Hello everyone, my name is Ryan and you're listening to The Vegan Report. If you are an
ethical vegan and you care to do more to end animal abuse, then this podcast is for you.
Every Tuesday, discover passionate, thought-provoking and inspiring vegan leaders from all walks of life
who will inspire you to take action. If you are listening to this podcast, chances are
you have watched undercover footage of how farm animals are treated. Those pictures and videos are
violent, shocking and can even be traumatizing. But what is certain is that those images never
leave you indifferent. They force you for a moment to face an evil which has been actively
hidden from your sight. Well, have you ever wondered how that footage is produced? Who is
behind the camera and what does it cost to capture a photo of that ugliness? Today, we are going to
answer all of those questions as we are in the company of Nathalie Bartoszek, an animal rights
activist who has filmed one of the worst, most wicked scenes of animal abuse out there when,
When on December 7th, 2019, she infiltrated a pig farm here in Quebec about an hour drive from where I
live. Nathalie, welcome to the podcast. Thank you so much for being here.
Nathalie Bartoszek Hi, Ryan. Thank you so much for welcoming
Hi, Ryan. Thank you so much for welcoming me onto your platform to have this conversation.
Ryan Of course. So, Nathalie, those images of animal exploitation are at the center of your
activism and commitment to the cause of animal rights. Last episode, we covered the work of the
Montreal chapter of Anonymous for the Voiceless, who exposes that footage openly in the streets
to confront the convictions and dietary choices of the general public. Now, you are one of the
co-founders of the Montreal chapter of Anonymous for the Voiceless. Not only that, but the very
reason why you are vegan has to do with watching the famous or infamous documentary Earthlings.
Can you recount that experience for us? Nathalie Bartoszek
Yes. It was sort of silly at first because I was on, of all websites, Ellen DeGeneres's website.
She was vegan at the time, and she had a list of films that she recommended on one portion of her
site. I was bored, and I saw a movie that was called Earthlings listed there. And to me,
the title sounded like something like David Attenborough-ish, sort of like our planet,
those documentaries that he makes about life on our planet. So, I thought Earthlings sounded
sort of like that, which was what I was in the mood for. I had no idea what I was getting myself
into when I pressed play that day. I remember stopping it halfway through and just crying and
sobbing. And I think I was yelling at the screen, why, why, why? Somehow, I managed to press play
and watch the rest of it. But that was the first moment of lifting the veil, so to speak,
of everything that I had been lied to about and everything I just had no idea about, like most
people, in regards to what we're doing to animals, how brutal and horrible and immoral and abusive.
It is. Yes. In my personal experience, after watching that documentary, I felt like asking
for forgiveness, actually. So, before that, did you have any inclination toward animal rights or
a certain love for animals? Yeah, I always loved animals. I mean, not everybody who becomes a
vegan animal rights activist cares about animals, and you don't need to. But for me, well, I'll
elaborate on that. You don't need to because it doesn't matter how you feel about animals. You
only need to understand that they don't deserve to be unnecessarily harmed or abused, obviously,
exploited in any way. But for me, I always loved them. I had a lot of pets growing up, and
they always brought me so much joy. I love connecting with them. I think they're beautiful
and wonderful and innocent. It was always something I thought I cared about. But then,
in practice, of course, I was like everyone else, just blindly consuming their bodies.
It was such a rude awakening when I finally realized what I was part of, what I was contributing to.
What do you say to people who say that those images are not effective at converting people
to our cause, to veganism, who doubt the power of that footage?
I think that footage is the most powerful thing we have in our arsenal. Absolutely. You can't deny
those images. You can't deny the truth of what's happening. These images are garnered by undercover
activists who risk their freedom, sometimes even their lives, going into these dangerous situations,
these horrible, horrible places that leave them with PTSD and other issues.
To get these images to tell the truth of what's really happening to animals, and when you see
those images, how can you argue with those? People have excuses about why they don't want to
stop eating animals, but when you show them those images, how can you... They're so moving. They're
so heartbreaking. It's what did it for me. It's what's done it, changing people's hearts and minds
for most people that I've spoken to in the movement. Also, I see it happening all the time
in my work with AV. We watch the change happening right there on the spot. We see it on their faces.
They cry. They react with shock. They turn away. It's undeniably effective. I can't understand why
anybody would... Excuse me. I can't understand why anybody would ever think otherwise.
I think the logic is it's offensive. It's offensive to people to watch that footage,
and all they're going to get from that experience is just being disgusted, yes, but being turned
off from anything that has to do with thinking about animal exploitation. I guess that's how I
think about their argument. Yeah, perhaps. Anyone with a good heart and a logical mind can look at
that and understand that it's so unbelievably abusive and cruel, and also just that it's logically
unnecessary. We know today that we don't need to be doing this to them. We can thrive and survive
without harming any animals, at least in the developed world.
So you watched the documentary Earthlings. You decided to become vegan.
No. Sorry to cut you off, but I did not immediately. I wish I could say that I watched
it and I went straight vegan. I didn't. It took me a long time. It was quite a learning curve.
I wish I could say I did it sooner. I think most vegans feel like they're not going to be vegan.
But it took a few years after that. Sorry to interrupt there.
Oh no, it's okay. Why did it take so much time before making the transition?
I just didn't know how to get my nutrients, feed myself, give up all these things that I had spent
my life consuming and enjoying and feeling. I just didn't know how to get my nutrients, feed myself,
that I had spent my life consuming and enjoying and feeling comfortable with. I didn't know what
to do. I didn't know how to get there. So I did it in stages, giving up this. I think right after
that documentary, I just said, okay, I'm not eating pigs and cows anymore. I'm not doing that
anymore. A little later, I said, okay, I'm not eating chicken anymore. Then it was, okay, I'm
not going to eat seafood anymore. I was a big seafood fan. So for me, that one felt hard,
but I did it and I was proud of myself. Then I got to vegetarian. I thought, okay, I'm good.
This is good for me. This is as far as I need to go. I didn't know about the dairy industry.
