‘Say neigh to live horse export’: Why Jann Arden is busking in Vancouver this week

Canadian musician Jann Arden is seen walking in downtown Vancouver as she busks in protest of live exports of horses from Canada. (Instagram/ Jann Arden)

A Canadian icon is busking on the streets of Vancouver to protest live horse exports from Canada to foreign countries.

Musician, actor, author and activist Jann Arden launched her musical awareness campaign on Sunday with a pop-up performance at Lonsdale Quay in North Vancouver, and plans to continue in the downtown core on Monday, according to her social media posts.

“I want to thank everyone in North Vancouver for coming to hear me busking down at the Quay,” Arden wrote on Twitter Monday.

Her efforts on the North Shore managed to raise more than $400 for the campaign “Horsesh*t.”

The goal, according to initiative’s website, is to “end legislation allowing Canada to export live horses under conditions of duress for human consumption.”

In December 2021, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau issued a mandate to ban this practice to the agriculture minister, which has yet to be fulfilled.

The latest data by Statistics Canada suggests more than 2,000 horses have been shipped from Canada to Japan, where raw horse meat is a delicacy, since 2021.

That same year, Toronto MP Nathanial Erskine-Smith and Arden launched a petition calling for the end of live horse exports, which amassed 36,715 signatures by the time it closed this past February.

“Horses have shaped this country. They have carried us on their backs and plowed our fields. Like dogs and cats, they are our companions. We don’t need to treat them this way,” Arden wrote on her campaign’s website.

She says many of the horses that are exported out of Canada die before reaching the location where their destined to be slaughtered, after being crammed into wooden crates and deprived of food and water for up to 28 hours.

Arden plans to campaign in Vancouver until June 7.