Mr. Speaker, the stated purpose of the bill would be to consolidate animal cruelty offences and increase the maximum penalties. The bill would also provide the definition of animal and removes cruelty to animal provisions from part XI of the criminal code, that is, the property offence section.
Many groups have expressed concerns about the legislation: agricultural groups, farmers, industry workers and, indeed, medical researchers. Just recently we received a letter from the author Pierre Berton expressing his profound concern on behalf of medical researchers about what the bill would do in the area of medical research.
Many of the groups in fact support the intent of the law, as its objective is to modernize the law and increase penalties for offences relating to animal cruelty. However, despite some minor tinkering with the legislation as demonstrated here today in the bill, which is coming from committee, these groups advise that the bill requires significant amendments before their concerns are addressed.
One of the central concerns with the bill is in fact that the criminal code would no longer provide the same level of protection presently afforded to those who use animals for legitimate, lawful and justified practices. The phrase “legal justification or excuse and with colour of right” in subsection 429(2) of the criminal code currently provides protection for the offences found in respect of the property section. However, by moving the offences out of the property offence section and leaving the defences, in fact those defences no longer apply to the offences.
The minister, her staff and her parliamentary secretary have stated they somehow implicitly apply and that this should be good enough for members of the House and indeed for those who have expressed concerns about this legislation. However, when members of the Bloc and the Canadian Alliance asked Liberal government members to make the defences explicit in the new legislation, they refused.
Therefore I think there is a hidden agenda. There is a lack of frankness with the Canadian people about the true intent of what the bill is to accomplish. One of the interesting comments that the minister's parliamentary secretary made was in respect of the fact that one of the amendments to the bill will now confirm that the common law defences available under subsection 8(3) of the criminal code will continue to apply to any cruelty to animal offences.
Subsection 8(3) sets out the common law defences that we have inherited in our justice system and specifically already applies to all of the criminal code. It is not limited to any part. Yet the drafters of part XI, the property offence sections, found it necessary to include the specific defences that we find in section 429 relating to legal justification or excuse and with colour of right.
The parliamentary secretary said we would make it explicit that subsection 8(3) now applies to these offences that have been moved outside of the property section. Subsection 8(3) has always applied, so what the government is doing in a very disingenuous way is trying to lull people in agricultural or medical research or the other food production related businesses into believing that their concerns have now been met. In fact that is nonsense. Section 429 does not apply and those defences do not apply. To suggest that they implicitly apply is to mislead the Canadian people.
During committee I also listened with some astonishment to the fact that the minister had proposed screening mechanisms for all private prosecutions. We did not get a look at this. However, generally speaking, if there is controversial legislation, what ministers usually do, especially in the context of the criminal code, is require the consent of the provincial attorneys general to proceed with a prosecution in that jurisdiction. That is a time-honoured mechanism. The attorney general is there to prevent an abuse of the criminal court system.
The minister is now saying that she will not prevent these private organizations from bringing frivolous prosecutions by this time-honoured mechanism. We know that animal rights interest groups have indicated they will prosecute and take this law to the limits. Those are their words. However the minister has said that she will set up a screening mechanism which is very consistent with the type of cumbersome procedure that this government has enacted on previous occasions. Whether it is the organized crime legislation or Bill C-36, there is a real disconnect between the Department of Justice people who draft and propose these policy initiatives and the actual provincial prosecutors who have to go out and do the real work.
The mechanism being proposed is this. An information is sworn and then it is brought before a magistrate to prescreen to see if it is frivolous or vexatious. The purpose of requiring the information to be sworn is to determine that it is not frivolous and vexatious and that there are reasonable grounds to proceed. Now there will be another hearing at this stage. Imagine someone coming up in front of the magistrate saying that something is vexatious or frivolous. That person will be met now with another court hearing. Then the person could still be met with a certiorari application in the superior courts to quash the information. Then there is a possibility of a preliminary hearing to determine whether there is sufficient evidence for the matter to go to trial. Then we finally have the trial.
This is convoluted and is destructive of the criminal justice system. It will contribute to the backlog. Therefore, I am very concerned about the bill.
We have stated a number of reasons why the bill should not be supported. We have stated it in committee and we continue to voice our disapproval.
I want to make just a couple of comments in respect of the Liberal member who brought forward the animal service provision dealing with police dogs. We liked that amendment and supported it. What the Minister of Justice will do now with this amendment is water it down. I want the police officers and security agency people who use dogs in the course of their service to know that the Minister of Justice is watering down what a Liberal member first proposed.
My very last comment is that I support, and encourage my Canadian Alliance colleagues to support, Motion No. 7 brought forward by the Bloc member in respect of service animals.