Anita Krajnc—the animal rights activist who co-founded Toronto Pig Save (spawning The Save Movement)—discusses her arrest for giving water to a truckload of thirsty pigs on a sweltering day last summer, as the truck was pulling into a Burlington slaughterhouse. 
But, in this wide-ranging conversation, we cover a number of other topics, including Krajnc’s formative years, her education (she holds a PhD), the circumstances that prompted her to help launch Toronto Pig Save, and more. Krajnc recounts a childhood growing up in a household with no animals, but as an adult, adopted a dog for her mother. That dog, Mr. Bean, who punctuated part of the interview with some emphatic 
barks (wholly appropriate on a show called “Talking Animals”), played a pivotal role in the birth of Toronto Pig Save, Krajnc explained, because her morning walks with Mr. Bean took her past a nearby slaughterhouse. That slaughterhouse has since gone out of business, but the trucks full of pigs that regularly drove past her and Mr. Bean on those walks—and the looks on the faces of those pigs–compelled her to act. Krajnc also traces her academic path, which culminated in a PhD in political science, with her dissertation dealing with how learning takes place in social movements. On a related note, she describes the Toronto Pig Save thrice-weekly vigils outside slaughterhouses: first at the nearby one that closed, then at Fearman’s Pork Inc. 
slaughterhouse, in an area just outside Toronto called Burlington, the largest pig slaughterhouse in Ontario—where they would bear witness to those arriving truckloads of pigs, offering words of comfort and in the hot summer weather, offering them water. She re-creates the scene of her arrest last June 22 for giving water to thirsty pigs, as she’d done many times before and many 
times since. There have been hearings about her case, and another is set for March, while the actual trial is currently scheduled for August; she is represented, pro bono, by two vegan attorneys. Krajnc sounds philosophical about the outcome of the trial, and just generally, she projects a singular grace—she reads Tolstoy every day, noting that much of Tolstoy’s writing and social activism has shaped the Toronto Pig Save ideology, which exudes kindness, love, being nonjudgmental, and emphasizes compassion. Compassion is not a crime, indeed. (www.torontopigsave.org, www.facebook.com/CompassionIsNotACrime/, http://thesavemovement.org)
COMEDY CORNER: Louis CK’s “Lions” (https://louisck.net)
MUSIC: Rebekah Pulley’s “Talking Animals Theme,” Ahmad Jamal Trio’s “Dolphin Dance,” instrumentals
NAME THAT ANIMAL TUNE: Pink Floyd’s “Pigs (Three Different Ones)”
AUDIO ARCHIVE:
Listen Online Now:
