Animal Rights Groups

There are many active animal rights groups active in Toronto and the surrounding areas, including the groups listed below.

For a list of events, visit our events calendar or our Facebook page.


Animal Justice Canada logo

Animal Justice is a national animal law organization that leads the legal fight for animals in Canada. We work to pass progressive new animal protection legislation, we ensure the laws on the books are vigorously enforced, we go to court to fight on behalf of animals, and we work to develop the growing field of animal law.


Animal Save Movement’s mission is to spread the idea that we all have a moral duty to bear witness, end animal agriculture and reforest the Earth.

Our vision is an equitable, eco-friendly vegan world, for the animals, the planet and health.

We are a love-based, global network of chapters that defines itself through a Tolstoyan and Gandhian approach to grassroots activism and social change.


Anonymous for the Voiceless logo

Anonymous for the Voicelesss: A global animal rights organization that specializes in street activism. We employ direct action with highly effective public outreach using local standard-practice footage of what “food animals” experience every second of every day, succinctly informative resources and a value-based sales approach. We fully equip the public with everything they need in switching to a vegan lifestyle.

In Toronto we host weekly demos, which have different roles for any comfort level.

You can follow our Facebook page or join us in the AV Toronto group.


Direct Action Everywhere’s mission is to empower activists to take strong and confident action wherever animals are being denigrated, enslaved, or killed, and create a world where animal liberation is a reality. We use creative nonviolent protest to tell the animals’ story. We are not afraid to push boundaries and even polarize the debate.

Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and foster such a tension that a community which has constantly refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue. It seeks so to dramatize the issue that it can no longer be ignored.” (Martin Luther King, Jr., Letter from a Birmingham Jail) DXE is a worldwide revolution, and here is what it looks like:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=knHdUlTvvwo

Contact DxE Toronto: DxEToronto@gmail.com


The negotiation of a Plant Based Treaty as a companion to the UNFCCC Paris Agreement would put food systems at the forefront of combating the climate crisis.

Modeled on the popular Fossil Fuel Treaty, the Plant Based Treaty aims to halt the widespread degradation of critical ecosystems caused by animal agriculture and to promote a shift to healthier, sustainable plant-based diets.


Toronto Anti-Vivisection Alliance logo

Toronto Anti-Vivisection Alliance (TAVA) runs a monthly pressure campaign to push University of Toronto to stop using animals for research and educational purposes. Actions consist of demonstrations, disruptions, email campaigns, mail-outs, outreach, marches, and more.

Contact TAVA at tava.information@gmail.com or follow on Instagram at instagram.com/to.antivivisection


Toronto Cow Save, a chapter of Animal Save Movement., holds vigils for the hundreds of cows that are violently killed in Toronto each day.


Toronto Pig Save logo

Toronto Pig Save (TPS) exists to erect glass walls at slaughterhouses,encourage plant-based vegan living, and bear witness during vigils. In 2014 TPS relaunched the “Why love one… but eat the other” TTC campaign.

Toronto Pig Save is the founding chapter of the global Animal Save Movement.

Contact: torontopigsave@gmail.com


The following animal rights groups focus on farmed animals and Vegan outreach

VegTO is Toronto’s go-to resource for all things vegan. Our mission is to inspire people to choose vegan living – for the animals, our health and the planet.


Canadian Coalition for Farm Animals (CCFA) is dedicated to promoting the welfare of animals raised for food in Canada through public education, legislative change and consumer choice.


CETFA Foundation is a registered charity dedicated to the protection of farmed animals.

We work to advance education by conducting research on best practices related to animal agriculture and other issues related to the welfare of farmed animals, in order to improve current understanding and encourage the adoption of better standards for farmed animals, and by disseminating the results of that research to the public.


Founded in 1976, Farm Animal Rights Movement (FARM) is a USA based nonprofit organization advocating for animal rights, veganism and sustainability. For many years, we were the only national animal rights organization fighting for farmed animals and advocating to end the use of animals for food.


Mercy For Animals, a nonprofit organization, is highly recognized as one of the world’s most effective charities working to end the exploitation of animals for food.

At industrial farms and slaughterhouses, farmed animals endure shocking abuse, out of sight and out of mind. … Mercy For Animals undercover investigators, wired with hidden cameras, is pulling back the curtains of these cruel and secretive operations, leading to landmark changes along the way.


People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) is the largest animal rights organization in the world, ….focuses its attention on the four areas in which the largest numbers of animals suffer the most intensely for the longest periods of time: in laboratories, in the food industry, in the clothing trade, and in the entertainment business.

PETA works through public education, investigative newsgathering and reporting, research, animal rescue, legislation, special events, celebrity involvement, and protest campaigns.


Other Canadian and international animal rights groups and organizations

Animal Alliance of Canada
Working on legislative advocacy initiatives to protect animals and the environment, including Environment Voters, North America’s first environmental and animal protection political party

Animal Experience International:
AIE is a group which helps connect animal loving people with animal organizations in need of volunteers around the world.

Compassion in World Farming (UK)

Humane Society International – Canada (HSI)
Working to protect all animals through education, investigation, litigation, legislation, and advocacy

International Fund for Animal Welfare – Canada (IFAW)
Working for animal welfare, preventing animal cruelty and abuse, protecting wildlife and providing animal rescue

Niagara Action for Animals (NAfA) is an all-volunteer, registered charity founded in 1989.  NAfA works through public education and community outreach to foster a more compassionate society that respects the innate worth of all beings.  NAfA does not condone the use, abuse or exploitation of any animal for any purpose.

International Vegetarian Union – IVU Global: The International Vegetarian Union (IVU), founded in 1908, is an internationally focused non-profit organization whose mission is to promote veganism by sparking a global plant-based movement through the creation of resources which outline the many benefits of a plant-based diet as well as the negative impacts of animal-derived product consumption.

Captain Paul Watson Foundation
The Captain Paul Watson Foundation is a public charity whose purpose is to support, intervene, educate, and raise awareness regarding Ocean conservation.

Toronto Wildlife Centre
Striving to help people and wildlife through rescuing wildlife and public education.

Vegan Outreach
Promoting informed, ethical eating via advocacy booklets, including the free ‘Guide to Cruelty-Free Eating’

The Vegan Society UK
The UK Vegan Society – lots of nutrition information

Viva!
Campaigning on behalf of animals killed for food, campaigns include when pigs cry, meet the real dairy producers, stand up for chickens

We Animals
Photojournalism to challenge boundaries between humans and other animals and to encourage humanity to widen our circle of compassion.

Zoocheck Canada
Protecting animals in captivity and in the wild – zoos, performing animals, educational programs; national and international campaigns