Justice Committee on April 27th, 2015

[Carole Morency]

What you're raising is an issue that's there right now in the Criminal Code. The approach that Bill C-35 takes is really to model the existing offence, but to carve it out specifically for these particular animals. The issue, I think, is more fundamental with all of the provisions there, but it's there now in the Criminal Code between section 429 and the other animal cruelty provisions.

[The Vice-Chair, NDP, Françoise Boivin]

That's the time, sorry about that.

[Sean Casey, Liberal, Charlottetown, PE]

Thank you.

[The Vice-Chair, NDP, Françoise Boivin]

Since I have no more names on your side, I'll take the liberty of asking you a few questions.

I would like a clarification. The new subsection 445.1(1) stipulates the following:

Every one commits an offence who, wilfully and without lawful excuse, kills, maims, wounds, poisons or injures a law enforcement animal while it is aiding a law enforcement officer in carrying out that officer’s duties...

Does it have to be known that it's a law enforcement animal or a dog accompanying a police officer? For example, I am thinking of demonstrations where police officers are not necessarily uniformed. Is knowing that a person is accompanied by a law enforcement dog essential for an offence to be committed?

[Michael Zigayer]

If I understand the question properly, the question is, if I happen to see a dog accompanying a law enforcement officer and I assault that animal, do I fall within the scope of this legislation? The legislation is very specific. It speaks of a law enforcement animal and defines what a “law enforcement animal” is. It is an animal that is specifically trained to assist a law enforcement officer and is actually engaged in assisting that law enforcement officer at the time that it is assaulted or killed.

[The Vice-Chair, NDP, Françoise Boivin]

My question was more about, I don't know it's a policeman.

[Michael Zigayer]

You do not know it's a policeman?

[The Vice-Chair, NDP, Françoise Boivin]

No, I do not know. The policeman doesn't identify himself. Do we need to know it's a policeman, and if there's a dog, should we assume that it is an assisting police animal?

[Michael Zigayer]

I think you're getting into the area of legitimate defence or legitimate excuse because one would expect even an undercover officer to identify himself as a peace officer, as a law enforcement officer, at the time that he's interacting with a private citizen. If I happen to say, “Stop, police,” and I happen to be accompanied by this dog, there's a certain knowledge that's communicated by the fact that the police officer has said, “Stop, police.”

[The Vice-Chair, NDP, Françoise Boivin]

So it goes into the general defence possibility.

[Michael Zigayer]

Yes.

[The Vice-Chair, NDP, Françoise Boivin]

You see it as a possible act that could be raised by the defence on that factor. That's all I wanted to know, if it was an automatic...and the excuse had to be outside the actual attribution of the policeman or the dog itself.

[Michael Zigayer]

Well, there's a close connection. In some instances the dogs are wearing a kind of vest. Think of customs. Sometimes they wear what I'll call a vest that says “Customs” on the side, and there's maybe a flag, and that identifies them when they're walking through the airport. There's a handler with them, and that handler is always in a uniform. If you attack that dog, as it is working with the handler at the airport, then there's an inference that would be drawn that you knew the type of animal that you were attacking.

[The Vice-Chair, NDP, Françoise Boivin]

Does that include provincial corrections officers?

[Michael Zigayer]

Yes.

[The Vice-Chair, NDP, Françoise Boivin]

That is clear to you.

[Michael Zigayer]

The definition of “law enforcement officer”—that term is specifically defined for the purposes of this legislation—“means a police officer, a police constable or any person referred to in paragraph....”, and there are a series of paragraphs from section 2 of the Criminal Code. I'll just go through them: Correctional Service officer, integrated cross-border maritime law enforcement officer, or shiprider,, a CBSA customs officer, a CBSA immigration officer, a fisheries officer, and the military police.

Before I hang up on this particular question—I don't want to mislead—I'll just take a quick look at the Criminal Code.

Paragraph (b) stipulates the following:

a member of the Correctional Service of Canada who is designated as a peace officer pursuant to Part I of the Corrections and Conditional Release Act, and a warden, deputy warden, instructor, keeper, jailer, guard and any other officer or permanent employee of a prison other than a penitentiary as defined in Part I of the Corrections and Conditional Release Act,

[The Vice-Chair, NDP, Françoise Boivin]

I see. It would probably be included in that.

I have one last question for you. It's basically the same one I put to the minister.

