Madam Speaker, I am pleased to speak in support of Bill C-50, an act to amend the Criminal Code in respect of cruelty to animals.
As we have heard, a number of members on the other side of the House oppose the bill currently before it. We have just heard a member say that only specific interest groups, such as vegetarians and others he mentioned supported the bill—I have nothing against vegetarians, although I am not one myself—however, it is quite wrong to say that such is the case.
In 2003, the House passed the bill in question, which was sent to the Senate. It then proposed amendments, which the House considered and adopted. The bill could not be passed for lack of time.
I repeat what I said earlier. Some of these amendments were supported by the Canadian Federation of Agriculture. It is not an interest group that deserves to be described as marginal or the like.
I heard the member for Leeds—Grenville claim that we in Canada passed laws that were not found anywhere else. People from outside Canada visiting his riding come from the state of New York, a few kilometres from where he is from, and the laws are that much stricter there.
I am not a believer in there being no laws at all. Of course, there should be a law, in criminal law, to prevent cruelty to animals while protecting the people of Canada, those who hunt and fish and pursue other similar activities. There is no need to say agriculture and the slaughter practices need to be protected—it goes without saying. These areas are clearly not covered by this bill. The proof of this is that national groups representing farmers have already confirmed it.
I will give another quote, “This amended legislation”, that is the bill as it is with the two amendments from before, “is technically sound and is as strong as ever”. With that, the Canadian Federation of Agriculture encouraged Parliament to pass the legislation.
As I said a while ago, the legislation then died on the order paper in the other place where there continued to be attention paid to two other amendments which were not requested or supported by industry groups or by the House. That is where we were in 2003.
Let us fast forward a little. In November 2004, several months after the opening of this Parliament, the Minister of Justice received a letter from a large coalition of industry groups that explicitly requested a retabling, which is not really the right word, but the reintroduction of a new bill on the issue of cruelty to animals with the amendments that I described, and those amendments are in the bill.
I will get back to the comments by the member for Prince Albert and the member for Leeds--Grenville. I will read into the record the names of these groups: the British Columbia Cattlemen's Association, the Canadian Cattlemen's Association, the Dairy Farmers of Canada, the Manitoba Cattle Producers Association, the Ontario Farm Animal Council and the Dairy Farmers of Canada. They must know a little about animals. How about the Ontario Egg Producers? Some people were mentioning chicken a while ago. Those are the groups of people who are supporting this. Those are the people who asked us to go ahead with this bill.
I can go on. Some people will want to ask about hunting and about the raising of animals for fur. I am glad they asked. We have the Canada Mink Breeders Association, the Fur Institute of Canada and the Fur Council of Canada. People may then ask whether those using animals for research are against the bill. No. The Canadian Animal Health Institute, the Canadian Association of Laboratory Animal Sciences, the Canadians for Health Research and Canada's Research Base Pharmaceutical Companies are all in favour of the bill.
I say to the Conservatives across the way that it is high time they start to get with it. This is not an urban issue versus rural. It is nothing like that.