Mr. Speaker, in the earlier part of her comments my colleague was making the juxtaposition between statistics and those individual cases which really act as a catalyst.
We can see the same in the whole affair with Saudi Arabia. The war in Yemen is causing millions of people to starve, and it is an absolutely horrendous war that the Saudi government is intimately involved in. In that case, it took one journalist to really focus the world's attention on the atrocities of that regime.
It is the same with animal cruelty. I read out statistics. Statistics by themselves do not galvanize people. It is an unfortunate fact that animal cruelty happens far too often. Sometimes there is that one case, like Teddy the dog, which is so horrific it just flips a switch and suddenly everyone across the political spectrum is talking about it and they want to see action. I very much agree.
With respect to the local organizations I have to commend the officers of the B.C. SPCA who not only had to go on the property to rescue that poor animal, but who also do that kind of work every day on our behalf. Absolutely, they need support. They need to have an adequate funding model. They also need to have the tools necessary, such as provisions in the Criminal Code, so that they can bring about charges that are necessary, so that people who are engaged in these despicable acts have the full force of the law come down on them. People who are guilty of these acts need to be held accountable in an appropriate way.
As I said earlier, this is one important piece of the puzzle, one tool that we could give organizations, like the SPCA, so that they can do that important work on behalf of our communities every single day.