The “Canada Goose Jacket” is an item that every college student knows about if you go to UW Madison or any other university that has cold weather. Once the temperature drops, these famous coats start to pop up all over campus. Ranging in an array of different colors, these beautiful, heavy-duty coats cost a fortune, all of them ranging around $1000! If this jacket trend is starting to grow on you and you are thinking about buying one, you need to realize that these loathed jackets are not as luxurious as they appear to be.
The company of course shares all of their praise from consumers, especially college students, to promote their products and maintain their spot as one of the world’s leading luxury apparel companies. They use their top spot in the jacket market for beneficial endeavours as well such as donating some of their profits to Polar Bears International to help conserve polar bear habitats. What they do not share on their website is how and what the coats are made of. Articles have described the company as “inhumane”and “products of cruelty”, leading to some doubts about the company’s itnentions. The Canada Goose website speaks little about the process of making their coats only saying, “We are deeply committed to the ethical sourcing and responsible use of all materials in our products”, but, as acknowledged earlier, inside sources say otherwise.
Coyotes are not the only animals treated inhumanely for the production of Canada Goose jackets. The down that these expensive coats are stuffed with comes from poultry that are treated just as poorly as the coyotes. Although Canada Goose explains on their website that their down does not come from “live-plucked or force-fed birds”, multiple witnesses from the PETA investigation in 2017 have spoken up about this poultry cruelty. One source explains, “Geese on farms are kept in dark, cramped sheds with no access to running water, depriving them of natural behaviors like swimming and foraging. The birds often exhibit signs of stress such as pecking at one another or pulling out their own feathers making the workers cutting off their upper beaks to become a common preventive practice.” These birds are forced to live on top of each other, all of them alive just for the soul purpose to be a part of someone’s winter coat.
Canada Goose is a very popular winter apparel company whose products are very pleasing to the eye. Before you make the big purchase for one of these expensive products, or any article of clothing for that matter, make sure you know how the clothing was produced. Walking around campus this winter, I hope that instead of seeing these coats as a sign of wealth, you can see them as a sign of animal cruelty and help spread awareness to the rest of your friends and peers before they purchase from Canada Goose as well.