I didn't know about the egg industry. I was actually walking down Saint Laurent Boulevard
and passing by our famous smoked meat shop here, which always has a line out the door.
And there were some activists in front of it. I had never done activism. I didn't know any activists,
but there were some people there with signs protesting this smoked meat place. And I said
to myself, oh, these are my people. This is great. Even though I wasn't an activist,
but these are people who didn't eat meat. I'm like, oh, this is amazing. So I go up to one of them
and I shake their hand. I say, thank you so much for being here. Thank you for doing this.
And the person says, oh, you're welcome. Are you vegan? And I said, no, I'm vegetarian. And he
says to me, oh, you're not helping anybody. And I thought, what? What do you mean I'm not helping
anybody? Because I felt like I had done so much already. I'd given up so much. So I was actually
angry walking away from this person. I was bothered by what he said, that I hadn't done any good after
everything that I'd given up, after all that I'd changed in my life. But it stayed with me.
And I went home and I think he had given me some videos to watch on YouTube. It was the dairy is
scary and the egg video as well that Aaron Janis made. And I watched those and that was it.
That was what did it for me. That made me go vegan. That's truly amazing, which also proves
the point that sometimes you need to upset people to trigger change in their lives.
Sometimes. I mean, I don't think it's necessary to be, pardon my language, a complete asshole about
it. But I do think it's necessary to be, and this is the ethos of AV as well, to be direct,
to not sugarcoat it, to just be a direct medium of the truth, tell it as it is. And I think people
will respect you for that and it will stay with them. So you mentioned those people and how you
thought about them as your people. Yeah. At some point you decided to join them. So what made you
take that extra step from just being vegan to becoming a vegan activist? Honestly, it was
right after that, right after I spoke to that person. I don't even know. I can't picture their
face in my head. Maybe they're a friend of mine now and I don't even realize it, you know? But
after I met this person, they said that to me. I went home, I educated myself, I decided to be
vegan. Basically, I don't know, it was probably like the next week I decided, okay, I really do
want these to be my people. I really do want to have other vegans in my life. I didn't know any
vegans, not one. So I decided to go on Facebook. It's almost, it's funny to me. I go into the
search bar and I just typed in vegan. I just wanted to see what came up. And the very first
thing that came up was there was a dinner being planned at O'Veeve, which is the first vegan
restaurant that ever existed in Montreal. I think it's been, I don't know, 20 years or maybe more.
No. And it was being hosted by this gentleman. Oh, I can't remember his name now. I'm so sorry
if he's watching this because it started with Jay. It's been a long time since we've spoken.
I think it was Jesse, but I'm not sure. He had posted this event that anyone was welcome to join
to go and just meet other vegans. And that sounded great. But it said that the date to
confirm had passed. So I sent him a private message and I said, is it too late? I don't know
any vegans. Can I please come? And he said, yeah, sure. No problem. We'll call the restaurant and
accommodate you. So I went and I sat with about 20 different vegans at a long table. And it was a
really nice experience. And I learned through that dinner about activism, more about what was
happening in the city. And from there, I just networked and found out what was happening. It
started mostly with fur protests, those sorts of events. And then I heard about AV and I wanted
to know if there was a chapter in the city. So I looked it up online and there wasn't one. But I
saw that someone named Kareem Samra was starting to sort of mobilize this. And he was going to have a
meeting with people who were interested in starting the chapter. So I went to this meeting and
when Gusta had its own shop, we went and we sat in there. I think there were about 10 of us. And we
just sat in a circle and sort of brainstormed. And then after that meeting, I reached out to him
personally and said, listen, do you want some help getting this off the ground? What have you
already done? What can I do for you? So he had already gotten the TVs and set up the harnesses
and the console with the battery. He'd done all of that. It was all in his pocket. So generous.
So I asked him what still needed to be done. I got some masks, I got the signs printed, and then we
had our first event and we had a really great turnout. And it's been six years now. And we're
having today is International Cube Day, by the way, it's a very special event. We have an event
starting in just a few hours. And it's been wonderful. The community is great. We're very
lucky to have a beautiful community here and AV is going strong.
That's amazing. Can you share with us some inspiring stories? You mentioned some of the
reaction of people to that footage, but you spent so much time talking with people in the streets
and doing those cube of truths. So can you share with us some stories of meeting people and
converting them to veganism?
Absolutely. So over the years, I have done a lot of outreach. I don't do as much anymore,
because as an organizer, you're not actually supposed to do very much outreach, supposed to
just focus on your organizer duties. But sometimes because we have four organizers, we're still able
to take turns doing that on the day. For myself, I mean, the best conversations, it sounds very
backwards to maybe to some people, but the best ones are where people cry. It's kind of like
a comical, but if you get a cryer, it was a good conversation. Because it just means that you
touched them so much. You really, really got the message across. You really changed their heart to
the point where they were moved physically, where it's led to even a hug and them really expressing
that they want to be vegan and wanting to know exactly how they do that and gratefully accepting
our closing card, which is what we give them at the end and the resources they need.
Sometimes it comes easily. The person that you're talking to, they have so much empathy for
animals already, so it's not hard to get them there. Sometimes it's very hard to get them there,
and they really push back. They throw every excuse that they have, and they're like,
they throw every excuse they can think of at you. They really try to challenge what you're saying
because they need to make sure that you're right. They need to make sure that they haven't left any
stone unturned because this is something that they really are invested in. This is something that they
themselves participate in every day, three times a day. They're not making it easy on you, but
they're trying not to make it easy on you. Honestly, if you've done these conversations a lot,
it's always easy in a sense because there is no excuse. There is no justification to continue
doing what we're doing. There isn't one. I have been in so many conversations. I have watched other
people have their conversations online and in person, and there's never been a gotcha moment
from anyone we've ever spoken to. One day there was this child watching the screen, and he was crying.
Some people think it's wrong of us to show this footage in the public so that children have to
watch it. I get their perspective, but at the same time, this is their world too, and they're going
to be growing up into it, and they deserve the truth as well. A lot of children understand
that this is so wrong and that they don't want anything to do with it once they learn about it.
