Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
Thank you to the witnesses for being here and to Mr. McKinnon for giving me a little bit of his time, because I wasn't able to ask this question.
I guess in the last panel the issue came up of amending the Criminal Code to allow discretion to judges to impose orders or conditions on the ownership of animals for people convicted of these types of offences.
Generally this falls under provincial jurisdiction where provincial animal protection acts will allow the sentencing judge to impose conditions against ownership of animals for people convicted under provincial legislation. The Criminal Code contemplates banning ownership of weapons in certain appropriate cases for a public safety purpose.
Professor Sankoff, I'm asking this question, not because I'm opposed to the idea of having this type of amendment to the Criminal Code banning animal ownership and allowing discretionary bans up to a lifetime, as we do for weapons. I'm just curious about your thoughts whether there are any constitutional issues, a section 91or section 92 problem, in the division of powers, because it would seem to me that this would fall squarely under provincial jurisdiction property ownership rights. I don't know if it has the same public safety element that weapons offence bans have.
Could you comment on that, please?