Urban Hens on Trial: The Beginning

 The Canadian Right To Food Trial

In 2009 I decided to build myself a chicken coop, and get myself a couple of heritage breed hens. The only issue was, I live in the City of Calgary, where there is a bylaw prohibiting livestock and poultry within the city limits. Well I didn't let that stop me, and you can read my post on The Egg Industry in Canada to learn more about my motives.

The very same year my hens moved into the backyard - the issue of urban hens hit the news. Local food activist, Paul Hughes, "phoned up the city of Calgary to alert officials to six egg-laying hens being kept illegally in an urban backyard coop. Calgary’s bylaw services responded by issuing the owner of the chickens a $200 fine for “possessing and keeping livestock” in a prohibited area inside city limits. Only that person was Hughes, who, in an effort to spark a legal battle with the city, had ratted himself out for owning the hens. And so began a constitutional cockfight that landed Hughes in a Calgary courtroom this week, where he argued city-dwelling Canadians have a Charter right to raise their own food by keeping chickens—and potentially other food-producing animals—in their own backyards." (Macleans)

Paul has entitled his court battle the Canadian "Right to Food" Trial, and although it originated with a bylaw infraction for the possession of urban chickens, it has since evolved and morphed into a complex legal argument involving such issues as: 
-The jurisdiction of a municipality to determine what we consume. 
-Sustainability of urban agriculture methods.
-The unconstitutionality of the City of Calgary bylaw based on The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
-The Right to Food as guaranteed and protected by the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights, 1948, Article 25 and subsequent legislation, including the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, 1966

I will be keeping a close eye on this trial as it affects me personally (because I have hens), but it is so much more important than my egg producing pets. It is about learning how to feed ourselves again, and not giving into pressure by government telling us what we can and cannot eat.

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References:
Paul Hughes' Blog: paulin8.blogspot.ca
Mcleans Article: Is keeping hens in the city a charter right?
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