Justice committee  My summary would be what we've said before. Although no one can argue against the laudable goal of increasing penalties, and we fully acknowledge that Bill S-203 has everything in it that the previous incarnations of the legislation had, as far as penalties go, our position is th

Justice committee  No, we have not, of course, polled every single member, but the structure of the CVMA is such that it's a representative, democratic body, and so those on our governing council have unanimously supported this, the animal welfare committee of the association has supported it, but

Justice committee  I certainly can't respond to that with any degree of legal expertise. But certainly one of the problems with the wording in the legislation that does refer to dogfighting is that it does leave that specific area where one of the examples, at least--whether it's the only acceptabl

Justice committee  Certainly that's the fundamental issue. If we look at Bill S-203 as a stepping stone to something bigger, then that's one issue. If we look at it as taking the animal cruelty issue and getting it done, and then the discussion is not revisited until long after none of us are aroun

Justice committee  We'll both be making the presentation.

Justice committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. Good afternoon, members of the standing committee. My name is John Drake. I'm this year's president of the Canadian Veterinary Medicine Association. That's the organization that represents Canada's 10,000 veterinarians. I'm also in a mixed-animal practice i