Mr. Speaker, it does have an impact on people who graduate from cruelty to animals to being cruel and inhuman to other human beings. Again, we are talking about vicious and brutal acts. As kids, many of us witnessed activity among our friends where animals were hurt in some way. I never saw some of the really brutal examples of animal violence that we hear about in the news, but I certainly have seen friends do things that they should not have done.
Society has evolved. I would expect and I know that my children are more respectful of animals than children were in my generation. We have come some way and the bill recognizes that. The fact is that this will obviously catch some people earlier because what they are doing will be criminal at an earlier stage due to the bill. This means that we may well have less violent offenders and get a chance to catch people and rehabilitate them before they go on to injure human beings. That is a bit of a side benefit of Bill C-50.