Mr. Chair, the hon. member is absolutely right, both in his question and in his comments, that there appears to be ever-increasing evidence of a violence link between cruelty to animals and domestic violence, sexual and physical abuse of children and other violent crimes.
In 2017, Humane Canada most notably held a national conference, and its final report is online. It is an important piece of evidence. Research from the University of Windsor more recently said that 89% of women who fled to domestic shelters also reported some kind of violence against their pet. As well, there is an FBI investigation in the United States.
Therefore, the evidence is increasing and it seems to uniformly go in the same direction that abuse of animals, violence towards animals is often coupled with violence toward vulnerable human beings.