Justice committee  No. I would say that's exactly how it happens. I think the important thing to note, too, is that there is the ability for restitution on behalf of the courts. It was something that we did manage to get updated back in the mid-2000s. There is a huge weight of cost, time and emoti

Justice committee  I think more needs to be taken into account in the actual enforcement of the laws. If the laws are strong for children and animals to protect them, then they will be effective. Where we see it falling apart is that our enforcement authorities aren't necessarily working together.

Justice committee  I think people like to hear the evidence; however, as I was saying earlier, we do have 50 years of evidence, and it's all around the world. I am pleased that Dr. Amy Fitzgerald is doing research here in Canada. I might add that research has brought forward the fact that hasn't b

Justice committee  That's a question as to what the root cause of violence is and I am probably not the best academic—I'm not an academic—to actually answer that question. I am also not a psychologist. So I can't answer on what the root cause of violence is.

Justice committee  Certainly. There has been about 50 years of research into the links, when an animal is suffering, with what is happening around that animal and the kind of suffering that happens there. A great deal of it has come out of the United States, until very recently. We now have a profe

Justice committee  We absolutely support it. There have been laws on the books protecting animals from cruelty since one year before Confederation. Nova Scotia had the first laws on the continent. It has long been an important part of Canadian values to protect animals. What we have seen over the

Justice committee  Yes, we are obviously supportive of an amendment that would prohibit anyone convicted of sexual assault of an animal no longer being able to be in contact with animals. As long as the offence stays in the sexual offences and the prohibition is put into 447(1) around the prohibiti

Justice committee  We are very supportive of the bill as it stands. While they are modest changes, the reason I focused on the word “modest” is it is something that all the stakeholders can easily get behind. Unfortunately, that is where many of the bills over the last 20 years have died. It's beca

Justice committee  We agree that it is unnecessary and inhumane to destroy animals on an order of law as opposed to individually assessing each animal, determining what kinds of welfare issues they have, and looking at humane euthanasia, if that's required, based on their injuries and based on the

Justice committee  Good morning, everyone. I am appearing before you today to express support for Bill C-84 on behalf of humane societies and SPCAs across the country and their millions of public supporters. Although our name is now Humane Canada, you may know us better as the Canadian Federation

Justice committee  Thank you.

Justice committee  Thank you very much for your question. There are, as I mentioned at the outset in my comments, definitely other weaknesses within the Criminal Code with regard to animal cruelty. Mr. Kaye mentioned having worked on trying to improve protection for police animals for a decade, an

Justice committee  Certainly the violence link, as it's commonly called, between people who commit acts of animal cruelty and people who commit acts of human cruelty is well established and has been well established in academic literature for quite some time. It is important to recognize that from

Justice committee  No. I think, based on Stephen's comments now, what we do have is how many animal cruelty cases happen and how often those animal cruelty cases are inflicted on a service animal or a police animal in the line of duty. I went through our database to try and pull that specific infor

Justice committee  Thank you. I have this lovely speech prepared but I must admit I find that the testimonies of the three esteemed people whom I have the pleasure and honour of sitting with are very impactful, so I might cut some of my stuff out to save going through what I could never possibly d