as the coyote fur trim on its jackets, and instead use synthetic products that are more efficient at keeping humans warm.
Canada Goose has released a statement saying PETA is misinformed about the company's animal welfare practices.
It says the animals shown in the video are not only not part of its supply chain, but they aren't even the same species of bird they use.
Below is the statement issued by Canada Goose:
“PETA is grossly misinformed about our animal welfare practices and this is a case of activists misrepresenting the truth for their own purposes. The animals and the treatment of them shown in PETA’s recent video are not a part of the Canada Goose supply chain, as confirmed by our supplier Feather Industries and our own ongoing independent audits of our supply chain. In fact, the birds shown in the video are not the correct species of birds that are used for Canada Goose down. We regularly audit our full supply chain to ensure global and our own standards are being met at all times. Canada Goose is deeply committed to animal welfare and the responsible use and ethical sourcing of all animal materials in our products as evidenced by our comprehensive traceability program. We only purchase fur from licensed North American trappers, who are regulated by state, provincial and federal standards. We only purchase down that comes as a by-product from the poultry industry, from our sole supplier Feather Industries Canada Ltd. The down we source adheres to the Five Freedoms policy set out by the World Organisation for Animal Health and European Convention for the Protection of Animals Kept for Farming Purposes which ensures we never use down from live-plucked or force-fed birds.”