Mr. Peter MacKay (Pictou—Antigonish—Guysborough, PC)

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise and take part in this debate on behalf of the Progressive Conservative Party. I must say I have listened intently to all speakers on this bill. It has been a useful exercise to hear the various perspectives.

I think we would find almost to a person that the legislation will receive a great deal of support. However, one overriding issue in the government's decision to bring in this legislation is the fashion in which it has chosen to do so. As the previous speaker, my colleague from the New Democratic Party, indicated, this is really a cross-threaded bill. It is a bill that mixes issues that really do not belong together. Not to diminish at all the importance of this, I cite, as an example, that the only way in my mind that I can tie this bill together would be to suggest that somehow a person wrestled an unlicensed gun away from a police officer and used it to dispose of an animal in a cruel fashion.

These issues do not fit together in any semblance. Therefore, the bill should be divided and put into a more proper perspective, one Canadians would understand and appreciate in a more real way. In my submission it diminishes the importance of these individual issues to try to force them together and to force Canadians and parliamentarians to contemplate them at the same time.

The consolidation of the current criminal code with respect to the cruelty to animals provisions, which are put in place by the bill, are certainly those that are needed. They are needed to modernize the current law as it pertains to this aspect of justice. It is something that has emotional and visceral reactions from those in the private sector.

Obviously, there are concerns, which have been touched upon, that the bill might go too far in its definition of cruelty. I hope to touch on those issues with respect to a balance and the counter-arguments that have been brought forward by those in the hunting, fishing, angling and farming vocations. It may go too far in the responsibility that is attached, for example, to property owners. However, that is not to say that these issues cannot be addressed and ironed out at the committee, which is the proper and just fashion in which to do so. I say that, somewhat tongue in cheek, on the understanding that the committee will be given an opportunity to really debate and to put forward reasonable amendments that the government will be amenable to.

We know that has not been the case most recently. We saw an example of a bill, perhaps the most important bill in this session, being jammed through the committee without any discussion whatsoever or without any opportunity by opposition members to bring forward amendments. It will leave this place on a rocket. It will be pushed through with closure. While the government House leader used to stand on his desk and rail like a banshee against the prior government, he is now using these same tools, which were so offensive to him when he was in opposition, to do the same thing, only worse. The only real examination of the youth criminal justice bill will occur in the other place. It is encouraging to see that members of the reform alliance and the Bloc are so appreciative of the work that will be done in the other place and I look forward to their support.

Turning our attention to Bill C-17, the amendments to the criminal code will remove the reference to “illegitimate child” and ensure that the evidentiary protection afforded to other victims who testify at trials is also provided by some of the changes. Amendments with respect to persons with disabilities who have been victims of sexual exploitation are very important and practical changes. The Conservative Party is entirely supportive of these amendments.

With respect to the Firearms Act, the expansion of the class of recently prohibited handguns that are grandfathered and the changes to clarify the licensing requirements of employees in the firearms business are practical changes that are necessary and that arguably should have been in place in the first instance. Again, I hearken back to my earlier comments on what that has to do with cruelty to animals. What does it have to do with respect to changes to definitions in the criminal code? There is real confusion in the bill.

An omnibus bill is a hybrid that brings in several aspects of legislation that have no tie-in. What it does, in effect, is force divisions among all parties with respect to their ability to support certain issues, because there is no relation.

The cruelty to animals aspect is perhaps what is most prevalent and most controversial about the legislation. The Department of Justice reviewed provisions in 1998, and a consultation paper entitled “Crimes Against Animals” was distributed to allow groups and individuals to suggest modifications that would be required to deal effectively with cruelty to animals. No one in his or her right mind would oppose or in any way try to delay provisions that would protect harmless animals, in most instances, animals that are either in the wild or in captivity. These provisions in essence bring about a greater recognition, through the criminal code by sanctions, that this is something that society will not tolerate. This is an action that is abhorred and is certainly not acceptable.

It is, as was alluded to, something that changes the attitudes with respect to animals being deemed as property. The reasoning is of course that it is now recognized as a common symptom of a deeper mental illness. Individuals who involve themselves in cruelty to animals, as hon. members know, very often go on to involve themselves in other types of crime perpetrated against humans and property. It is seen as an escalation when a young person who is abusive to animals later goes on to commit crimes against other children and adults. There is an escalation of criminal behaviour when people start by abusing animals. There is mounting scientific evidence that verifies this link between animal abuse and, often, domestic violence and violence against other humans.

The public, the police and many interest groups have been calling for more effective federal legislation and federal law to deal with cases of animal abuse. There are numerous examples, too numerous to cite and often too heinous in their description, that verify and justify a change in the legislation.

Currently in cases such as we have seen, under the old provisions an offender could receive only six months in jail or a $2,000 fine. I would suggest that this is an inadequate response given the gravity and sometimes the symptoms and specific facts of a case. The old provisions did not truly express denunciation of and deterrence for those involving themselves with cruelty to animals. There was also a provision to have a ban on the ownership and possession of certain animals. That as well could be increased.

In this country we know there are still a lot of instances of animal fighting taking place. There are instances of animals such as racehorses and greyhounds used for racing being treated poorly in their confines.

Mr. Speaker, as a person who has followed criminal law, you well know that having legislation here sends an important message that raising the ceiling of the reaction of the criminal justice system will in fact change the attitude. It expresses the government's and the public's non-acceptance of cruelty.

