Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure for me to finish my time in debate on Bill C-10B, the cruelty to animals legislation.
As hon. members know, the cruelty to animal legislation was sent from this House to the Senate. The Senate, in its wisdom, amended, improved and changed the legislation and sent it back to the House of Commons in a better and more correct form in my opinion.
In my previous comments on Bill C-10B, I explained a number of points to which the Progressive Conservative Party took great exception in the legislation and therefore found many reasons to put in amendments to try to improve the bill.
There is a need to improve the legislation. As I said earlier in debate, the legislation is over 100 years old. It is obviously time for the bill to be modernized to reflect the current views and opinions of people, and to reflect the current public attitude about animals.
Without question, we agree with parts of the bill. I do not have any difficulty outlining those parts.
For instance, we have absolutely no problem with that part of the bill that states that no one should wilfully poison an animal or leave bait out where an animal can get hold of it. It is against the law to in any manner encourage, promote, arrange, assist or receive money for the fighting or baiting of animals, including training an animal to fight another animal. That is the bear pits and the bull pits of medieval society, and we have come a long way since those days. It needs to be an illegal activity to build, maintain, keep or allow to be built, made, maintained or kept, a cock pit or any other arena for the fighting of animals on premises. We can see in the language that there is very clear legislation that prevents cock fighting, dog fighting, baiting of animals or the type of activity with which most members of society would not want to be associated in any way shape or form .
The other thing of course is that anyone who raises animals to be released and immediately shot is also doing so against the law. I think that has been changed slightly to allow people who raise pheasants on pheasant ranges to release the birds in the wild and then they can be hunted. I do not think the legislation is trying to persecute those individuals.
Proposed section 182.6 defines law enforcement animal, meaning a dog, a horse or any other animal used by a police officer or public officer in the execution of duty. Everyone commits an offence who wilfully or recklessly poisons, injures or kills a law enforcement animal while it is aiding or assisting a police officer or public officer engaged in the execution of their duties or a person acting in aid of such an officer.
That type of legislation and that type of amendment to the old act is important, and they are amendments that we would support in the Progressive Conservative Party. The basis of clause 2 to amend section 182.3 states:
(1) Every one commits an offence who
(a) negligently causes unnecessary pain, suffering or injury to an animal;
(b) being the owner, or the person having the custody or control of an animal, wilfully or recklessly...
This is the key sentence “wilfully or recklessly”. It goes on to state:
--abandons it or negligently fails to provide suitable and adequate, food, water, air, shelter and care for it; or
(c) negligently injures an animal while it is being conveyed.
It goes on to define negligent as meaning departing markedly from the standard care that a person would use. I have absolutely no difficulty with that part of the legislation and I and the PC Party support it 100%.
Again I do take exception to clause 2 of Bill C-10B that amends subsections 182.2 (a) and (b) where it states, “causes or, being the owner, permits to be caused unnecessary pain, suffering or injury to an animal”.
The difficulty is in the definition. We are not sure what that definition is. I have a great deal of difficulty in allowing people to subjectively decide from their background what that definition is, and in this case that subjective decision would be made by a judge.
When one looks at “kills an animal or, being the owner, permits an animal to be killed, brutally or viciously, regardless of whether the animal dies immediately” as being a punishable offence, at first glance one would say that it should be an offence. However when one understands there is no real definition to “brutally” or “viciously”, it becomes much more difficult. What is a brutal and vicious act in the mind of one person may not be the same in the mind of another.
I know what it means to me, and I do not think I want to discuss that in public debate, but I do not know what it means to the government. Therefore, people who work in slaughterhouses, people whose livelihoods depend on processing animals, farmers, fishermen and hunters, have yet to see “brutally” and “viciously” described and thoroughly explained. I am concerned and worried about that.
There needs to be a clearer definition in the legislation. We all know what unnecessary pain is and we would agree with that. The rest of it is more subjective and very troublesome to this otherwise good piece of legislation.