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Rights + Justice

PETA unaware of BC's own animal rights issues

VANCOUVER - People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals wants VANOC to lobby Ottawa to stop the Atlantic coast seal hunt. But a spokeswoman for the Norfolk, Va. charity does not know about animal welfare issues in B.C.

"Most of the issues we're concerning ourself with we're seeing as problems that need to be addressed by the entire country," said PETA's Ashley Byrne.

The PETA campaign launched in January with a parody of the Vancouver 2010 inukshuk logo. Another phase began Monday when Olympic mascots were portrayed as seal killers on PETA's Olympic Shame 2010 website.

Byrne told 24 hours she was unaware of recent B.C. animal atrocities, such as the poaching of eagles for the black market feather trade, poaching of bears by gallbladder traffickers or cockfighting.

Byrne was also unaware that the City of Vancouver has no Games-specific plan to deal with pets or wild animals injured or displaced by Olympic activities.

In a Tuesday e-mail, she said PETA had complained about the on-set illness and death of puppies in the Vancouver-lensed Snow Puppies and sent bikini wearing, anti-fur and anti-leather "fashion police" to Robson Street in 2007.

Bob Mackin reports for Vancouver 24 hours.

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As British Columbia and other jurisdictions consider allowing online voting, can it be made secure enough that people will trust it? Will it encourage more people to vote? But if something goes wrong, will it further erode people's confidence in their democracies? And what role is the media likely to play in shaping the debate?

These are among the issues to be considered at a May 26 discussion that Fair Voting BC and PartyX are hosting at The Hive in Vancouver. I'll be on the panel, along with UBC Law's Fathima Cader and SFU computer scientist Steve Wolfman. The results and recommendations are to inform the two organizations' public positions on online voting.

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