Cruelty to Animals

With the upcoming federal election, I was going to write about poverty in Canada and about where each party stood in addressing this issue. Then, a little innocent puppy was viciously shot on Quadra Island, and I was driven to write about the poverty of our souls in this country.

I have always been a great fan of Gandhi. Gandhi was a great soul, a practitioner of non-violence and truth and advocated that others do the same. He said the greatness of a nation, and its moral progress, can be measured by the way its animals are treated. There is just cause to conclude that our elected officials in Ottawa have lost their way on that moral compass and don’t measure up at all.

A recent report by the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) shows Canada has the worst animal cruelty laws among 14 countries surveyed, including the Ukraine and the Philippines. The law is 115 years old, is hopelessly outdated, and treats animals as property, like a car or your lawn furniture. So when you hurt or kill an animal, it is considered a property offense or vandalism. Tell that to the little kid on Quadra who vomited in horror at the sight of his puppy dying.

Crimes against police service animals are crimes against 'property'. To kill or injure a police service animal is a summary conviction punishable only by a fine. The same is said for all animals in Canada unless they are strays or orphaned. If they are not owned as property, they have no rights at all. Under current law in Canada less than 1/4 of 1% of people charged with animal abuse are actually punished.

Research has shown that in situations where animals are being abused or neglected, abuse is often happening to children and adults. Maybe this was enough to convince our leaders to tackle this issue head on.

On April 9th of this year, the government finally decided to do something about this situation and passed Bill S-213, despite the fact that not one single animal protection agency, veterinary association or grassroots humane society in Canada supported it. Over one hundred and thirty thousand Canadians signed a petition against this law.

MPs had to have been pretty clear on where Canadians stood on this issue. Since we are going to the polls again soon, those who disapprove of cruelty to animals may be interested in discovering how their MPs voted in April.

This bill maintained the same wording as the law from 1892 and continued to allow training for dog fights, continued to allow animal cruelty to be a property offense, and continued to make it difficult to prosecute cases of neglect or cruelty. All it did was increase penalties for the .04% who are convicted from a maximum of six months to five years in prison and increasing the potential fine from two thousand to ten thousand dollars. In addition, the courts could order the convict to pay for the cost associated with the animal's loss or injury. All but a few Liberals, all of the Conservatives and the Bloc supported Bill S-203 while the only party opposing it was the NDP.

Under current legislation, crimes of neglect are extremely difficult to punish appropriately. The wording of the current neglect offence uses the term “willful neglect”, which requires proof of a person’s intent. The requirement to prove that a person intended to neglect his or her animals or intend to harm them makes it extremely difficult to successfully prosecute. The current legislation does not address brutally or viciously killing an animal as a form of violence. For example, a Saskatchewan farmer allowed more than 30 of his sheep to starve to death and his other animals were emaciated. However, despite repeated interventions by the SPCA, the judge found him not guilty of willful neglect as he did not feel that the farmer intended to starve his animals.

A few years ago in Edmonton, two young men tied a dog to a tree and beat it to death with a baseball bat. Because the vet testified that the dog died instantly on the first blow, the men could not be convicted of causing unnecessary pain and suffering. They got off.

In February 2006, a Toronto Police Mounted Unit was deliberately, according to witnesses at the scene, struck by an irate driver who then fled the scene, leaving the officer and the horse in the roadway. The officer suffered neck, back and rib injuries, and was taken to hospital with non-life-threatening injuries. The horse, "Brigadier", a 7 year old Belgian-cross horse, suffering from massive traumatic injuries, had to be shot and killed, for humanitarian reasons, on the street, by officers at the scene. The driver was arrested and charged with Dangerous Operation Causing Bodily Harm and Fail to Stop at the Scene of an Accident Causing Bodily Harm. On January 15 2007 Dirk Sankersingh received a 2-year conditional sentence for 'dangerous operation causing bodily harm' and 'fail to stop at the scene of an accident causing bodily harm'. He got nothing for the death of Brigadier, the Toronto Police Service horse.
(see http://www.brigadierslaw.ca/)

That’ll teach ‘em.

Since 1999, some six different versions of animal cruelty legislation meant to amend the Criminal Code of Canada have been introduced in the House of Commons. All have died.

More comprehensive animal cruelty bills have been passed by Canada’s House of Commons twice in the past ten years, receiving the support of all political parties only to die in the Senate.

On June 4th, NDP Member of Parliament Penny Priddy tabled Bill C-558, a private member’s bill to amend the animal cruelty section of the Criminal Code. A Liberal Member of Parliament, Mark Holland has also worked hard to improve animal cruelty laws and get better legislation in place. This current bill introduces the term “negligent” and defines it as “departing markedly from the standard of care that a reasonable person would use.” It prohibits the killing of any animal (owned or stray) without a lawful excuse. (Lawful excuses include hunting, fishing, farming, euthanasia and self-protection.) Other provisions deal with aspects such as fighting and baiting. Perhaps best of all, C-373 moves these laws out of the property chapter of the Criminal Code, reflecting the contemporary view of animals as sentient beings, rather than possessions.

This bill received First Reading on June 4th and is due for second reading in the Fall. We need to stay on top of it and hold our elected officials accountable. It outlaws killing an animal brutally or viciously, whether or not the animal dies immediately. It recognizes the worth of our animal friends and that they are living beings who suffer, who feel pain and fear, who protect humans, who serve society, who offer unconditional love and companionship, who often save human lives, and who sometimes naively follow bad men down the road just to say hello
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