Justice Committee on Feb. 7th, 2019

[The Chair, Liberal, Anthony Housefather]

Thank you very much. That is very interesting.

Mr. Ehsassi.

[Ali Ehsassi, Liberal, Willowdale, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I will start off with Ms. Stoddart. Thank you very much for being here. It's obvious that you're very passionate about this. Your testimony was very helpful, particularly when you were talking about the nexus between organized crime and animal fighting. It was very helpful that you cited various articles and journals.

Given your own experience, could you elaborate on that? You would be one of the only people we have the opportunity to hear from who really understand what's going on out there. You've been on the front lines.

Would you care to elaborate on the intersection between organized crime, the economics behind it and things of that nature?

[Sgt Teena Stoddart]

As I said before, criminals get smarter. As we charge them, prosecute them and bring them to court, they learn. They used to have places where they trained and they used to go to abandoned warehouses and rent them to have these dogfighting events, but they no longer do that. They tend to move the dogs around. They have the dogs split up for training and bait dogs and how to fight. They use these electrocution and shock methods and other things, so that they don't have a large stock of animals in one area. When they have the dogfights, they move them around so they don't have them in one location anymore.

In Ontario, we know that there are probably seven to 12 people who are involved in training the dogs and running these dogfights. I think you are in possession of the OSPCA 2015 report, where they did extensive studies. I've met with our guns and gangs unit. Right now, we have a couple of individuals in Ottawa running these gangs and dogfights. We go to conventions. They're used to recruit. They're used to trade and sell their guns and drugs and the illegal gambling is quite substantial. In the States, it's more substantial than in Canada. In Canada, there's less, but in the States, they put up houses, boats, cars, you name it. One purse can go for over $200,000 and that's the norm. It's not unusual to have four or five dogfights at one event.

I was in the aftermath of one of the dogfights and the young people there witnessed things that we would never, ever want to witness. The dogs look like hamburger coming out of there. They take young children to these fights and it's to acclimatize them to the violence. Just like police officers, we see so much in our lives. When we talk to some of our family members and they're shocked, we realize, “Oh my, you're shocked about that. Oh yeah, you don't normally see this.” It's the same thing. That's how they bring children into this. They're recruiting. It's a bloody, heinous crime.

When I was up in behavioural science, we had a video turned in from Durham Regional Police and a gang member was initiated by biting the head off of a live bunny rabbit and spitting it into a pail. The offender was about 14 or 15 years old. It's things like that. These dogfights are used for all kinds of purposes.

As a police officer, it is a tool for us to get warrants. Through confidential informants and other means of investigation, we can apply for a warrant. If we find out where these dogs are being held and when a dogfight is happening and go in at the time of it, we can seize drugs, guns and illegal gambling. We can get a large cache of gang members at these places because they're very well-attended. It's a tool for us to manage these things. If we find out that a certain person, say in Greely, Ontario, is training dogs, then every patrol officer is going to stop every car coming in and out of there because they have grounds. At a time when everybody is looking to find a way to limit gang violence, it's a tool for us to do so, if we have proper legislation in our favour.

[Ali Ehsassi, Liberal, Willowdale, ON]

You said you've attended animal fights. Generally speaking, how do we hear about these animal fights? How would we monitor it? How would we know where it's taking place? Is it through chat rooms? I remember you referenced chat rooms. Is it through tip lines? How do you get to know where it's going on?

[Sgt Teena Stoddart]

Normally, it's through covert investigations, through informants, agents or somebody who comes to advise us that this is going on. The one that I came upon was when I was a police officer in Toronto with the Ontario Provincial Police. We had somebody run into our detachment and say, “This guy has just run from the place”, so we went over. The Peel Regional Police attended and they were primary, but we also looked for the suspects. Once the police arrived on scene, they just fanned out, so we were looking for the suspects. That was my experience of witnessing some of the youth who attended and the carnage afterwards. Often, it is through investigation.

[Ali Ehsassi, Liberal, Willowdale, ON]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Anthony Housefather]

Mr. Donnelly.

[Fin Donnelly, NDP, Port Moody—Coquitlam, BC]

Thanks, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to all our witnesses for providing your testimony on this. It's often very difficult testimony to give, and certainly for us to hear, but important nonetheless.

I'll start with you, Ms. McDonald and Ms. St. Germain. You've described some very graphic criminal cases. I'm wondering how the proposed legislation would have affected those cases had it been in place.

