Madam Speaker, I have a question, which I will preface with a couple of comments.
When I spoke earlier today of a hidden agenda, I was referring to a part in the bill which says that if a person has a pheasant in captivity and the person releases it into a field of corn for the purposes of hunting, that would be illegal. I believe that provision is still in the bill. That would substantiate the point I made about there being a hidden agenda behind the bill.
I was a member of the mounted police at one time. I am mentioning this because it is pertinent to the debate. Legislation that I and other policemen have used to prosecute people for cruelty to animals has always been in existence. The only problem we had was whether the provincial crown prosecutor was willing to prosecute the case in court. Of course that was something out of the hands of the police, but the law was there.
The deficiency in the law was that the penalty was very light and the sentencing by the courts was very light.
My question for my colleague is twofold. Does he believe there is a hidden agenda in this legislation? Does he believe the penalties could have been toughened in the existing criminal code? When it comes to the livestock industry, does he not believe the section which gives legal justification for animal husbandry and putting an ear tag in an animal's ear should be transposed into the new legislation?