Madam Speaker, I am pleased to talk about Bill C-17, the cruelty to animals legislation. As stated before, there are three sections of this act which I will touch on briefly.
One section would make it a very serious criminal offence to attempt to disarm a police officer. I think all members in the House will support that. It is a very positive concern. There are some technical amendments with respect to the Firearms Act. Again, we have no problem with that.
I am very supportive of legislation that makes it tougher for people who are cruel to animals. I will raise a few concerns in a positive way.
I look back at an incident that happened in Victoria when I was elected as an MP. It outraged the entire community. My riding is Saanich—Gulf Islands which is very close to Victoria. In this case, a person had been following a vehicle that stopped at a red light. They say it was road rage, but for no reason he took a golf club and almost killed the dog in the back seat of the vehicle which was in front of him because the vehicle was not moving. It was tragic.
He was charged under the current criminal code section 445. I remember the public was up in arms. To the credit of Judge Higinbotham of the Victoria provincial court, I thought he dealt with the matter quite appropriately. It was quite a severe sentence. I believe, if my memory serves me correctly, it was something in the order of 18 months because that was not acceptable behaviour within our society.
I also acknowledge that in the current sections with respect to cruelty to animals under the criminal code, I believe there is lots of room for improvement. Section 445 is the relevant section where if somebody does injure dogs, birds and other animals that person is guilty of an offence punishable upon summary conviction.
The government has recognized that we can improve these. I question whether it is appropriate to move this cruelty to animals section from property offences over to the sexual offences section in the criminal code. I personally do not believe that is an appropriate move although it is not the end of the world.
A sexual offence is one of the most intrusive invasions into one's privacy that one could ever imagine. That section should be left as a very serious section. I am not minimizing this at all but probably a better way to have gone would have been to tighten up these sections on cruelty to animals in the property sections of the criminal code.
The government has selected to go this way. We have heard the concerns of some people. They are worried about people who are in the ranching and cattle industry. We have trappers, especially those people in the aboriginal and Inuit communities who live in the far north. A large part of their livelihoods is based on fishing. It is open for broad interpretation. I do not think anybody's intentions are misguided but there are some concerns as to how it will be interpreted at a later date.
If there is an opportunity, we will be putting amendments forward to hopefully tighten these up. I think it is in the interest of all Canadians. Quite often we see legislation that is left open and loose and is not defined as well as it could be. It ends in lengthy court trials, appeals which then go to higher courts to interpret the legislation. If we can do anything to rectify that before the legislation is passed that would be a positive step.
For example, there is the sealing industry. It has been open to debate for years. For sealers it has been their livelihood. It has been a way of life, both economically and culturally for a lot of people in Atlantic Canada. They use what is called a hackpic to club the adult seals over the head. Some might argue that would be a violation under this section of the act and some people would probably believe that it is, but there is lots of evidence to support that it is the most humane way.
As the member for Yukon stated, there are people from where she is from who are in the trapping industry. She stated that they try in the most humane way possible to carry out their livelihood and they have been doing it for years. We have to be cognizant of those situations.
There is room in the bill to make some of these improvements. I would have rather seen the sections that we are dealing with amending sections 444 to 446 in the criminal code, but that is not going to happen.
I want to impress upon people following this debate that it is an important piece of legislation. I am absolutely opposed to people who are unnecessarily cruel to animals. It is just not acceptable. It should be a criminal offence and people should be dealt with accordingly by the courts. That is not something that society is going to tolerate.
Possibly the concerns that we have will be addressed when we vote. To get some of these amendments through which we think will improve the legislation will be a positive step.
I am particularly pleased that the section on disarming a police officer is in the bill. I know some argue whether the two should be combined in one bill. I understand that. It probably would make some sense not try to combine everything in one bill rather we could have separate bills. I would have rather seen that section on disarming police officers with a lot of other sections in the criminal code which need improvement and which Canadians are waiting for, for example, property offences. There are many suggestions where we can improve on that.
Canadians are looking for changes to our criminal code where we put the rights of victims ahead of that of the criminals. There are many instances that suggest that we are not. I know the victims are very frustrated, threatened and feel they do not have a voice.
It is interesting that we are taking steps to make sure that interests of animals are taken into account and that we are bringing in tougher measures against people who are inhumane to animals. Again, that is a positive step subject to some of the concerns that we have.
It would have been much more acceptable had the government, since its election three years ago, chosen to deal with some of these other issues. We are in the process of debating the changes to the Young Offenders Act and will be voting on them very shortly. We are debating the Group No. 1 amendments at report stage. The government has done little more than tinker with the Young Offenders Act. It has done very little as opposed to its major overhaul of the section in the criminal code dealing with cruelty to animals.
I question the wisdom of the government on its priorities, which may be somewhat skewed, when it will not address these other concerns. We have put amendments forward to deal with these concerns. We think it will strengthen the bill. All members of the House, all 301 of us, are all opposed to cruelty to animals. All of us have heard horror stories. Society is not going to accept that type of behaviour and such people need to be dealt with.
It is to the government's credit that it has brought in the section with respect to the disarming of police officers. That is a very positive clause in the bill. Some may question whether this is the bill that it should be in, but regardless of that it has been brought in and I think that is a positive step.
Having said that, there are a few other areas that some of my colleagues have mentioned. They have done things such as imposing a lifetime ban on owning an animal. I guess that is subject to the interpretation of the courts. Some would question whether that is an appropriate use.
I want to say in the broadest terms that bringing in legislation that will let society and our courts be a lot tougher with people who are abusive of animals is a move in the right direction. There are some concerns. Hopefully they will be addressed and we can move forward, as we have some very positive amendments that will strengthen the bill, and not have to leave it to the interpretation of the courts at a later date.