Apr. 1, 2003. 01:00 AM

THOMAS WALKOM

Three years and two justice ministers later, Ottawa's animal cruelty bill is still stalled in Parliament. The hunting, farming and research lobbies chipped away at it in the Commons. Now, they are doing the same in the Senate.

So disillusioned are the bill's original sponsors that some are threatening to withdraw their support. The Canadian Federation of Humane Societies, one of the bill's strongest backers, now says that the version being contemplated by parliamentarians is so weak that, if implemented, it would be worse than the existing animal cruelty law, written in 1892.

The stated purpose of the proposed Criminal Code amendments, now renamed Bill C-10B, was twofold: To stiffen the maximum penalties for animal abuse (a $2,000 fine plus six months in jail) and bring the law up to date.

Given the number of shocking animal abuse cases - the cat tortured as a piece of video art, the herd of deer allowed to starve because their physician owner couldn't be bothered paying for feed - it seemed a no-brainer.

Who could object to a bill that would come down harder on those who commit such acts?

As it turned out, many could and many did. For there was a subtext to the bill.

That subtext has to do with how society views non-human animals. In fact, the problem with existing animal cruelty laws is not so much that maximum penalties are low but that the judicial system takes the offences so lightly that, even in the most horrifying of cases, these maximums are rarely applied.

In subtle ways, the animal cruelty bill was designed to address this. One was by making the point that animals, like humans, feel pain (indeed, animals are defined in the bill by their capacity to experience pain).

The other was a decision to move animal abuse out of the property section of the Criminal Code, in order to make the point that sentient beings differ from inanimate objects.

Or, to put it simply, there is a difference between taking a sledgehammer to your car just because you feel like it and doing the same to your cat.

At some level, this notion was already implicit in the 1892 legislation. But the bill's sponsors hoped to build on this, albeit without fundamentally altering the status of animals as chattel property.

In terms of the mid-19th century slavery debate, they would have counted not as abolitionists but improvers: Don't free the slaves; just treat them better. Yet, as the improvers of the 1850s found, those who interfere at all in a system that gives one group absolute dominion over another engender much hostility.

The animal industry is large and powerful. Although the bill would not outlaw livestock farming, the use of live animals in research, or hunting and fishing, all three lobbies were alarmed.

All appeared before the Senate legal affairs committee to explain that their members treat animals humanely but want to be exempted from the cruelty bill nonetheless.

The Poultry Welfare Coalition wanted an amendment to protect chicken farmers who might abuse their poultry. The Federation quebecoise de la faune wanted an exemption for hunters and anglers. The Canadian Cervid Council wanted an exemption for hunt farms, where sportsmen shoot penned elk and deer.

Similarly, the Canadian Council for Animal Care and the Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada requested exemptions for research labs that adhere to industry guidelines.

The Canadian Association of Fairs and Exhibitions told senators that the bill would interfere with "educational" activities such as alligator wrestling.

The Canadian Jewish Council and the Islamic Council of Imams joined forces to request exemptions for those who practise ritual slaughter. The Inuit Tapirist Kanatami wanted an exemption for Inuit, arguing that restrictions against treating animals in a "brutal or vicious manner" could interfere with traditional aboriginal hunting practices.

Senators were sympathetic. Sen. Serge Joyal recalled that as a child he had pulled the legs off grasshoppers and wondered if that practice would become illegal under the bill.

"We are living in an age of social engineering," fretted Sen. Anne Cools, noting that some people view "hunting and the use of firearms as negative and wrong."

Where does the animal cruelty bill go now? The Senate committee is preparing its recommendations, but Tanya O' Callaghan of the humane societies federation says her organization has almost lost hope.

It seemed so simple three years ago. Bill C-10B was never radical. When its opponents label it a plot by animal rights extremists, they are talking nonsense - and they know it.

But the long-running story of Ottawa's animal cruelty bill demonstrates that even the mildest legal reforms in human-animal relations will face implacable opposition. For the animal industries, this may represent a short-term victory. In the long term, however, they could end up encouraging the very radicalism they fear.

Thomas Walkom appears on Tuesday. twalkom@thestar.ca.

Toronto Coalition for Anticruelty Legislation