Justice committee  The Criminal Code provision is fairly wide, in the sense that it's not just building the arena or owning the animals, but it also involves the following: Every one commits an offence who under the proposed act who (b) in any manner encourages, aids or assists at the fighting or baiting of animals or birds; That, I think, covers everyone in the room.

Justice committee  Thank you.

Justice committee  Yes. I have a letter here to my predecessor that was signed by the Canadian Federation of Agriculture, the Canadian Federation of Humane Societies, the Canadian Veterinary Medical Association, the Canadian Cattlemen's Association, the Chicken Farmers of Canada, the Pork Council, and egg farmers, hatching egg producers, turkey farmers, the Canadian Bison Association, the mink breeders, the Canadian Sheep Federation, the Canadian Poultry and Egg Processors Council.

Justice committee  Yes.

Justice committee  Well, I will admit to not having that psychological research in front of me. It is behaviour that we are trying to get at and to prohibit with these provisions. There is data that is beginning to be accumulated. The FBI in the United States has undertaken a data tracking survey to look at and analyze animal abuse, and draw other sorts of conclusions from it.

Justice committee  I'm happy to provide information. Certainly there are the other private members' bills, including Bill C-246, that raised a number of different concerns that need to be looked at. We're happy to provide that information to you. Remind me, Ron, of the second part of your question.

Justice committee  Provincial property laws, generally, will apply to animals. I know that Mr. Erskine-Smith was probably pointing us to a larger discussion about whether animals were property. He's smiling. As he knows, I spent all of my career looking at both property and intellectual property as areas of study.

Justice committee  Back to baiting, which we're not doing right now—

Justice committee  The way that the common law and the criminal law have defined baiting is, I think, more than adequate protection. Again, these concerns were raised by colleagues. By the way, welcome to this committee, and welcome to the House of Commons.

Justice committee  It's a pleasure to have you. I know how hard it is to win an election, so you deserve every congratulation and your seat here. Well done.

Justice committee  —you can rely on the criminal law and common law definition of baiting as being an activity to induce the ire of an animal. Bear-baiting was a traditional activity that would be covered by baiting, whereas putting bait on a hook for the purposes of angling would not be. It's a different meaning, although the same word is used.

Justice committee  Yes, that is correct. I had said the word in French, harcèlement, which I think more adequately evokes the meaning that we want here, which is a way of provoking an animal to fight, as opposed to what is otherwise an enticement and a legitimate activity.

Justice committee  Well, by prohibiting it, that immediately gives police the power to stop it in a way they don't have now. They could do it with cockfighting, but they couldn't do it with other kinds of animal fighting. There was a study in Ontario in 2016, “Dogfighting: A Problem in Ontario?”, which began to draw the links between organized crime.

Justice committee  It certainly was. The U.K. has the same definition that sadly was the case in D.L.W., so the U.K. definition does require penetrative sexual activity for its definition of bestiality. The United States doesn't, so common law jurisdictions in the United States that have dropped the penetration requirement are therefore something closer to what we're moving to.

Justice committee  I mentioned in my opening remarks the Canadian violence link conference of 2017, which began to draw out some of the pre-existing data and research on that sort of thing. To put it quite simply, it's about vulnerability, and both children and animals are vulnerable. A sexual predator often will link both and will use animals as well as children for their own sexual gratification.