Evidence of meeting #10 for Justice and Human Rights in the 39th Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was s-203.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Rick Dykstra Conservative St. Catharines, ON
One of the other questions I have is related to the fact that, for some reason, cattle are placed above all other animals in importance, based on penalties. Why is that?
New Brunswick, Lib.
This is an educated guess, because I did do some research. It was put in there very early on in the law, at a time when there were cattle rustlers and people spreading poison around. Cattle were very important and so they were singled out, and this may very well have been the first offence of any in relation to animal cruelty. That is why, I believe, it had the bigger penalty and was indictable.
Conservative
Rick Dykstra Conservative St. Catharines, ON
Why would that need to exist today? I'm not familiar that cattle rustling is still happening, but if it is, I would certainly like to hear your thoughts on that.
Having said that, why would you have left it in? Why wouldn't you have given it equal weight to all animals?
New Brunswick, Lib.
We did. I mean, it's still there, but it has the same weight. It is a hybrid offence, the same as every other offence. You can do it by indictment and therefore get the same prison sentence as it used to be, but you can also proceed on summary conviction if you want. So it is treated exactly as the other penalties.
Conservative
Rick Dykstra Conservative St. Catharines, ON
I get the sense that part of the rationale the senator used to move the bill forward is that there is going to be an opportunity to pursue animal cruelty with respect to legislation immediately following this, that this bill actually sets up another stage. Am I interpreting that correctly or incorrectly?
It would seem to me that if you want to reach another level, you would do so now rather than attempt to pass a piece of legislation that you may not be entirely happy with, hoping there is some potential to move further as we go down the road. It took 12 years to get where we are. Who's to say we'd ever get the chance to do this again for another decade?
New Brunswick, Lib.
My answer to that is that it's to attempt to get the best that is available to us now. That is the major issue that was brought in at the beginning of this whole discussion. Nothing prevents the animal rights folks or the other people who have a much grander idea of the scope of what needs to be done here from bringing in new legislation tomorrow.
But I would like to say—and this is a confession—that I have spent more than 10 years of my life trying to work out something on this file, and if I could move this one into the House of Commons and have a vote on it, then I probably would die a happy senator. I'm not about to take on another load of this stuff.
I'm sorry, Mr. Chair.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Art Hanger
That's quite all right, Senator.
Thank you, Mr. Dykstra.
Mr. LeBlanc.
Liberal
Dominic LeBlanc Liberal Beauséjour, NB
Thank you, Mr. Chair, and through you, welcome, Senator, to the committee.
The senator has done a lot of work on this issue. He's spoken in our caucus a number of times, both in our regional caucus and in the national caucus. Whenever a private member or senator gets a bill as far as the senator has, Mr. Chair, it's something to remark.
I have only two very precise questions for the senator.
Some of the reading I've done on this issue obviously involves issues around wild and stray animals. I'm wondering whether the senator would tell us, Mr. Chair, whether Bill S-203 will protect wild and stray animals, and if so, how, because that is an issue I've been receiving some representations on.
The senator also referred to penalties as being one area where there has been some consensus on the need to modernize the penalty, the sentencing structure of this particular part of the Criminal Code. Would the senator tell us who some of the stakeholders are whom he's met with or who have appeared before the Senate with whom he's had communication over these years?
Are the stakeholders in agreement with the penalty improvements contained in his bill? Have stakeholders expressed to him concerns that the penalties go too far or don't go far enough? I'm wondering whether he could quickly take us through some of the stakeholder reaction with respect to the penalty elements.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
New Brunswick, Lib.
Mr. Chair, I'll take the last one first. There are stakeholders sitting behind me, and I am pretty sure they would agree with this. It's the only thing we were ever all able to agree to; that is, the level of the penalties.
The level that is set in my bill, which came out of the original bills—they're identical penalties—have been accepted by all of the stakeholders, whether they are farmers, scientists who are using animals in research, or humane societies. I've had no indication from the humane societies or even the.... Well, I think there's one animal rights group that would rather up it from five years in jail to ten years in jail, but I haven't heard from them for a long time.
So the answer to that question is that there is general acceptance that the levels of penalties being set forth here are exactly the right ones. I wanted to indicate that there's a reason for that. I made a note that, first of all, the penalties in this bill are those provided under each of the proposed government bills, and they are a result of an extensive study by Justice, including a comprehensive comparative analysis of animal cruelty statutes in other jurisdictions and a comparative analysis of similar levels of offences in the Criminal Code. So it's been thoroughly researched, and to the best of my knowledge it's been accepted by everyone.
