Justice committee  Thank you.

Justice committee  Good morning. Thank you. I am an animal protection lawyer and the executive director of Animal Justice. We work to ensure that animals have a voice in Canada's legal and political systems. We work with legislators and citizens to improve laws protecting animals and we push for t

Justice committee  I would certainly have fewer concerns with the existence of subsection 447(3) at all if that last part requiring their destruction were removed. I think the problem here is not that they're being seized, which I think is something that everybody supports, removing them from that

Justice committee  Right, to include dogs or other animals.

Justice committee  Where you're going with this makes a lot of logical sense. The distinction in this subsection of the Criminal Code between birds and other animals doesn't seem to cohere with the rest of what this committee, and this legislation, and what the Criminal Code itself say in distingui

Justice committee  There have been consultations and reports and draft legislation tabled and introduced and debated, including before this committee and in the Senate, repeatedly over the last 20 years. If you look at the history of those various pieces of animal cruelty legislation, what you see

Justice committee  We would absolutely support that type of approach. I think that having some body to examine these issues from a bird's eye view and to think more holistically about how we can integrate animal welfare and protection issues into many facets of our federal laws, not just the Crimin

Justice committee  To my knowledge, the only other provision that would be of assistance is that a period of probation could include a term that prevents a person from having contact with an animal during that period. I used to be a criminal lawyer, but it has been a few years. I believe that the m

Justice committee  I always think it's appropriate to give judges that discretion. If they think five years, 10 years or a lifetime is appropriate, I think that's right.

Justice committee  Right now, in a situation where there would be a bust of an animal-fighting ring—be it dogs or birds—what would typically happen is that police and/or the SPCA or humane society, usually working in partnership with each other for a larger bust in particular, would go into that si

Justice committee  That's right.

Justice committee  That's exactly right, Chair.

Agriculture committee  Good morning. Thank you for inviting me to appear. I am a lawyer and the executive director of Animal Justice, Canada's leading national animal law advocacy organization. Together with our tens of thousands of supporters, we work to improve laws protecting animals. This is a big

Agriculture committee  I grew up in rural Prince Edward Island, so I've been on plenty of farms.

Agriculture committee  No, I didn't grow up on a farm.