(this story predates the Kensington cruelty case, however we believe it may be related)

Animal activist gets nasty mail

by Richard McKergow, the Varsity, November 30, 2000

An animal rights activist who has helped to organize protests at the Faculty of Dentistry [University of Toronto, see the University of Torture site for details] has recently been receiving threatening letters in her mail.

Suzanne Lahaie says that she started receiving the letters last week.

Each letter involved comments about cats, and were signed, "The Toronto Chowmein Society."

"Eat cat, the other white meat!!!" reads one of the letters, mocking a campaign encouraging veganism. That campaign's slogan read, "Soya, the other white meat."

"The University of Toronto is proud to present the Church of Euthanasia. All cats welcome," read another.

Lahaie has not only received the offensive mail, but says that she was particularly alarmed when she noticed that the doorknob to her apartment had been tampered with.

"On Tuesday or Wednesday last week, the doorknob on my handle was practically hanging. And on the 26th we got a really scary phone call on our answering maching [at work]," she said, clearly disturbed by the events. "You couldn't make out the voice, but it sounds really creepy."

She has notified Toronto police about the situation, and has informed them that she feels she is being stalked.

"This sounds personal, it's creepy, this is racist and this is a hate crime," she said.

Lahaie says that she has a lot of experience with animal rights and that she has no intention of giving up her work in that area because of the letters.

"I have worked with many groups in the past, and have networked with a lot of people," she said.

"I co-founded Freedom for Animals (FFA) about two years ago," she said, adding that there are many others in Kensington Market who feel the same about animal rights.

In September and October of this year, FFA organised demonstrations around the UofT faculty of dentistry, charging that the faculty uses macaque monkeys for experiments involving swallowing. The group charged that the experiments were painful to the primates, although the faculty denied that there was any pain involved.

Lahaie explains that in her neighbourhood there are a lot of people who share her interest in animal rights.

"In the market there's many groups that fight for animal rights," she said adding that there are more and more groups that are getting bigger in their membership. "So I really think that this is personal to me."

She has also worked with other groups such as environmental and human rights organisations, and also intends to make the case one of racism as well as harassment.

[Note: when this article appeared in the Varsity, it erroneously named Susan Krajnc, the other co-founder of Freedom for Animals, rather than Suzanne Lahaie, as receiving the threats.]

Here are the posters referred to in the article. Click on each thumbnail to see a larger version.


Where is my cat?	Church of Euthanasia	Eat a Cat for Jesus	Support Animal Testing	The Other White Meat