They're stronger than you think. I have had conversations with children where they had all
the right questions. They didn't even cry. They understood, and they walked away wanting to ask
their parents to buy different food and not hurt animals anymore. Some of the most beautiful
conversations I've had were with children, but anyway, sorry, I'm getting on a tangent. I saw
this child crying, and I went over, and he was sobbing and looking at the screen. I think it was
the pigs going into the gas chambers, and his mother was down at his level and hugging him.
He looked like he was maybe five or six. He was saying something to his mother in Spanish.
I couldn't understand what he was saying, but I went over and I said to her,
I hope he's okay. May I ask you what he's saying? She looks up at me with a slight smile,
and she says, he's saying to me that if he ever finds the people who hurt these animals,
he's going to kill them. He said he wanted to grow up someday and stop the people that are hurting
these animals, or he will hurt them. She was not angry with us. She was grateful for this
interaction that her child was having for this experience, the expression that was coming out
of him, this beautiful empathy that was flowing out of him. She thanked us for being able to
do that. She thanked us for being there. Even though I didn't end up having a full conversation
with them, they had to leave. That short interaction is the one that pops into my mind
first when you ask me about that. It was really beautiful.
Thank you for sharing that story. I was recently editing a video for Instagram with Liz White,
who talked about bear hunting. I was looking at pictures of people taking their pictures with
the bear, the dead bear, because bears are considered the trophy animal. You hunt them,
you kill them, and then you take pictures with them. There were so many pictures with kids.
You have the mother or the father or the couple, the family unit, and the kids around the corpse of
that dead bear. That was incredibly shocking to think that those innocent children are conditioned
to this is normal. I will never be one to blame activists for exposing children to that
footage, because that's the truth. Anyway, people are going hunting with their children
and bonding over that sadistic experience. We should at least put something against that.
We should have an initiative against that, reaching out to those children.
I'm always touched by those stories, by vegans in general, but also animal activists, because
you're going against a cultural conditioning that goes back hundreds of years. You're going against
the government, which is captured by this animal industry. You're going against sometimes religious
beliefs. It's amazing. It's truly amazing. Vegans and animal rights activists have all my admiration.
Thank you. You have mine as well, really, for what you do, genuinely. Thank you so much.
Thank you for saying that, Natalie. You're not just an activist, as you mentioned. You're an
organizer. You are a leader among activists. As such, how do you mobilize vegans around taking
action? This whole podcast is about inspiring vegans to take action. I wonder if you have any
insight or wisdom on that topic. I never intended to lead the community.
When I saw the opportunity to help get something off the ground, I just stepped in and did it.
I feel a little uncomfortable being called a leader, because it sounds
so... I don't know. How do you mobilize people? I guess, for me, when I think about
the Cube of Truth events that we do, which is the most of the activism that I do,
the most important aspect of my role as organizer is to make my teammates, my volunteers,
know that they are so important to this movement, that they are so appreciated, that they
belong. This is where they belong. They belong with us. We see you. We love you. We appreciate you.
We are all in this together. I think when you put that out there into the community, all that love
and all that appreciation and all that camaraderie, it clues them. It makes them want to keep coming
back. Even though they know the movement is so important, if they don't feel that from their
leaders, if they don't feel that... I don't know. It sounds so corny, but I want to call it love.
There's something that... It feels like a family to me, and I want people to realize that they are
part of this family, as corny as that sounds. It's just how I feel about it in my heart.
And if the others feel that as well, I feel like that will keep us together and it will keep this
movement stronger. So, yeah, that's the best way I can explain it, I guess. It's a beautiful answer.
Thank you.
So let's talk about what happened on December 7th when you decided to infiltrate that pig farm.
Why did you decide to participate in that action?
Well, there's a number... Oh, sorry. Go ahead.
Well, I was just going to add, and why did you target that particular pig farm?
Yeah. Okay. So first question, I was invited privately through a private app to participate
in this action. And the ideas frightened me at first, because I had never done anything like that
in my life before. But I knew the importance of civil disobedience, and I understood that this
was a peaceful action. And so I was interested, but I was scared and I didn't commit right away.
I had to think about it. And then I heard from a friend of mine that they had committed to doing
this action, my friend, Jenny Donovan. I had not known Jenny for very long, but we had become close.
She had invited me to go and talk to her MP once. We had gone together to talk to... Oh, no,
I can't remember his name now. The one that was an astronaut, Mark. What is his last name? I'm sorry.
I'm not good with names.
Gavno, maybe it is. Mark Gavno. That might be it.
Oh, yes. Yes. Yeah. He was an astronaut, then he became an MP. And she wanted to go and talk to
him. It was for Nation Rising. Nation Rising was a campaign where they wanted you to go and talk to
your MP more about the environmental side of why animal agriculture is so harmful. So we went and
we spoke to her MP and I got to know her better and we came close. And so when I heard that she
was going into this farm, I had this emotional reaction and I felt I don't want her to go in
without me. If she's brave enough to do this, I want to be brave enough to do this with her
and beside her. I didn't really know the other people that were participating. I didn't know
who they all were. I didn't know any of them as well as her. But anyway, there was the option
to go inside or be on the outside team. There was an outside team as well. I could have made
that decision to still do the action and be on the outside team, but she had decided to go inside.
And I decided that that was, I don't know, in my heart, I decided that that was what I wanted to
do as well. As risky as it was. And what triggered that action? So I guess there was something
particularly bad happening with that pig farm and action needed to be taken in that case.
Sorry. Yeah. So interesting answer to that is that I didn't know where I was going. I
was not part of the organizing of this. I did not even know really who was part of the organizing
of this. A lot of the times when they have these actions, they don't let the organizer reveal
themselves because it's better to have deniability and not have that information leak out because the
organizers usually targeted more harshly in court. They were trying to get that information from us
in the courtroom. So I did not know exactly whose idea this action was. And I didn't even know
the identity of the location where we were going, the town we were going to, or the farm,
or even what type of animal was being exploited on that farm. All I knew was this was a peaceful
action. And that I was going to be driving there, you know, with a biosecurity suit and with these
people that I had met. We had one meeting to talk about it, where we got the equipment that we needed
for the day. And then we did it. And yeah. So let's talk about the details,
the logistics of going there. What happened on that fateful day?