The first part of the question was the question of wild animals and domestic animals. As I indicated, in 1953 there was a section put in the Criminal Code that says that anyone who “wilfully causes or, being the owner, wilfully permits to be caused, unnecessary pain, suffering or injury to an animal or a bird...”.
For a long time people had the belief—how they got it, I don't know—that they had to be both: you had to cause the pain and suffering and you had to be the owner. The fact is that this is a two-offence section. One is that you can cause the pain and suffering yourself to an animal—it doesn't matter whether it's wild or domesticated—or, if you're the owner, you are also guilty if you stand back and watch somebody do that to your animal, whether it's a cow or a horse or whatever. Indeed, it's even worse if you pay him to do it because you don't have the guts to do it yourself.
Liberal
Mark Holland Liberal Ajax—Pickering, ON
Mr. Chair, I think we have limited time. Perhaps I could just pose one question.
New Brunswick, Lib.
I just want to complete this quickly, because people are saying, well, that's just mean--
New Brunswick, Lib.
--and my authority for the statement that I just made about the wild animals comes once again from Donald Piragoff from the Department of Justice. He testified that in fact the section I just read, generally worded, is the most frequently charged offence of causing unnecessary pain and suffering or injury to an animal, and it is--these are his words--“not limited to kept or owned animals”, but in fact protects stray and wild animals as well.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Art Hanger
Thank you, Senator.
You many have one very quick question, Mr. Holland.
Liberal
Mark Holland Liberal Ajax—Pickering, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Senator.
This is my concern, Senator. We know that only one-quarter of 1% of animal abuse complaints result in conviction. That means that dealing with the penalties only deals with one-quarter of 1% of the problem.
We have a bill in front of us that is opposed by every animal welfare group in Canada. We have over 130,000 signatures opposing this bill and supporting what was Bill C-50, which is now my private member's Bill C-373. We have a Facebook group with over 7,000 Canadians. The previous Bill C-50, now Bill C-373, has been passed by the House of Commons two times.
Senator, you said--
Liberal
Mark Holland Liberal Ajax—Pickering, ON
There is. My question is right now.
Senator, you had said we would lose the lever--those of us who care about this--if your bill got passed, to do something about the 99.75% of the other issues. Let me ask a very simple question. Will you support Bill C-373, given that enormous support from the Commons, the Canadian public, everything? Will you support that, yes or no?
New Brunswick, Lib.
No, not the way it is. It has to be properly consulted, because there are things in there that will make the situation worse, not better--and this is in my opinion. I mean, I'm just here as a farm boy, but that is actually the case.
I want to ask this question, Mr. Chair--I'm not going to ask the question. I'll put this to you. I've heard that statistic about 1%, or whatever.
New Brunswick, Lib.
One-quarter of 1%. I would like to know who formulated that statistic.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Art Hanger
Okay. We're not going to get to your question right now, Senator, but I am going to turn to Madame Freeman.
You have the floor.
Bloc
Carole Freeman Bloc Châteauguay—Saint-Constant, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Good day, Senator.
This is a rather unorthodox way for us to proceed. Regarding your bill, Senator, I totally agree that the problem is not the subject-matter as such, but rather the shortcomings. It is rather surprising that we find ourselves examining this bill, when the main problem here is its shortcomings.
Mr. Holland asked the question that I would have liked to ask, namely if you are prepared to endorse Bill C-373 for which there appears to be more unanimous support. You have already answered no to the question.
Since you were so involved in the bill, why did you not feel that it was a good idea to include a definition of the word “animal”?
New Brunswick, Lib.
Yes, I don't know whether it will be satisfactory or not, but I made the decision that if I were going to use the law as it exists, then I had to be true to that commitment. That is, if I were going to leave the law, which has worked for many years, I couldn't pick and choose which place I should make an amendment or an addition, because once you start, there are always more additions. I wanted the opportunity to take this code and put the proper penalties with it and give it a chance to be able to protect the animals.
I answered Mr. Holland in the manner that I did in that I mentioned being a farm boy. I am not buying a pig in a poke. I can tell you that if that is the way it comes out, then there will be problems with it whether I am here or not. There are a lot of issues. What can be done? I believe we need to be fair and open with all the stakeholders and we need to do our consultation and we need to be very honest with ourselves and very open with the public. In doing that, we can build a very good, more complex system and a more modern system, but not if we pick the one that was hammered together the first time, which is what it still is. That's my problem.
Would I participate in trying to come up with a second way here? The answer to that is yes, but I am not going to say that second way will be whatever that number is, because there are problems. And there are people who are going to be appearing before you, from the list I've seen, who will raise some of those, and they can do it a lot better than I can.