Langley rodeo grant draws criticism from Vancouver Humane Society

The Vancouver Humane Society is objecting to provincial tourism funding being given to a Langley rodeo event set to enter its second year of competition this September.

The Valley West Stampede is one of more than a dozen rodeos and related exhibitions and fairs that are receiving money from the province’s Fairs, Festivals, and Events Fund this year. Events run by non-profits, municipalities, and First Nations and Indigenous organizations, were eligible for this year’s grants.

The Valley West Stampede received $33,700.

The Humane Society is opposed to rodeos and, when the Valley West Stampede started up last year at the Langley Riders Society facility in Brookswood, it made its opposition plain to the Township council.

“It’s fundamentally at odds with how we should be treating animals,” said Chantelle Archambault, communications director with the Vancouver Humane Society.

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The events at Valley West include bare back riding, women’s barrel racing, saddle bronc riding, and bull riding.

Archambault said the Humane Society objects to bucking events because spurs or flank straps are used to irritate the animals and cause them to buck.

The event will also include mutton busting, an even in which young children ride on the backs of sheep.

“It teaches children that it’s okay to treat animals roughly for our own entertainment,” she said.

Valley West’s organizers, like the organizers of other rodeos, have argued in the past that all their animals are well-treated. At last year’s Valley West, no animals were injured, and a veterinarian was on site at all times.

“We, and more than 1,100 other events around the province, applied for funding under the Tourism Ministry’s Fairs, Festivals and Events fund this year,” Valley West Stampede President Sheila Hicks said in a statement to the Langley Advance Times.

“All of the events that have been granted funding by the province are seen as providing a benefit to their local communities and, in fact, the list includes several other rodeo events along with ours,” she added.

Hicks also noted that Valley West is the Fraser Valley’s only professional rodeo event sanctioned by the Canadian Professional Rodeo Association, and drew more than 6,000 viewers last year.

“We have great local community support, and we attract visitors that contribute to tourism spending in Langley,” she said.

Archambault said the Humane Society is not planning to protest at this year’s event, but is encouraging people in Langley to call on the Township council for a bylaw banning rodeo events.