I think I woke up at two in the morning, if you can call that waking up. I don't even know if I
slept. I can't remember, but I woke up and I got dressed and I walked to this park. We were also
submit at Park Lafontaine at 2.30, I think in the morning. And so we met there. There were a number
of cars already and we divided ourselves into the cars so that we could carpool to Saint Hyacinth
or Saint Hyacinth in English, which is where the farm was. We didn't know where we were going,
only the drivers knew where we were going. It was still pitch black when I was walking to this park
to get to the other people. And I remember thinking to myself, what am I doing? This is crazy.
Waking up early in the morning to do this. I have no idea what I'm walking into. All I know is that
it's a peaceful action and I feel like this is important and I'm going to do this. But I was
scared and it felt mind boggling that I was walking into this situation. So then we drive
there, we leave at 3 a.m., we get there at four. And again, it's still pitch dark when we get there.
It's the middle of nowhere countryside farmland. There are no streetlights. It is just black.
Sorry to interject, Nathalie, but Saint Hyacinth is actually the city where you can find one of,
I think, the biggest vet hospital for farm animals in Quebec, which I find interesting that
this is happening where there's this big vet hospital and vet school to, I think, most
veterinarians in Quebec who go into the agribusiness, go get their training in Saint Hyacinth.
Really? I didn't even know that. I've never heard that before.
I think so, yeah.
Yeah, it's a strange contradiction of veterinary practice for most people that are veterinarians
because most people eat animals and then the school is in a place where they're exploiting
so many animals. I mean, the whole society is just so contradictory, isn't it? But that's an
interesting fact I didn't know about. Wow. So we arrive there in the dark and I'm sitting in the
back of this car and the people that I'm in the car with, they leave to go to another car. I don't
remember why. So I'm sitting there in the back and I put on my biosecurity suit and I'm given these
little booties to put on my feet. And by the way, I'm also wearing a diaper. We're all wearing
diapers because there are no bathrooms in there. And if you have to go, I did not have to use mine,
but if you have to go, there's nowhere for you to go in there. We're going to be in there for hours.
We're going to be with the police after. So we actually wore those just in case. So I'm sitting
in the back of this car in the middle of nowhere in the dark in a diaper, in a biosecurity suit.
I'm alone. Someone has just ran in the dark to the farm, ran top speed to go and check out
the doors are still unlocked if we can still go in before we all go. And I'm just thinking like,
what am I doing here? This is crazy. But then we're given the go ahead that we're going to
assemble. And the first thing we want to do is we want to take a picture.
So a lot of people have seen this picture. It's been the cover photo for our event,
our court date event pages and that sort of thing. But we're in the dark. We're underneath the sign
outside of the farm says Poor Greg across the top. Poor Greg is the name of the farm because poor
is pork in French and their name was Greg walk. It was a family run farm by the Greg was.
So anyway, we're at this farm and there's this car and their headlights are going to be put
onto us because there's no other light there. It's only we take the photos, someone to put their car
so that the lights are shining on us and we line up and we have some piglets in our arms. Some
dead piglets, they're not alive, they're dead. And some masks, some pig masks, pig, they look like
we're like pig face masks. And we take the picture. And then it's time to go in. So we go towards the
door. We get there, our hearts are all beating fast. Most of us, I think, I think all of us, I can't,
I don't think any of us, no, maybe most of us, almost all of us have never done this before.
I've never gone into a farm before. And we open the door and we walk in and it's just shocking.
It's just, it just hits you. The smell, the atmosphere, and the eyes of all these mother
pigs, these sows that are in cages the size of their own bodies. We were in the gestation area,
gestation, gestation or farrowing, no, excuse me, the farrowing area where they have their babies
next to them. And they are still in a cage the size of their body. And then there's another cage
for their babies next to them. So they can't turn around, they can only stand up and lie down. But
the moment you go in, these huge animals with these very human-like eyes are looking at you.
And you just can't believe what you're seeing. You just can't believe that this is legal.
You walk through the door and there they are right in your face, in caged with their babies. Their
babies are also dead, some of them in the cages, dead babies in the hallways. The smell is just
incredible. It's so, there's no windows, it's just dark in there. It just feels like some more out
of a horror film. And it just got worse as we went on this farm, even though it was a local
family-run farm, it had about 4,000 animals on it. We spent the next few hours going through every
single section and carefully documenting everything that we saw. It was just, it was very shocking.
It is definitely the worst place in the world I have ever been and will probably ever be.
I'm even trying to explain how it felt to look at these animals. There were
just so many, there was a variety of just horrible situations. There were the faring area,
the gestation area, which is where they're being impregnated. And they're in cages,
they have their own body there as well, on concrete. There was the area where they kept the males,
the adult males, which was extremely filthy. And we could barely breathe in there. We couldn't
understand how animals could breathe in there. There was the area where there were babies,
babies that were too old to be with their mothers, but not old enough to be with the adults.
And they were so overcrowded and so filthy and oppressive. Sorry, that's the word I was trying
to find earlier and I couldn't find it for some reason. It was such an oppressive, horrible place.
And all these little individuals, they were all so sweet and curious. And I was just so
surprised that they were so kind and they wanted to come up to us. And I'm sorry, I'm still like,
just, it's hard to talk about. It's hard to talk about. And I've been ranting for a long time now,
so I think I'll stop it. Let me know what your next question is.
It's okay. You're wearing a biohazard suit. What is the purpose of that?
The purpose of that suit is, the point is to try to protect the animals from us and to try to protect
us from them, to try not to contaminate their environment while we are documenting what we are
doing. It's funny because when we were eventually discovered by the farmers, they didn't have any
sort of protective gear on whatsoever, not the initial employee that found us and also not the
owner of the farm that came in later. But we did wear that and we did do our best to wear gloves.
