Guidelines and Policies

Ethical animal care is at the heart of the CCAC. Animals used in research, teaching, and testing across Canada deserve the highest standards of care, and evidence consistently demonstrates that strong animal welfare practices support the reproducibility, reliability, and quality of scientific outcomes. Better welfare leads to better science.

The CCAC is helping shift how Canadians view the lives and experiences of animals in science. The CCAC Ethics Principles for Animal Use in Science (2026) captures the core principles that will shape all CCAC standards and guide responsible animal-based science across Canada. These principles reinforce the responsibility of institutions and individuals to ensure that animals are treated with the highest standards of care throughout their lives.

The CCAC Ethics Principles for Animal Use in Science (2026) has a four-year implementation timeline, aligned with the 2030 implementation of CCAC guidelines: Categories of welfare impact and the revised Animal Use Data Reporting System.

For more information, please refer to the CCAC’s essentials document on the ethics principles or .

Certified institutions may continue to apply the following fundamental principles until January 1, 2030, after which full implementation of the new ethics principles is required.

• Ethics of animal investigation (1989)
• Social and behavioral requirements of experimental animals