Justice committee  If I can respond to that, I don't know about that particular instance, if it was in Ontario, but we've been faced with similar issues in Ontario. Courts have felt that with the existing wording in the legislation, the issue of ownership implies the ability to do whatever you want

Justice committee  First of all, I agree that there would have to be a great many amendments to Bill S-203 to bring it up to date. For example, the use of the term “kept for a lawful purpose” gives a great deal of difficulty to enforcement officers. I'd like to see something that deals more specifi

Justice committee  In the interest of time, I think I'm just going to say that I agree with Ms. MacDonald's comments.

Justice committee  Absolutely.

Justice committee  Very true.

Justice committee  Certainly, and thank you for your question, because it gives me the opportunity to clarify that. I'm in the court quite a bit. In almost 31 years of being employed by the Ontario SPCA and about four years by the BCSPCA, I've laid many Criminal Code charges and provincial offence

Justice committee  They are in the province of Ontario.

Justice committee  The interesting thing, paralleling those statistics, is the fact that there are over 2,000 Ontario SPCA orders issued to animal owners in an attempt to improve animal welfare. Presumably, a ratio of those would be offences that could be charged if the wording were different in th

Justice committee  Probably, yes.

Justice committee  I agree with Shelagh MacDonald on that. Certainly, the Ontario SPCA supports Mr. Holland's bill and can't support Bill S-203 the way it is now. With its wording, we're still stuck with the same sections of the Criminal Code we've been struggling with for 115 years. I think the

Justice committee  There haven't been any specifically with regard to fighting. It's very, very difficult under the wording of the current legislation to get a conviction. An enforcement officer would literally have to burst in at the time the animals were fighting each other in order to get a conv

Justice committee  Are you referring to killing an animal without lawful excuse?

Justice committee  Not under that particular section, which says--

Justice committee  Yes.

Justice committee  I'm the chief inspector for the Ontario SPCA. It's the Ontario SPCA Act that creates the organization, and the position is an appointment by the board of directors.