But it was so filthy in there that it was actually quite difficult. The little booties we
had on would get just soaked with feces and urine. I mean, and how do you not trudge that
throughout the other areas? It was not set up in a way that was very biosecure at all. I mean,
we didn't see stations where you should wash your hands or change your booties or anything like
that. There was nothing like that on the farm. But we did our best. We did our best to protect
ourselves and protect the animals. At that point, you were vegan for a number of years,
and you had watched a lot of footage of animal exploitation. You were also an activist.
Did that experience still change your outlook on animal rights and animal exploitation,
your actions? Did it, I guess, change a bit your perception of what you were doing and
what of your thoughts and beliefs around that? Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. I had, like you
said, watched a lot of this footage before, but it's extremely different to be in the facility
yourself, to look into the eyes of the victims, to have them look into yours, to see those
individuals, to be there with them, to see them in their suffering. And to not be able to help,
we had already decided that we weren't going to try to take any animals out, because that creates
a much more difficult legal challenge of theft. We decided we were not going to do that. I don't
know if we regret that or not collectively, but it was a decision we made before going in.
But yes, absolutely. When I said that before I was sitting in the car and I was
just feeling like, what am I doing here? I'm in the middle of nowhere wearing a diaper in the dark,
about to go into a farm and break the law. What am I doing? I was scared before. By the end of
our experience there, by the time we were sitting up against a wall in the gestation area, waiting
to be arrested, my fear was gone. I had no second thoughts. I had no regrets. I had no more fear
about being part of this action, about doing this sort of activism for animals. I felt its importance
after really seeing for myself what these places are like and what the evil of animal agriculture
really is, what it's really doing to innocent sentient beings by the billions every single day.
Our action was peaceful. We didn't break anything. We didn't take anything. We didn't hurt anyone.
All we wanted to do was expose that this horror is happening in our own backyard, in Quebec Farms.
People always say, oh, it's not like that here. It's like that somewhere else when they see images
of horrible places or just standard practices that happen to animals. They say, it's not like that
here. It's not that bad. We wanted to show, yes, it is like that here. It is like that in Quebec.
We wanted to expose these people. It's so important to do that. I feel the weight of that,
obviously, so much more after being there and doing it myself. By the end, my fear was gone.
I knew this was important. It just strengthened my resolve to do this action, strengthened my
resolve in the movement and in my own choices in being part of it and dedicating my life to it,
which I will continue to do in either legal or illegal ways for the rest of my life.
Well, that was considered an illegal action. You mentioned how the owners of that farm,
first the employee and then I think the owners, did you have any interaction with them when they
surprised you in the middle of your action? Sort of, yes. We were sitting on the ground,
lined up against the wall. We had already decided not to speak to them. The first thing that
happened was there was a Guyanese man who had just actually, apparently it was his first day on the
job. Quite an interesting first day for him. Gave him a bit of a shock. We were just sitting there.
We weren't speaking or anything. He came around the corner from inside the farm. He was already
inside and he came from one of the other farm rooms. He looked around the corner, this Guyanese
man who was on his first day of the job and saw us and looked shocked and then left. He didn't say
anything. He didn't come into the room, nothing. I'm assuming he just went straight to go get the
owner of the farm. The owner then came from an external door on the other side of the room that
led to the outside, came in and just sort of, it felt like he was sort of puffing out his chest and
he was filming us and he was trying to, I don't know, intimidate us I felt like. He was just
asking us like, why are you here? Why won't you leave? What do you want from us? But the way that
he was saying it with his tone, it felt like he was trying to intimidate us. I don't know, but he
just asked us those questions and we didn't answer him. So he left and then he came back with the
police and the police came in. Oh, I think actually we answered one question. No, that was, sorry,
it's a bit mixed. We only said that we spoke English, but we didn't want to speak to them
very much. We just wanted to sit down peacefully and wait to be arrested. So there was very little
interaction verbally with either the owner of the farm or the police when they arrived, but they
were there for a while, the police. It took them a while to get mobilized and organized to figure
out how to arrest 12 people. Yeah. I like the idea that the owner of that farm was doing his bad
business, his exploitation, profiting on the lives of those animals in the middle of nowhere,
thinking that no one is paying attention to his immoral behavior, but we are paying attention to
what you're doing. We know that you exist. And I guess this was a shock for him. This was a
great surprise to find himself exposed like that.
I really don't know how he feels about it. I hope that it had some effect to see himself and his
farm and his family's legacy through the eyes of activists and the court and the public as well,
maybe even from some of his peers, because I'm sure a lot of people in their community learned
about the action and we saw some of the footage that we took. I don't really know what kind of
impact it has had. He did testify and he was quite defensive and adamant that it didn't seem like he
had any remorse at the time, but I don't know if he would have wanted to show it to us if he did.
So I really don't know. I will say that the police that were there, there was definitely
mixed response. There was one woman who, while just sort of standing there, she looked at the pigs
that were sitting across from us while we were waiting to be arrested. And she looked at them
in their cages. And at some point, these pigs in the gestation crates, they can't move right.
They have no way to express their energy, to expel all this energy that they have as animals,
as sentient beings. They can't do anything except stand up and lie down. And so a few times that we
were there, they all collectively started screaming. I have very affecting footage of them
just screaming at the top of their lungs and thrashing against the bars and foaming at the
mouth. And that started to happen while the police were there. It happened before,
while we were at the farm, not with anything that we did. We did not initiate it. They just start
to do that. We started to hear the screaming before we entered the room, when we entered and
found them all screaming. But anyway, what happened while the police were there, and
it was really affecting this one policewoman. You could see on her face that the empathy was coming
through. But then there was another policeman there who, when he walked in, said, oh, looks like
breakfast in here, had absolutely no empathy for those individuals in their cages, which is just
mind boggling to me that someone could look at that and have no empathy for those individuals,
as if they have any less feeling, less suffering than other animals that we care for,
even in our own homes. You can even look at that and not see the injustice in it. It's just crazy
to me, but that's the world we live in. Humans are a mixed bag, and some of us have empathy,
and some of us just don't, unfortunately.
