As a matter of fact, I prefer it that way.
The reference was made to the essential part of the original bills being passed here. So why did I decide to do the penalty ones?
The fact is that when these bills came down, the essential part of the bill was the penalties. Time after time, ministers of justice said, the major purpose of this bill is to increase the penalties; don't pay any attention to any of this other stuff; it's the penalties, such that 80% of the problem will be solved in the minds of Canadians.... They had done a survey, showing that 80% of the problem with animal cruelty wold be solved, Mr. Chair, if we got the penalties right.
Well, we got the penalties right. The one thing everyone agreed on was the level of penalties, and so on. Once we had them right, I thought it would be helpful, as a compromise, to take the existing law, which we have lived with for all this period of time, and to put within it the penalties everybody had agreed to. That is exactly what my bill does. It does no more or less than that.