KFC Canada CEO asks Pam Anderson out for lunch

Even dumb blonds know right from wrong.

From here: http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNew...=Entertainment

Canadian Press

TORONTO — A Toronto businessman has asked Pamela Anderson out for a lunch date but it's doubtful she'd find the menu finger-lickin' good.

A week after the sultry former Baywatch star called for a boycott of KFC, alleging suppliers of the fast-food chain mistreat the chickens they slaughter, the head of its Canadian operations issued a letter saying she's been misinformed.

"As a fellow Canadian, it is terrific to see you take such a wholehearted interest in our operations,'' John Bitove, chairman and CEO of KFC Canada operator Priszm Canadian Income Fund wrote in a response sent Monday to the B.C. native.

"But I must tell you, Pamela, you are counting your chickens before they hatch.''

Anderson's call for the boycott is being publicized by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. On a PETA website, Anderson, 37, narrates a five-minute video produced by the animal rights group that documents apparent mistreatment of chickens at KFC suppliers in the United States.

"I'm asking people to boycott KFC until the company demands that its suppliers stop crippling chickens and scalding them alive,'' Anderson said in the statement.

"No animals should have to suffer this way, whether they're cats or dogs or chickens.''

Bitove, perhaps best known for helping bring basketball's Raptors to Toronto in 1993, said he wrote Anderson to "correct all of the inaccuracies you're spreading throughout our country.''

Bitove said KFC buys its chickens from the same places that sell to grocery stores and to other restaurants in Canada, and company officials "regularly and randomly audit our suppliers to augment government oversight and better ensure that chickens are treated ethically.''

KFC's defence runs contrary to a complaint filed with federal regulators last month that was signed by well-known Canadians including TV personality David Suzuki, author Farley Mowat and environmentalist Elizabeth May.

The complaint, filed with the country's federal Competition Bureau, alleges KFC Canada is failing to protect animals from abuse. They say industry guidelines allow for animals to be "bred and drugged so that they can't even walk'' and "electrocuted during slaughter.''

Yum Brands, the U.S.-based parent company of KFC, also has disputed claims of mistreatment by its suplpiers.

Bitove invited Anderson to have lunch with him "anywhere, anytime, at your convenience ... at a restaurant of your choosing. My preference, of course, would be a KFC restaurant.''

He declared that "the facts are `Stacked''' against Anderson -- a reference to her new TV sitcom -- and he wanted her "kept fully abreast'' of KFC's ethical practices.

The allegations are no joke to PETA, which plans to make a 30-second version of the video narrated by Anderson into TV and radio advertisements.

Its video includes footage from a Pilgrim's Pride Corp. plant in Moorefield, W.Va., which is a KFC supplier.

A PETA official called Bitove's letter "patronizing and sleazy.''

"If Mr. Bitove were truly interested in discussing the fact that chickens raised for its stores are crippled and scalded alive, he could have replied to any one of the letters sent by PETA and other animal protection groups over the past four years,'' said Bruce Friedrich, a PETA director.

"It's interesting that Dr. David Suzuki, Farley Mowat, and Elizabeth May haven't heard from him in response to their complaint last week against KFC, but Pamela Anderson is immediately asked out on a date in a patronizing and sleazy letter that is, itself, grounds for a feminist boycott of the company.''