Justice committee  Well, there's a close connection. In some instances the dogs are wearing a kind of vest. Think of customs. Sometimes they wear what I'll call a vest that says “Customs” on the side, and there's maybe a flag, and that identifies them when they're walking through the airport. There

Justice committee  Yes.

Justice committee  I guess I would say there wasn't any specific intent to derogate from section 429. Perhaps one could say one would look at the new provision and the focus of the legal discussion, the legal argument, and determine whether or not there was a defence there rather than having refere

Justice committee  If I understand the question properly, the question is, if I happen to see a dog accompanying a law enforcement officer and I assault that animal, do I fall within the scope of this legislation? The legislation is very specific. It speaks of a law enforcement animal and defines w

Justice committee  Yes, other jurisdictions have specific laws similar to what is proposed in Bill C-35, to create a specific offence for the killing or the injuring of a law enforcement animal, and even in some cases with regard to service animals.

Justice committee  It's perfect.

Justice committee  I think the best way to answer that is to say that if ever this provision comes up under a prosecution, the court will consider or the accused will advance whatever defence against the charge they believe they can. The key element, as the minister was saying, is the willfulness

Justice committee  There might be other provisions in the code that one could rely on, for example, section 34 perhaps. In any event, they are consistent. I wouldn't say they were inconsistent.

Justice committee  I suppose I'll start with Canada Border Services animals. We've seen them at the airports. We see them sometimes on television. They're walking past passengers and past baggage. I can tell you that Canada Border Services Agency has a detector dog service, and as I understand it t

Justice committee  The best I can do is refer you to the Library of Parliament's analysis of the bill. Subsection 429(2) of the Criminal Code reads as follows: No person shall be convicted of an offence under sections 430 to 446 where he proves that he acted with legal justification or excuse and

Justice committee  I think the minister answered your question well. Of course we looked at the Supreme Court's recent decision regarding this legal issue. In summary, we think that the penalty set out in the bill will not be seen as cruel and unusual punishment. The minister brought up the ruling

Justice committee  Thank you for the question. The only section of the Criminal Code that could be used to prosecute someone for killing a law enforcement animal, a police dog, was section 445.1, which covers cruelty to animals That was the section used to prosecute Quanto's killer. That's pretty

Finance committee  I will answer in English this time. That's not really a question I'm competent to respond to. Deciding when to introduce a bill is really a matter for the government.

Finance committee  I mentioned a few minutes ago that we made some adjustments to the bill. There's a process element in getting approval to make a change in the bill. There's a process element that has to be considered. That means a certain amount of time was taken in developing the options for ca

Finance committee  The essentials dealing with enforcing the treaty with the Americans is there, but a few changes were made here and there, and a big change was made in the sense that we removed a large part of Bill C-60 aimed at amending the Royal Canadian Mounted Police Act. As for how the comp