(L) and friend Michelle Cho (photo by Robert Sud)
Academy Award-winning actor Joaquin Phoenix attended a vigil for slain animal activist Regan Russell, who was killed last week by a truck transporting pigs to slaughter outside Toronto.
Phoenix said:
Regan Russell spent the final moments of her life providing comfort to pigs who had never experienced the touch of a kind hand. While her tragic death has brought upon deep sorrow in the Animal Save community, we will honor her memory by vigorously confronting the cruelties she fought so hard to prevent by marching with Black Lives, protecting Indigenous rights, fighting for LGBTQ equality, and living a compassionate vegan life.
The Ontario government can attempt to silence us with the passage of its Ag-Gag bill – Bil156 – but we will never go away and we will never back down.
My heart goes out to the Toronto Animal Save community and to Regan’s lifelong partner, Mark Powell.
Phoenix joined more than 100 activists from LA Animal Save and Animal Alliance Network at the Smithfield-owned Farmer John slaughterhouse in Vernon to pay their respects to Russell, age 65, a former model and one of the pioneers of Canada’s animal rights movement as well as an activist for racial justice, gender equality, and other human rights causes including her disruption of a 2017 Bill Cosby event in support of #MeToo.