So you were arrested. And then following that, for about three years, you had to confront
to confront the judicial system, which went against you. Can you tell us a little bit more about
that, about that experience of the system going against you for having exposed that evil?
Yes. Well, it was very, it was, I had so many mixed emotions during that period. I was,
part of me was, obviously I have, and I said this in court when I gave my own personal statement to
the judge, I have no regrets about what I did, because it was peaceful, because it was necessary
to expose this place. It was civil disobedience, which has been very important with all social
justice movements throughout history. And I felt a sense of pride to be part of this action. And so
I tried to carry that with me and all the love from the community that we got, the vegan activist
community that we got going into this difficult criminal proceeding. But of course, being in the
courtroom and sitting there day after day after day, it was eight days, I think, of proceedings,
and to sit there and to listen to the testimony from the farmers, the veterinarians, the police
people, most of which was negative towards us. And there were a lot of lies that they tried to
tell about us. They tried to prove that we had done all these horrible things in the farm, that
we had changed the temperature, that we had left doors open, that we had let pigs out. They tried
to stay, like actually charge us with all of these things. And they told so many lies about what
happened on the day. The policeman that testified, one of the policemen that testified actually lied
about me, about how he had to arrest me. He said that he had to carry me from the floor all the way
to the car, which was actually completely incorrect. They picked me up and they did carry me, I think,
a few steps, maybe five steps. And then they yelled at me, they yelled, walk. And I put my feet down.
I was just trying to be obedient. They hadn't asked me to stand up. They hadn't asked me to do
anything. As soon as they said walk, I put my feet down. I walked the rest of the way out the door,
all the way to the car. This man said that he had to carry me all the way to the car.
There were so many things that they said that were just
hard to listen to. It was hard on the mind. It was hard on the heart. It was hard on the soul
to sit there and just listen so much. Our lawyers were so brave and so,
we were so lucky with our legal team. We had seven lawyers that were the crème de la crème
of the criminal justice system. We were very well represented and they did their best to defend us.
But ultimately, we were convicted. We were found guilty. And then we were all sentenced. After
that, we were found guilty of two criminal charges. It was technically three, but it
sort of turned into two because it was obstruction, breaking and entering, and mischief.
The mischief charge was actually amalgamated with the breaking and entering charge because the only
way that they can charge you with breaking and entering is if they can prove that you were there
on the premises to commit another crime. Otherwise, it's just trespassing. They had
to figure out what our crime was. They decided it was mischief, which to me and of course,
the rest of us who were on trial is crazy because what was mischievous about trying to expose an
injustice? We weren't there to ram sack the place or anything like that. We weren't there to...
We weren't a bunch of hooligans who were just trying to make a disturbance. We were there
to expose a horrible injustice. We tried to convey that as much as we could, but unfortunately,
we were found guilty of it. Then we waited for our sentencing. We were given a sentence where
it was split. Half of us were given criminal records and half of us were not. We were all
also given community service, a little bit of money to pay. The sentencing could have been a
lot worse, but it could have been a lot better. Mixed feelings about that too. To summarize,
it was hard, but it was also beautiful sometimes because we had rallies outside of the courthouse.
Lots and lots of people from the community came to support us every single court day within the
actual criminal trial and outside of that, all the court dates we had over three and a half years.
We always had support. We always had hugs. We always had just so much love. We carried that
love in there. Actually, on the day of our sentencing, we were sitting... They put us in
the jury box because there were so many people that wanted to be in the courtroom all the time,
people from the public, journalists, other people. They would put the 11 of us... It was 11 of us
because one of us was a minor, so she had her own trial. They put the 11 of us in the jury box.
On the last day of our sentencing, we were sitting there with... We all had a rose. We all had a rose
in our lap. All of us women knew it. It was... Sorry, excuse me. There was 10 women and one
non-binary American person on trial. It was just beautiful. I felt like we were all sitting there
with the love of the community in our hands, in the symbol of that rose.
A lot of the people that were there to support us, they were in a separate room
watching because the room could only accommodate so many people. Some of the people weren't even
allowed in because they were wearing shorts because it was summertime and apparently you're
not allowed to wear shorts in the courtroom, so they had to make an exception for them and
let them in another room. Anyway, they were all watching us on a video screen over there. When
we came out of the courtroom after having the sentence read to us, they were all there waiting
at the door when we came out and they all cheered and clapped for us. It was really beautiful,
lots of hugs. It was extremely stressful. It was extremely difficult. It was extremely long,
all those years of not knowing how this was going to turn out, but it was also extremely beautiful
and meaningful. It's one of the best experiences, if not the best experience I've ever gone through
in my life overall. The most powerful, meaningful, and important experiences I've ever had.
And that farm, I think that farm was close, was shut down. Am I right?
Yes, you are. We only learned about that on the first day of court proceedings. It was announced
by the Crown. The Crown is the representative for the people who own the farm.
They're the government representative because it's a criminal proceeding. It's the Crown who
represents the other side. They announced that the farm actually closed and we were very shocked to
hear that. That was never our intention. We of course can't be upset about it. Of course,
we want the farm to close, but we never expected that that would happen just from exposing it. It
basically happened because the MAPAC decided to go and they were tipped off by someone and they
went to go and investigate because they very rarely do inspections on these farms. They should
do them all the time, but they don't. They just don't. So they went to do an inspection. They
realized the farm was extra horrible because they're all horrible, but this one was extra
horrible. And I think that's part of the reason why they shut down. They also had their own
... They already had a rotavirus outbreak that was quite widespread, I believe. So that was part of
it. And by the way, the veterinarian who testified said that it was very unlikely that the rotavirus
was there because of us being in there. So that was not something that they were able to blame on
us, though they did try. But yeah, the farm was closed and we are very happy about that.
