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Liberals propose bill on animal cruelty for fifth time

Barbara Yaffe
Vancouver Sun

Friday, May 27, 2005

The other day I said the word "bath" to Dickens, my four-year-old Yorkshire Terrier. He responded by scurrying under a chair in the front hallway.

I sat down beside the chair and we talked for a while about the concept of bathing. I told him him he'd feel better if he were clean, that I'd be careful to put lukewarm water in the tub and the whole thing would be over in five minutes.

He looked at me with his big baby browns, appearing to take in my assurances, and slowly emerged from under the chair with a posture of resignation. He proceeded to take the ensuing sudsing, rinsing and blowdrying like a St. Bernard.

With so many people owning pets, there's ever more awareness of animals' ability to think and feel, and it's hard to know where to draw the line on animal sensitivity.

If a dog understands the ups and downs of bath time, what does a cow feel while being trucked to a slaughterhouse in dark, hot, cramped confines?

The minority Liberals, who need to be extra vigilant these days about their standing, last week introduced yet another bill to toughen penalties for gratuitous animal cruelty.

This is the government's fifth such attempt. Four earlier bills since 1999 have died either due to Parliament proroguing or because of objections from senators fretting such a law might conflict with aboriginal hunting rights.

The latest bill introduced by Justice Minister Irwin Cotler mirrors earlier incarnations but adds a clause affirming native Indian constitutional rights, which of course includes the right to traditional hunting activity. Liberals hope this will be sufficient to satisfy obstreperous senators.

The new law would boost the maximum penalty for intentional cruelty from six months in prison to five years, and raise fines from a $2,000 maximum to $10,000. It would also remove a two-year time limit for prohibiting abusers from owning animals.

That said, it would continue to permit established endeavours like fishing and hunting, including the seal hunt, which sees the relatively unsupervised slaughter of animals as young as eight days old.

The new bill would have a better shot at success had it been introduced earlier, given that an election is in the offing some time in the next 10 months or so. But if passed, it will be interesting to see whether it can force greater respect for animals caught up in spectator sports like circuses and rodeos, where cruel practices are common.

Also noteworthy, to see whether the law would inspire a challenge to horrid conditions regularly encountered by farm animals.

Last year in Canada, for example, 2.3 million animals died in transit en route to slaughterhouses. Can you imagine conditions on the transport vehicles?

Certainly, improvement in farming and transport of animals flowing from animal cruelty legislation is what what Canadians for the Ethical Treatment of Food Animals will be hoping for. This little-known, Vancouver-based group has been quietly lobbying on behalf of farm critters since 1990 (www.cetfa.com).

It wants fewer factory farms and more family farms, where animals have a better chance of being treated more humanely and farming methods are easier on the environment.

Liberals propose bill on animal cruelty for fifth time

The group has little faith in the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, an Agriculture Ministry agency that in the past has exhibited a complete lack of concern for animal welfare.

This group, charged among other things with preventing BSE outbreaks, slaughtered a herd of healthy water buffalo in Duncan a few years ago because of an unfounded fear the animals carried BSE, while permitting practices that led to an actual BSE crisis in Alberta livestock.

The food inspection agency also "unnecessarily and inhumanely" killed thousands of healthy B.C. birds during last year's avian flu crisis, including exotic, rare and irreplaceable birds, Canadians for the Ethical Treatment of Food Animals says.

The group is sponsoring a film festival June 5 at the Vancouver East Cultural Centre, showing several documentaries about human attitudes toward animals. Short films will run during the afternoon and evening, at no charge to the public.

byaffe@png.canwest.com
© The Vancouver Sun 2005