I understand that there aren't very many cases in the case law that deal with the same issue. The impact of Bill C-35 is fairly limited. It is a bit difficult for me to understand the logic behind the exclusion of certain kinds of animals. They are covered to some extent, but then, under mandatory minimum sentences, it says that a police dog is more important than, for instance, horses that go to war with people or something like that. It's a bit difficult for me to understand the logic behind that. Why was the distinction made?

I repeat that rising up against animal cruelty doesn't mean we dislike hunters. I heard all sorts of things in the speeches at second reading of Bill C-35. The legislation focuses on three categories. I am trying to understand the logic behind all this. To some, a seeing-eye dog is just as important as a police dog. Any kind of murder is experienced just as dramatically as a police dog's killing. I understand the argument about danger and a higher likelihood of danger. I am trying to understand the department's logic behind the way the bill was drafted.

[Michael Zigayer]

What distinguishes a law enforcement animal from all other animals is that an attack on that animal is an attack

on the administration of justice.

That's a very important factor that distinguishes the law enforcement animal from all other animals, just as there's a reason we distinguish an assault on a peace officer, a police officer in particular, from assaults on ordinary individuals.

Perhaps this is an opportunity to refer to clause 2 of this bill, which creates a new sentencing provision specifically with regard to assaults that are committed on peace officers—assaults, common assault, an assault causing bodily harm, or the aggravated assault on a peace officer. Henceforward from when this legislation comes into force, that sentence will be served consecutively to whatever other sentence the individual is convicted of.

So if the police officer is arresting someone for a break and enter, and that individual resists and assaults the police officer, the offender will get whatever sentence he was going to get for the break and enter, and the term of imprisonment that's imposed for the assault on the police officer will not be served concurrently, but will be served consecutively. This again recognizes that assaults on peace officers, police officers, and these law enforcement animals are actually assaults on the administration of justice, or are crimes committed in the larger sense against the administration of justice.

[The Vice-Chair, NDP, Françoise Boivin]

Thank you so much.

Does anybody else have questions?

Mr. Wilks.

[David Wilks, Conservative, Kootenay—Columbia, BC]

Thank you, Chair.

I just want to go back to something the chair just alluded to, and that was with regard to police officers in plain clothes. Maybe I'll just clarify a little bit, having dealt with a fair number of dog handlers, that they are in plain clothes. But with the RCMP they're normally in a blue uniform, not with a yellow stripe, and nine times out of ten they are accompanied by a uniformed police officer. The one exception would be when they get separated from the police officer in the pursuit of an assailant. But even at that, before releasing the dog they must identify themselves as a police officer, and they must also say, “If you do not stop, if you do not surrender, I will release the dog”.

That's just a clarification.

If I may, I'll turn the rest of my time over to my colleague, Mr. Calkins.

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Wetaskiwin, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Wilks, I appreciate that. I appreciate that clarification as well.

My question, Mr. Zigayer, is for clarification.

You went through the clause in the legislation that is inclusive of the definitions of peace officer. For greater certainty, and I'll have to go back into the annals of my mind, but years and years ago when I was employed as a national park warden and as a conservation officer for the Province of Alberta, I believe I was captured in the definition of a peace officer. While the particular subsections in the bill mention a fisheries officer and talk about correctional services and cross-border services agents, and so on, but could you please reassure this committee that anybody appointed with a peace officer status—that would be a dog-handler at the provincial jurisdiction level who is charged with being a peace officer, and a national park warden—would be captured by this legislation? I ask because there are dog handlers in the national park warden service as well.

[Michael Zigayer]

I appreciate your question, because it is true that when this particular provision was drafted not every person who falls within the definition of peace officer was included in this new definition of law enforcement officer. My understanding is that the park wardens obtain their peace officer status not through the Criminal Code but through the National Parks Act. Again, I'll take a moment to verify that.

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Wetaskiwin, AB]

This isn't the reason for my question.

Every statute that enforces or creates a law enforcement agency has, of course, it's own legislative framework to do that. There is often a clause in that piece of legislation saying that this person is an ex-officio member of this particular force, or whatever the case might be. That is why I'm asking for clarification.

If you don't have the answer right now, I think the committee would be happy to get a specific answer if there's somebody you need to refer to or confer with on this particular issue. It is a question that I think the committee should have an answer to, because if there does need to be a technical amendment to the bill to make sure that something like a park warden service dog should be and is intended to be protected under these provisions, then we need to make an amendment to the legislation to do so, and we need to know that as soon as possible.

[Michael Zigayer]

Madam Chair, I'd be pleased to make that undertaking. I will examine that, and through the minister's office will get the answer to you or through the chair.