And also the judge said about, well, I will read from an article called The Activist in the Canada
11 case convicted for entering a pig farm in Canada to expose animal cruelty have now been
sentenced after more than three years of waiting. It's an article from Jordi Kacmichana, who had his
fair share of struggles with the judicial system as an animal rights activist. I think we talked
about him on this podcast, but he wrote a beautiful article on your judicial struggles.
And there he quotes the judge, Justice Marco Labrie, who himself said the videos the activists
recorded were impactful, poignant, troubling, and disturbing.
Yes. And it was very appreciated to hear that from the judge because a lot of judges will not
go that far. They don't need to, right? It's difficult because the criminal proceedings
are supposed to be solely based on what we did wrong, which was break and entering. It doesn't
necessarily need, I mean, obviously the intent of why we are there, we think that's important.
But some judges don't. Some judges don't think that it matters what our goal was. All that matters is
that we broke the law and that's wrong, end of story. But this judge thankfully had more of a
heart and was willing to allow the footage to be played in the courtroom itself. And to say these
things in his statement that he recognizes that this place was horrible, was disturbing,
and that the images were poignant and affecting. And I think overall we did get a good judge,
even though he didn't let all of us off. I felt like he did the best that he felt like he could.
He really took his time with it. And I don't think we could have asked for much better in terms of
who we got in that seat. But yeah, we were allowed to play the footage in the courtroom. And actually,
a funny story, on the first day of court proceedings, it was actually the other side
who played all of our videos, which to us was very strange. This is the evidence we have against them
that makes them, that bates them in a negative light. So why would they want to play the footage
in a negative light? So why would they want to play it? And it was shocking for me because a lot
of it was my footage. They had gone to my Facebook page and taken all of the videos from my page.
So here I am watching my own videos being played by the Crown, by the prosecution.
And I think why they did that is they wanted to get ahead of it. They wanted that shocking
imagery to be in our minds from the start so that by the end, it's not so shocking anymore.
And it doesn't have the same effect on the judge. It doesn't have the same effect.
It's been absorbed. It's marinated in the brain. It's not as damning anymore if maybe it's had time
to sit. So I think they were trying to get ahead of it by saying, yes, this is what it was like in
there, but that's not the point. The point is they broke the law, period. Yeah.
LR I think again, I mean, I cannot watch Earthlings even after all of those years of being a vegan.
And after all that footage I have watched, I mean, I've never grown indifferent to that.
So it's a weird psychological reflection, I guess, but it's smart in a way, in an evil genius way.
But yeah.
FF Yeah, yeah. I think that must have been their ploy. But I mean, those images are horrible.
And I'm sure that the judge, he had them on file. And so he probably watched them when he was
deliberating after all the proceedings were over. So I don't know if that actually would have been
as effective, but I'm glad we were allowed to play them. There was another court proceeding,
another action and trial out west with Amy Serrano and Nick Schaeffer and Jeff, I forget his last
name, Regier, I think. And there was one other and I can't remember his name right now. Those were
the organizers of this action where there were actually 200 activists who went into a pig farm
that did exactly the same thing as us. It was very peaceful. But 200, I don't know how you get those
numbers. We had 12, okay. They had 200 people, go BC, willing to sign up for an action like this.
And only the four organizers, of course, were brought to court because they can't bring 200
people to court. And they weren't allowed to show any of their footage to talk about the animals
at all. Amy, when she was giving her statement, she wanted to talk a bit about the animals. She
thought it was important to express why she was there. Why did they do this? The judge shut her
down the moment she started to mention the animals. He said, you can't talk about that in here.
So she decided to not even give the rest of her statement. She was shocked. She thought she had
the right to say her piece. Normally you have the right to say your piece. But she was shocked.
She had the right to say her piece. Normally you have the right to say your piece when you
are addressing the judge. He would not even let them talk about the animals whatsoever.
And they were sentenced to jail. They were sentenced to one month in jail. Two of them were.
Two of them were let off. Amy and Nick were sentenced to one month in jail. They are appealing
that decision. But it just goes to show the judge that you get really matters. It's actually better
to get a jury when you think about it because the collective minds of 12 people that are just normal
citizens I think are a safer bet than the mind of one who may or may not be influenced, biased,
corrupted, who knows. So yeah. Well, that's a truly inspiring story. And I want to just take
time to say thank you. Thank you for having taken that action and for having exposed what happened
in that farm and participated in shutting down that operation. So thank you for your bravery, Natalie.
Thank you very much for saying that. There are people out there that do much more brave things
than me. Than us, I should say. We did this together. I don't know if I'll ever do it again.
But of course I have no regrets. But I mean, there are people out there that go into farms
all the time and they go in there either undercover as employees, which I think is hardest because you
have to pretend like you're okay with it. The whole time you work there, you have to pretend like
you're on board with this. You can't cry. You can't show any emotion. You can't help them.
You can't save them. You can't do anything but pretend like you're one of the evil people next
to you. And I'm going to call them evil because honestly there are people who work in slaughterhouses.
This is not an exaggeration, who get off on what's happening in front of them. There are people who
actually get off on hurting animals and they have a great outlet for that. They can work in a farm
or a slaughterhouse and see it every day and inflict that pain every day. And you have to stand next
to those people. I hope that's the minority, by the way. I know there's a lot of people in slaughterhouses
who work there because they have no other options. They have to feed their families. They are
immigrants. Actually after the Syrian war, a lot of the refugees that came to Canada, they were
given slaughterhouse jobs because they didn't speak the language. They didn't have skills that were
transferable here or even if they were doctors over in their country, they're not allowed to be
doctors here. They have to go through a process. So anyway, they were given slaughterhouse jobs.
I saw on a government website, I saw the paperwork that said that that's what they were given.
Imagine coming from your war-torn country and you're being asked to mutilate and exploit and
slaughter innocent sentient beings every single day. And that's your new reality. So we have saved
you from your previous PTSD-inducing situation and now we're throwing you into a new one.
And those people have to be there every day too. But sorry, I'm going on a tangent.
