Yes, quite frankly, we are. This may be a question best posed to those who are using police animals and who will be appearing before this committee, but to my understanding, the rationale for this is the degree of harm, the degree of exposure, that animals would have in those instances that would justify or bring about a commensurate higher sentence.
Coming back to the question with regard to why we have proceeded with this hybrid type of offence, again, we believe there are facts and factual circumstances that very often arise that would justify a prosecutor, in conjunction with the police, deciding to proceed by way of indictment. That obviously involves more egregious circumstances, where there was a deliberate attempt to kill or injure the animal, as opposed to a circumstance that one could envision where the animal, while in pursuit of a person, or during a search and rescue, went after the wrong individual, for example, and the person, in fear for their life, used what they felt was proportionate force to protect themselves, and the animal was injured or killed. Those are circumstances that might result in the laying of a summary conviction offence that would not have these mandatory minimum penalties attached.