If I can respond to that, I don't know about that particular instance, if it was in Ontario, but we've been faced with similar issues in Ontario. Courts have felt that with the existing wording in the legislation, the issue of ownership implies the ability to do whatever you want with that animal, as long as it's not done in a cruel way. Ownership is the lawful excuse, so that issue, again, of the use of those words--“kept for a lawful excuse”--becomes a problem for us.
If I can slip back to a previous question about indictable offences, you'll know that section 444 currently exists in the Criminal Code; it is an indictable offence. We've laid a charge under that section twice only in 30 years. The honourable member, being a lawyer, will know that when it first appears in court, crown has the right to make an election. In both of those cases, crown elected to proceed summarily, rather than by way of indictment--so that automatically reduced it--because of the cost factor that's involved. We can understand that as well.
Hybrid offences are fraught with issues as well. They may seem like a good way to go by increasing the penalties, but I think increasing the provisions for a national prohibition order under federal legislation is of paramount concern to SPCAs across Canada.
We can currently, in many provinces--not in Ontario, unfortunately--get prohibition orders under provincial legislation. This has happened many times, and the accused or the convicted person simply moves to another province. If we can get a better prohibition for something more than the two years that are there now, that will be a plus as well.
But there are problems that haven't been addressed with regard to hybrid offences.
I'm sorry, I went way off your question.