LONDON—Following today’s release of reviews by Western University’s Animal Care Committee (ACC), the Canadian Council on Animal Care (CCAC), and a separate group of researchers, Animal Justice wishes to reiterate that the controversy surrounding St. Joseph’s Health Care’s cruel dog experiments was never about whether existing rules were followed.
Western’s ACC is the same body that has approved these experiments for decades, and concerns about the experiments were never based on allegations that protocols were violated. Likewise, the CCAC is a non-profit organization with no legal authority, dominated by animal experimenters who are given a free hand to develop voluntary guidelines for the use of animals in scientific research. All the reviews took place well after the dog experiments had become public, and the “third-party” review took place in December 2025—after the program was forced to shut down, and nearly all the dogs had been removed from the hospital.
“It’s not surprising that these groups with vested interests in animal research found the experiments complied with existing guidelines. Animal experimenters are largely allowed to create their own rules, and provincial laws exempt animal research from general cruelty protections. The public outcry about dog experiments was never about whether these minimal guidelines were met; it was about whether deliberately inducing heart attacks in dogs and killing them should be considered acceptable in the first place,” said Camille Labchuk, lawyer and executive director of Animal Justice.
The dog experiments were classified as Category D by the CCAC, a designation that explicitly means animals are subjected to moderate to severe pain or distress while they are experimented on. Dogs were deliberately induced with prolonged heart attacks, some lasting up to three hours, subjected to highly invasive procedures, and ultimately killed at the end of experiments.
“When the public learned that approved experiments allowed for deliberately subjecting dogs to cruel experiments and piling their bodies in a barrel in a freezer once they were killed, most people, including Premier Doug Ford, rightfully found the practices horrifying and out of step with their values,” Ms. Labchuk said. “These reviews answered the wrong question, as they didn’t consider the ethics of cruel dog experiments in the first place.”
Animal Justice also rejects recent efforts to discredit the whistleblowers who came forward with detailed, consistent accounts of animal suffering and secrecy inside the lab. These courageous individuals were carefully vetted before Animal Justice connected them with investigative journalists to share their story despite great personal risk.
In a recent media interview, Dr. Frank Prato, who spearheaded the experiments, went as far as to describe the whistleblowers as “snitches” while also suggesting that dogs may have been “provoked” to appear distressed, a totally unsupported claim which does not account for the documented behaviours associated with chronic stress and trauma.
“Targeting the whistleblowers with a smear campaign instead of addressing the substance of their concerns is deeply troubling. These were individuals who risked their careers to speak up about what they witnessed, and their heartbreaking accounts were supported by comprehensive documentation,” said Ms. Labchuk.
“Months after public outcry forced St. Joseph’s to shut down its secretive program, and with legislation now in the works to ban cruel experiments on dogs and cats provincially, it’s disappointing St. Joseph’s continues to insist there’s ‘nothing to see here,’ when Ontarians have already seen enough.”
Contact:
Josh Lynn
Public Relations Manager
[email protected]
Camille Labchuk
Executive Director
[email protected]