[Monique St. Germain]

Until the D.L.W. decision, there wasn't consistency in the courts in terms of what the definition was, which was the whole point of the D.L.W. decision. What the bill does is provide absolute clarity for everybody in terms of what the conduct comprises when we're talking about a criminal offence. It removes any of the ambiguity that was in place before D.L.W.

[Lianna McDonald]

Just to add to that, as we've spoken to, in regard to the vast majority, we know that we're missing a whole group of scenarios where there are sexual assaults being committed. We did not have the clarity, as Monique has accurately clarified, in terms of taking action, so this is very important for children.

[Fin Donnelly, NDP, Port Moody—Coquitlam, BC]

Great. Thank you.

Mr. Annau, we've heard from other witnesses and department officials that amendments to Bill C-84 should not impact any legitimate hunting or fishing practices. Is there any wording that you have a particular concern about in Bill C-84?

[Frank Annau]

None that I've personally seen so far with respect to hunting and fishing practices. I haven't seen anything that I believe would give our members pause at this moment. Of course, that would be subject to further internal review, and yes, as mentioned, at this point our priority is pretty much seeing that the actual bill is passed.

[Fin Donnelly, NDP, Port Moody—Coquitlam, BC]

Great. Does your organization have any concerns about the legislation at all?

[Frank Annau]

No concerns, and for me at this point that's specific to the actual amendments. With respect to the Criminal Code, I unfortunately have yet to sit down and read through the entire document.

[Fin Donnelly, NDP, Port Moody—Coquitlam, BC]

Thank you.

Sergeant Stoddart, in your opinion, will the broadened definition of bestiality help identify and prosecute child abusers?

[Sgt Teena Stoddart]

Absolutely.

[Fin Donnelly, NDP, Port Moody—Coquitlam, BC]

That's pretty straightforward.

[Sgt Teena Stoddart]

Absolutely.

[Fin Donnelly, NDP, Port Moody—Coquitlam, BC]

At our last meeting, my colleague Murray Rankin quoted a letter of support written by the Canadian Veterinary Medical Association, which said, “There is overwhelming evidence of a direct link between abuse of animals and violence towards people, especially other members of the family—children, spouses, elders.”

Can you please speak to this evidence? How can we use this information to better keep children and other vulnerable people safe?

[Sgt Teena Stoddart]

I'm so glad you asked me that. You all have a handout before you of research on the violence link.

Violence towards animals has a link to every violent crime that any police organization investigates, and on this handout, you'll see partner abuse, gangs and youth. General investigations are what we call “district investigations”. They can be assaults or minor offences, major crime, forensic identification and sexual assaults. SACA here stands for sexual assaults and child assaults. In each one of those, you will see research quoted.

This is just a sample of research. I have a research review. I interchange these ovals here depending on who I speak to, because there is so much research out there on the violence link. There are decades of it.

If you want me to, I can go over any individual thing. You can see that for partner abuse it's 89%. We have new Canadian research that talks about how 93% of partner assault cases involve animal abuse. As Monique St. Germain and Lianna McDonald said, animals are used to control the victims. We see that in every crime. We see it in gangs with younger members. We see it in partner abuse and child abuse cases. They're used to control victims. Even if the dogs are not being assaulted or used to penetrate children or whatever, they're used to control the victims.

In terms of major crime and school shootings, it shows up in 43% of school shootings. On the Parkdale shooting, two weeks before that he was found in his backyard taking pellet practice at wild animals. I think it was gophers or groundhogs or whatever. A neighbour reported it. Nobody went to investigate it. Had they gone to investigate and held him for a psych assessment or whatever, 17 children would still be alive today.

I can speak to any of the individual cases, but I do have a literature review of all the research we've looked at. I'd be happy to leave it with you.

[Fin Donnelly, NDP, Port Moody—Coquitlam, BC]

If you could provide the committee with any of that research, I think it would be helpful for this study.

[Sgt Teena Stoddart]

Absolutely.

[Fin Donnelly, NDP, Port Moody—Coquitlam, BC]

I would definitely appreciate that.

How much time do I have, Chair?

[The Chair, Liberal, Anthony Housefather]

You have three seconds.

[Fin Donnelly, NDP, Port Moody—Coquitlam, BC]

I'll stop there, then.