Yes, Mr. Chair, I was intending to go through and hit the highlights. I realize there isn't time to cover it all.
I'll give you a little bit about my background. In addition to being at the Atlantic Veterinary College now, with the Sir James Dunn Animal Welfare Centre, my background is in veterinary anesthesia at the Ontario Veterinary College and the Atlantic Veterinary College, and as a practitioner in Ontario and P.E.I.
As Dr. Drake said, the CVMA for a long time has been actively supporting efforts to amend the Criminal Code regarding cruelty to animals. With many other groups, we provided input into the justice department's consultation paper on crimes against animals, circulated in 1999.
I mention this because I believe Mr. Bryden mentioned that the bill was kind of thrown together. But I think there was extensive Canadian-wide consultation and support for the different versions. And as I think most of you know, in 2003 the bill was very widely supported, including by veterinarians, animal use groups, and the Canadian Council on Animal Care. I think it was Mr. Comartin who said that the contents of Bill C-373 have been passed twice by the House. So I think the former versions do have broad support.
Turning to page 5 of my brief, I was going to talk a little bit about animal abuse as part of the larger picture of violence in our society, which as veterinarians we take very seriously. I am not going to go into that in detail, but I encourage you to visit the CVMA website, which has information on animal abuse and the links with human violence.
The CVMA believes that amendments to the Criminal Code are essential to improve the ability to successfully prosecute offenders, thereby assisting humane societies and law enforcement agencies to deal more effectively with cases of animal abuse and hopefully help interrupt cycles of violence, of which cruelty to animals is one component.
We also went into the particular problem areas that we think are not addressed. Dr. Drake mentioned those already, so I think I will skip right over those and go to page 7, to the area of traditional uses of animals.
This is something that is coming up. People are mentioning the concern that Bill C-373 would raise too many questions and that the former versions raise too many questions.
Actually--sorry, I don't want to confuse you, but I'm trying to condense everything here--I'd like to first mention wilful neglect.
One of our main concerns is that wilful neglect is not addressed in Bill S-203. We recognize that there is a dire need to increase penalties, and we fully support that. We don't have any problem with the levels of penalties that Bill C-203 proposes, but we do recognize that the vast majority of cases do not achieve successful prosecution.
A previous speaker mentioned the OSPCA having 80% to 90% success rates, but that's totally out of line with other reports I've seen. Our concern is that most cases of animal abuse are not successfully prosecuted. Wilful neglect is very much a problem area. The requirement to show proof that a person intended to neglect their animals makes it extremely difficult to prosecute cases of neglect, even in cases where dozens of animals have been starved to death.
I want to mention the example of Queen v. Russell, the Weyburn, Saskatchewan, case in which a number of calves died of starvation and malnutrition. In his decision of June 2000, the judge said there was no doubt that the accused were responsible, over a period of months, for cattle that were “clearly inadequately cared for with the result that some died of starvation....without doubt by a lack of adequate feed and care”. It's also mentioned in the transcript that there was evidence by experienced stock raisers that the practices being followed by the Russells were not accepted animal husbandry. The judge said there was no doubt that these animals were not receiving adequate feeding and care, but he ultimately dismissed the charges on the basis that the accused “didn't actually wilfully intend the cattle to die”.
So that's the problem with wilful neglect.
Now I'll go back to the traditional uses of animals. I'm guessing I have about four minutes left.
The main opposition to Bill C-373 and earlier versions comes from concerns that the proposed amendments will have a negative impact on legitimate activities that involve animals, such as hunting, farming, and medical or scientific research.
The following excerpts are from the justice department's aid to interpretation of the bill from April 2007:
The amendments [in the legislation] will not alter or criminalize any activity which is otherwise regulated or authorized by federal or provincial legislation or applicable codes of practice, such as normal agricultural practices, hunting, fishing, trapping, ritual slaughter, animal research, or food production.
So people carrying out these activities would not be subject to prosecution unless they are wilfully doing cruel things to animals, well outside of standard practices.
The only way that animal rights activists could attempt to bring charges against law-abiding anglers, hunters, trappers, farmers, and animal researchers would be through private prosecution. But the legislation makes animal crimes hybrid offences, as we've already established, and these are subject to a screening process that requires a much greater involvement of the crown prosecutors at the very early stages in private prosecution. These screening processes, which take place before an accused person is even notified, would prevent frivolous prosecutions from proceeding.
The protection of standard practices is actually made more explicit in Bill C-373 than in current legislation or in Bill S-203, because Bill C-373 includes the phrases “wilfully or recklessly” and “without lawful excuse” in the section regarding the killing, injuring, or poisoning of an animal. In addition, proposed sections 182.5 and 182.6 have been included in Bill C-373 to explicitly confirm common law defence and aboriginal rights.
In conclusion, we all agree that it's essential to increase the penalties for animal cruelty. The CVMA firmly believes, however, that increased penalties will make little difference if the new legislation does not also address the fundamental flaws in the current legislation that make enforcement difficult or impossible.
We respectfully submit that it does not make good jurisprudential sense to re-enact legislation largely unchanged that is over 100 years old. Therefore, we urge the standing committee to reject the amendments in Bill S-203 as inadequate.
Alternative legislation that has been carefully crafted and reviewed is proposed in BillC-373. It addresses the flaws in the current legislation and also increases penalties. The CVMA recommends that the standing committee support reintroduction of the amendments embodied in the widely supported former Bill C-50, the current version of which is Bill C-373. We believe such legislation would provide significant new protection for animals much more effectively than Bill S-203 and would not jeopardize accepted and recognized practices in the use of animals.