I agree with you. There are always going to be issues in that you can do certain forms of research in certain jurisdictions.
One of the great strengths of the Canadian system is that it has a national set of guidelines, administered through the CCAC, that is then interpreted at a local level in respect of what's appropriate in a particular jurisdiction. The committees include people who represent researchers but also members of the public, veterinarians, and others. So whenever you put something before a committee, you're going to be subject to discussion and interpretation by that committee. In the case you describe, I'm willing to bet that the local institutional animal care committee decided that maybe that work couldn't be done, for whatever reason.
I can't comment on it further than that. I can simply say that from the perspective of medical research, there were concerns with previous legislation that came forward. It was largely not a question of the intent of that legislation. As Dr. Drake said, we are all on the same page in terms of wanting to do something good here. But there were concerns, and those held up passage of the legislation, and other groups had other concerns--similar ones, different ones, and things like that.
We have no concerns with Bill S-203. I completely agree with the point you just made, from my perspective as an individual. As a medical researcher, I have no problem with the proposed legislation. I may in the future like to see things that are more all-encompassing, that deal with some of the issues--either restrictive issues or permissive issues--you mentioned. But at this point in time I see no harm in approving legislation that gets us one step closer to where we want to be, as opposed to remaining mired in the situation we've been in for an extremely long time.