Article Author:
Canadian Press
Liam Casey
Every Monday, Mark Powell drives to Burlington, Ontario. increase. A pork factory where his wife died to water the pigs on their way to slaughter.
One day in June 2020, Regan Russell Did did it every week until a transport truck driver drove and killed her.
Police have accused the driver of being inadvertently driven and killed. This is a non-criminal state crime, as investigators have stated that he has no intention of committing a crime.
Two years later, the proceedings have stagnated in court and no trial date has yet been set. Powell says he has lost confidence in his investigation and is looking to the civil court to get an answer about his wife's death.
"He wants to know what happened to his person," Powell said.
Last week he filed a $ 5 million proceeding over her death. Truck driver Andrew Blake, truck company, Brussels Transport, and Sofina Foods, the company that owns the Fearman's Pork processing plant, are among those named in the proceedings.
Unproven claims claim that negligence on their part led to Russell's death.
Claims allege that the driver was unable to maintain proper lookout and made a safe and improper turn. Brassels Transport also claimed that it could not take steps to confirm that the driver was competent, and Sofina could not provide safety to pedestrians around Fearmans.
"Since this issue is currently being heard in court, the allegations contained in the invoice to Sofina have not been substantiated at this time, and Sofina should comment other than actively defending. You can't. This problem, "Sofina said in an email.
Neither the truck driver's lawyer nor the Brussels Transport responded to requests for comment.
65-year-old activist Russell was demonstrating weekly for years outside the slaughterhouse west of Toronto on June 19, 2020. .. She and some of her friends, as part of the activist group Toronto Pig Save, protested controversial state law that raised fines for trespassing on farms and food processing facilities.
The bill also made it illegal to interfere with trucks carrying livestock. Part of the bill appeared to target the Toronto Pig Save, a supporter who had photographed and watered pigs in transport trucks as they approached the slaughter. They call it a "witness".
After his wife's death, Powell has lived with anxiety, depression, and post-traumatic stress disorders.
He wasn't there at the time, but Russell's friend explained how she died under the wheels of a truck. He watched the aftermath video.
"You can see it every night when your head hits the pillow," he said.
His friend wonders how he deals.
"I did some practice," he said, his voice was choppy.
In 2014, Powell lost his 29-year-old son Zachary. When he was taken to the ambulance by Gurney, he can still see the rescuer throbbing in his boy's chest. Zachary's heart was giving up.
Powell is using the power of his family to move forward after his defeat.
He said that his other son, Joshua, supported him when he fell and helped his wife take on the decades of fighting animal rights. I admit it.
On his Father's Day last week, he and Joshua donated a bench in a game reserve north of Toronto to honor Russell. It reminds me of the bench named Zachary in Hamilton Park.
He and Joshua also set up the Regan Russell Foundation, a non-profit organization dedicated to keeping her voice alive by funding and supporting the fight against the bill she was fighting. I launched it.
The Foundation seeks to intervene in a constitutional objection to the law of animal justice.
"It gives us a way to fight bad laws," he said.
"I have hope and power. I hope that such a foundation will know that Regan's voice is heard and will raise the voice of animals on the floor of government and power. "
Every week, activists meet to protest outside Fearman's Pork. But now they are standing at the median where the truck stops at the light, watering the pigs away from where Russell died.
"I always praise her and support her what she stood until my death," Powell said.
This report by Canadian Press was first published on June 25, 2022.
National Post, a division of Postmedia Network Inc.
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