Pig’s Poignant Holiday Reminder: ‘I Am Someone’

New Billboard Urges People to Skip the Ham and Tourtière in Favour of Animal-Free Holiday Feasts

For Immediate Release:
December 21, 2018

Contact:
Megan Wiltsie 202-483-7382

With the holiday season in full swing—and because Québec is Canada’s top pork-producing province—PETA has placed a billboard in Québec City showing a pig’s face next to the words “I’m Not a Piece of Meat. I’m Someone. Do Not Eat Me.“

The billboard is located on Rue Frank-Carrel, between Rue Graham-Bell and Avenue Branly, near several restaurants and schools and two hospitals. It will be in place for a month. 

“We hope this billboard will inspire people to consider who pigs really are: intelligent, playful animals who want to live and don’t deserve to be killed for a fleeting taste of flesh,” says PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman. “PETA urges all kind souls to keep pigs off their plates and explore hearty and delicious vegan dishes this holiday season and all year round.”

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to eat”—notes that 20 million pigs are killed for food in Canada every year. In today’s meat industry, mother pigs are squeezed into narrow metal stalls barely larger than their bodies and kept almost constantly pregnant or nursing. Pigs’ tails are chopped off, their teeth are cut with pliers, and males are castrated—all without any painkillers. At the slaughterhouse, they’re hung upside down (often while still conscious) and bled to death.

The World Health Organization has confirmed that eating bacon, hot dogs, ham, and other processed meats can cause cancer. And vegans are less prone to suffering from heart disease, obesity, and diabetes than meat-eaters are.

PETA offers a free vegan starter kit (available here) full of recipes, tips, and more. For more information, please visit PETA.org.