Mr. Speaker, what the member for Calgary Nose Hill has said in her remarks is very true. One thing I found out last year, as my party's justice critic and sitting on the justice committee, is this. When we look at bills amending the Criminal Code, we have to be so very careful even with the individual words used. While we are responsible in this place for writing the law, it is up to the court system to interpret it. Therefore, we always have to look at the ways it might be interpreted.
That being said, when I look at Bill C-84, a lot of my constituents, and these are constituents across the political spectrum, Conservatives, Liberals, New Democrats and Green Party members, are going to be disappointed with what is missing because of the very brutal case of animal cruelty in my riding. I acknowledge that changing the law alone will not solve this problem, but the fact remains there are thousands of animal cruelty complaints every year in the country and very few of them make it to an actual charge, let alone a conviction. There is room for specific language in the Criminal Code that would exempt the legitimate activities of animal husbandry, hunting and fishing.
Does my colleague have any thoughts about how to move forward? The justice minister is committed to having this conversation, but in my colleague's view, is there a way to amend the Criminal Code that would take action on these specific areas of neglect? We still have gaping holes in our criminal justice system aside from Bill C-84, and I know members of her caucus have raised these concerns. However, in her view, what is the way forward to tackle what the member for Beaches—East York is raising, what my constituents are raising and what Canadians across the country, from all political stripes, are talking about? Parliament has tried many times and failed every time. How do we go forward from here?