Mr. Speaker, I listened with care to the members who spoke before me. It seems to me that the heart of the matter is the way people regard the change in the status of animals as a result of Bill C-15B. For the first time the treatment of animals and the whole question of cruelty to animals is being taken out of the property section of the criminal code and put into an entirely new section of the criminal code. This is the source of concern on the part of at least three of the opposition parties.
The New Democratic Party sees this change in the status of animals as one of the things that is good about the bill. Getting beyond regarding animals as simply property is a conceptual and philosophical advance. We are not opposed to that. In fact that is one of the things we celebrated about Bill C-15B along with a lot of other people.
We join with those who feel that amendments to the criminal code with respect to increasing penalties for cruelty animals is long overdue. I hope the Bloc would share our view on that even though it appears it has decided to oppose the bill.
I listened with care to the critic from the Alliance. He expressed a lot of concerns that I know are out there in the community of fishermen, farmers, hunters, trappers, people who use animals for medical research purposes, people who grow animals for food, et cetera. They all have a concern that the legislation would somehow be used to harass them and to make their life miserable.
People who have what one might arguably call a radical animal rights agenda could use the legislation in ways that it was not intended, not intended by the government, and not intended by the NDP in supporting the legislation. If the legislation were to become a tool by which people engaged in those kind of activities were harassed then I for one would be quick to come back to the government and say that we were wrong on this. I would argue that the protections built into Bill C-15B to prevent that kind of harassment were not working and that we must do something to protect the legitimate interests and activities of people who grow animals for food or people who were engaged in fishing, hunting, research, et cetera. I would certainly share those concerns.
I must say I do not know why the government was not more open in the drafting of the legislation to giving the kind of discretion to the provincial attorneys general that some people argue should be in there.
On the other hand the Alliance critic, the member for Provencher, seems to think that there would never be any political agenda if only it were left in the hands of the attorney general. I would regard this argument as somewhat suspect. I can imagine the member for Provencher in other contexts accusing a particular provincial attorney general of having a political agenda with respect to enforcement of certain laws having to do with social policy or whatever.
It would not be a guarantee to me, if the power that is sometimes vested in attorneys general was left with attorneys general with respect to the enforcement of these new offences, that somehow farmers and fishermen and others would be protected. It is conceivable that we could have an attorney general with a radical animal rights agenda in which case there would be no protection. In fact, there might even be less protection. There might even be instructions to crown prosecutors or others to go after everybody they possibly could. The argument from the Alliance critic is somewhat one-sided in that respect.
In some ways the response of the Alliance to Bill C-15B and the radical animal rights activists are sort of mere images of each other. They both attribute extremist motivations and intentions to each other. We saw that clearly this afternoon and that is unfortunate. I do not think that has contributed to the kind of debate that we could have had about Bill C-15B.
I regret that the hoist motion has been moved by the Alliance critic because that means that this debate will drag on further than it ought to. The time has come for this legislation to be passed, tested and practised, and if found wanting, if found to be a source of illegitimate harassment of people who are involved in various legitimate activities then let us have the legislation back.
Bill C-15B does not have to be the last word on it. I have seen other legislation passed through the House and come back in a few years time to be corrected. I have also seen legislation that does not come back. We all have a political responsibility to ensure that if in some way or another the bill does not live up to expectations, or for that matter if it does live up to the negative expectations of certain people, we will need to come back and correct it.
We feel that the bill is worthy of passage as it stands now. We would like to see the bill passed as soon as possible; we see this as progress. We are willing in future to review whether or not some of the fears that have been expressed about the bill have come to pass and if they have we would be willing to review it.