Madam Speaker, I thank the hon. member for his question. It gives me the opportunity to express how I feel about cruelty.
I am a person with a very soft heart. At home when I have some insects such as spiders or flies in the house, I take five or ten minutes to catch them, put them in a container, carry them outside and let them enjoy nature's freedom.
I am quite tough on the issue of those people who are injuring animals or inflicting pain on animals. It is fun for some people but that is not the way we in the civilized world should behave.
Again, in this bill the definition of cruelty is not mentioned anywhere. For example, with respect to those people who fish, probably in the view of other people they are causing pain and suffering to the fish they catch, as a fish is a living animal, but those people enjoy it. Other people are complete vegetarians who do not eat meat at all. Another extreme is those who butcher animals.
I believe cruelty is a relative term. For some people something is cruel and for others it is not, but if there were a Liberal member speaking on this bill I would stand up and ask what the definition of cruelty is in this bill. Also, there are so many other terms that should be included in this bill. The sad part is that the government members are not giving any interest to this. At this time there is only one member listening to this debate. I wonder why the members are not showing an interest.