We urge the Canadian government to provide greater oversight and transparency of Canadian laboratories where animals are used for biomedical research, experimentation, product testing, teaching and training purposes. Canada remains the only G7 nation without stringent regulation of lab animals.

We call on the Canadian Government to make it mandatory that all labs using animals, whether privately or publicly funded, be regulated by the Canadian Council on Animal Care and that their standards of animal housing, transportation and use be a federal requirement of certification for the facility.

We recommend that CCTV cameras be placed and monitored in all animal research facilities. We call for a strengthening of the CCAC's powers to penalize violations of its standards, and for an overhaul of those standards, so that the most highly invasive and severe categories are discontinued.  

The CCAC must be regulated by, and held accountable to, the Ministry of Justice or Justice Committee or an appointed member of the Justice Committee. 

Until such time as Canada takes its place as a world leader in truly innovative, non-animal research and testing, the sourcing, transportation, housing and use of animals must be stringently supervised, to avoid the capacity for injury and distress that worsens the situation for animals in labs under the current system.