Photos/Video: TIFF Plagued by Protesters Over Canada Goose Sponsorship

PETA Screens Footage of Suffering Geese and Coyotes, Circles Festival With Mobile Billboard, Takes ‘Dead Coyotes’ on Public Transit, and More

For Immediate Release:
September 17, 2018

Contact:
Audrey Shircliff 202-483-7382

Toronto –

Because the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) allowed Canada Goose to be a sponsor this year despite widespread opposition to the company’s coyote fur–lined and feather-filled jackets, supporters of PETA and Direct Action Everywhere (DxE) hit the festival in full force in protest:

A costumed “coyote” protested near the red carpet on TIFF’s opening night.
Throughout the festival, PETA screened video footage of coyotes struggling in traps before hunters arrive to shoot them and of workers at a Canada Goose down supplier rounding up terrified geese who piled on top of one another in an attempt to escape, resulting in suffocation and death.
A mobile billboard—showing a man in a Canada Goose coat holding a “bloodied goose and coyote”—circled the Bell Lightbox building all week.
PETA and DxE Toronto supporters displayed “dead coyotes,” “plucked geese,” and posters proclaiming, “Coyotes Suffer for Canada Goose,” on Toronto public transit vehicles.
PETA protesters gathered outside TIFF’s awards ceremony on Sunday.

Photos and video footage of PETA’s actions are available here and here.

“PETA’s protesters made sure that festival organizers and attendees knew about the cruelty to trapped coyotes and terrified geese that’s in every stitch of Canada Goose’s coats,” says PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman. “If Canada Goose won’t drop fur and feathers, next year’s Toronto International Film Festival should drop it as a sponsor.”

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to wear”—notes that the Berlin International Film Festival cut ties with Canada Goose last year and Sundance now requires that the company feature exclusively fur-free jackets at its festival.

For more information, please visit PETA.org.