There are people undercover who have to pretend like they're okay with this and those are the real
heroes of this movement. I don't think there's anyone in this movement doing anything more
difficult than that. I really don't. And there are people that go in without anyone knowing.
And they go in, they take animals out and they bring them to sanctuaries. They go in and they
try to find someone to help. Those people, I love them. I don't know that many of them, but I'm
tearing up even talking about them. I did it once. I went in there once for maybe, I think it was six
hours or something like that, six, eight hours. I don't remember actually. I don't remember how
long I was in that farm, but they do that all the time. And I send so much love to them.
I think that's a general feelings we have as vegans. We want this evil to stop and whoever
is participating in a consequent way to end this evil, we feel so grateful toward those people
because it gives us hope when we look around and the world is against us in this fight. To see that
level of bravery and heroism, it is so inspiring and hopeful. So yeah. So Natalie, do you have
any plans for the future? Any new initiatives you are working on and you might want to mention?
Yeah, I do other things. I mean, I'm organizing a yearly march and event protest on Parliament
Hill. I'm from Ottawa originally and there's not a whole lot of activism that happens there.
I've never seen any animal rights marches in Ottawa before. So I decided to start organizing
one where I even take a busload of people from Montreal with me over to Ottawa. We rent an
actual charter bus and we go over there. We've been at once already. It was a beautiful day.
We were supposed to do it again a few days ago actually on the 28th of October, but we canceled.
I didn't feel prepared. I felt like the community was not feeling very motivated. I wasn't getting
the response I needed. It was Halloween weekend. It was probably going to be cold. You know,
because it's late October. I just decided it wasn't the right time. I decided to postpone it
to next summer. So it's on July 13th in Ottawa. I really want to make it the bigger and better
than it's ever been. So it's called Canada Abuses Animals, which is quite a jarring name,
but you know, the shock value is part of the point because it is animal abuse and it's not
just Canada, right? It's every country. America abuses animals. The Czech Republic abuses animals.
Argentina abuses animals. I mean, it's everywhere. But the point is that the public needs to
understand that is true. That sentiment is accurate. This is animal abuse and it's systemic.
It's systemic. It's legal and it needs to be challenged. And so that's why we marched to
parliament, right? But anyway, that's happening. I'm still doing work with AV. I love AV. I will
always want to be part of what they're doing. I'm also the Canada regional organizer. So I help to
manage the chapters across the country. And I've been thinking lately about doing initiatives that
are more solo, you know, like mostly initiatives I do, they require lots of people and lots of
planning. And I've been thinking that, you know, maybe just doing something where all I need is
someone to film me. And then maybe that video hopefully goes viral, it could be a really great
way to do simple activism. And then anybody listening to this, I encourage you to do that as
well. You don't need a lot of people to do something effective. You don't even need someone to
film you if you can potentially film yourself doing it. Somewhere where there's lots of people,
you know, plan something effective, something that's like even an art installation that's
moving. That's, you know, I have my own ideas of what I might do myself, but you don't need to have
a lot of people or a lot of money, or a lot of planning to make a big impact. You just need a
lot of people to see it and all the people to be moved by it. So yeah, that's something I'm also
considering doing in the near future. That's amazing. I'm looking forward to all of that.
And and more and you're always welcome on this podcast, if you want to talk about your future
initiatives, I'm certain that it will be as inspiring as the past ones. So and successful
too. So yeah, thank you. That's very kind. Thank you. Natalie, did you want to add something before
we end this conversation? Stay hopeful. That's all. Stay hopeful. It's really hard to stay hopeful.
Sometimes when you see the scale of the evil that's happening that we humans are inflicting,
the behemoths that we're up against, these industry, you know,
giants that have so much more power than we do, it seems. And I say it seems because
they have the money, they have the lobbyists, they have they have so much that we don't have.
But we have the truth and we have justice on our side. We know this is wrong. We know that no evil
can last forever. And I hope we know that most human beings are good at their core.
They have a heart they care about, they want to eat meat, they don't want to eat animals.
I don't think people actually really want to hurt animals. Usually one of the worst things you can
see on TV or or or in movies is an animal being harmed. People hate to see this. That tells you
something. We're not actually supposed to be doing this systemically or at all on a daily basis
at all. We're not supposed to be hurting innocent sentient beings. We're supposed to recognize
that they have emotions and and and and and they feel pain and suffering the same way
that we do. And if not even the same way that that they suffer at all, why would we want to
inflict this suffering? People do care about this. People do care about, most people do care
about what's happening to animals. They don't actually want to participate in this. They don't
care about what's happening to animals. They don't actually want to participate in what they're
participating in. They're just turning a blind eye right now because it's what they're used to.
It's what they've been conditioned to do. And I do believe that we will get past this. I think
lots of things will help us get us there. Especially food technology will really help us get us there.
We will get there. But we need you. We need people to be activists. So if you're not an activist yet,
do something. It doesn't have to be a huge thing. Every little bit helps. But but join us. We we
we are only stronger together. And yeah, it's one of the most beautiful things you can do with your
life, I think is standing up against oppression, against evil, and doing it for not even for
yourself. You're doing it for someone else or many someone else's. It's a beautiful thing to do with
your life. And I'm really glad that I found this movement and veganism. And, you know, the movement
gives me lots of hope and lots of joy just because there's so many beautiful people in it. So
join us. Be one of those wonderful people. And we'll get through this. We will get there.
Stay hopeful. Amazing. I hope your message gets across. Natalie, thank you again for all of your
work and for having accepted to be a guest on my show. My pleasure. Thank you so much, Ryan. It was
a total joy and an honor to be here with you today and talk to you about this. I really appreciate
what you're doing. Thank you, everyone for listening. And thank you so much for being a friend
of this show. As always, please share this episode with your community. Let's inspire more people to
take action. If you're listening to this on Apple podcasts, please leave a five star review.
Finally, you can always follow me on Instagram at vegan report podcast.
Thank you again for listening. Take care and see you soon.