The Minister of Justice has explicitly linked animal abuse to rape and to child abuse, citing U.S. studies which pointed out that those who torture animals are more likely to involve themselves in similar cruel activities. I agree with the minister. There is mounting evidence that this type of mindset has to be disavowed. Serial killers such as Jeffrey Dahmer, who brutally dismembered humans and even practised cannibalism, abused animals as a child, so again there is some suggestion that this type of mindset develops very early. Increased sentences with an increased response from the criminal justice system is something that the Progressive Conservative Party would support.

The sentencing changes, depending on the charge, are anywhere from two years' imprisonment to a maximum of five years when the crown proceeds by indictment, or six to eighteen months or a fine of not more than $2,000 when it is a summary charge. This is certainly more representative of a deterrent type of response.

Further changes also involve payment of additional costs incurred for the care and convalescence of an animal. Payment would be made to any individual or organization that cared for the animal and would include such things as veterinarian's bills and shelter. Again, this is a direct correlation between the harm done and the person who perpetrated the offence. It brings about greater accountability and greater direct responsibility and, I would suggest, is more demonstrative of condemning the action. It gives the person a greater understanding of the harm done. The same principle is behind restorative justice. It is a more personal connection between the offender and the unlawful act. These are positive steps, which our party supports.

However, we need to study the bill closely at committee so that we do not in some instances potentially criminalize farmers, hunters, trappers or fishermen engaged in their normal way of life. Presently the bill is loosely worded in some of the provisions. Some of the amendments that will be required would tighten this up and would make it more operable in a practical sense.

Under the proposed legislation farmers feel that they could be prosecuted for common practices such as branding or dehorning of cattle. Castration of cattle would be another element we will have to discuss at the committee.

Some anglers are convinced that fishermen could be charged with regard to tactics including baiting. This proposed legislation would surely be a real impediment to fishermen who need to bait hooks in order to catch fish.

The Canadian Jewish Congress has expressed worry that Bill C-17 might interfere with Jewish ritual slaughter methods.

Biomedical researchers are worried that their work might also lead to criminal prosecution.

There are instances that we have to turn our minds to. That discussion should properly take place at the committee.

Some of the groups have requested that the language in the legislation be clarified, particularly with interpretations of phrases such as these I am quoting from the bill: “unnecessary pain, suffering or injury” and “brutally or viciously” killing an animal.

They want some protection from other practices. I am quoting some examples from the correspondence that I received, such as: identification, medical treatment, spaying or neutering; provision of food or other animal products; hunting, trapping, fishing and other sporting activities conducted in accordance with the lawful rules relating to them; pest, predator or disease control; protection of persons or property; scientific research unless the risk of injury or serious physical pain is disproportionate to the benefit expected from the research; and finally, training and disciplining of an animal.

There certainly is a great deal to contemplate when we are considering this legislation. Poisoning of an animal or using a mousetrap, potentially, not to put too fine a point on it, is something we have to consider when putting provisions into a criminal code that could cause serious ramifications for an individual. It is the same sort of thing as creating any kind of new offence.

That leads me to the point with respect to changes to the Firearms Act. We know now that as of December 1 law-abiding citizens who have properly licensed themselves, who have properly licensed handguns in the past, who have been through training sessions and who have done everything in accordance with the law, would become criminals simply not by licensing a long gun. We have to be very careful when we go down the path of criminalizing ordinary citizens. That is without getting into all the other ludicrous aspects of this long gun registry, which is costing hundreds of millions of dollars and will not affect dangerous crime at all.

The existing legislation touches as well on some traditional practices of hunting, fishing and farming. Yet they do not fit into the category of mean-spirited violence. It is imperative that animal cruelty legislation be clearly designed to target only those who engage in brutal practices against animals.

The justice minister has been contemplating an amendment that would exempt farmers, hunters and animal researchers from the bill. A change is certainly needed to provide legal security for lawful practices of animal related professions.

One must consider the genuine need for clarity and progressive legislation in this area. It is careless legislation that endangers individuals and that is something that I think most Canadians find very disheartening. It is obvious that little consideration was given to the broad effect of this bill and the impact it may have on certain professions. Discouraging as well is the lack of foresight, in that this bill was brought forward in an omnibus fashion and it deals with many other issues that confuse these important issues.

The elements of the bill that touch upon disarming of a police officer have also been given a fair bit of discussion and contemplation. I would suggest that this is one aspect that is very straightforward. It is one that has the enthusiastic and overriding support of police across the country and of many groups. I know that Grant Obst, the president of the Canadian Police Association, Dave Griffen, the executive director, and supporters of the association, who were here on the Hill this past weekend participating in the police memorial service, are very enthused that the government has chosen to bring this legislation forward. It is something they have lobbied for. It is something that they feel will have an immediate impact.

It goes without saying that it is very important to give specific recognition in the criminal code with regard to a person in an agitated state trying to take a weapon from a police officer. Any time there is a firearm or a weapon involved there is the imminent chance of bodily harm; there is the imminent chance that a person could lose his or her life. If a person chooses to try to disarm a police officer, for whatever reason, there is grave danger afoot.

We know that oftentimes a police officer using a weapon is doing so in the gravest circumstances, in order to try to de-escalate or control a situation. There is grave danger and harm when a person tries to interfere with a police officer, either by taking his weapon or by interfering in the use of a weapon by a police officer.

The Progressive Conservative Party is very supportive of this particular legislation. It is something that we feel is necessary to send a strong message to the public and a strong message to those who would engage in that type of serious, dangerous conduct. Police officers themselves, I think, will receive some comfort in knowing that it is a bill that will give specific recognition to that offence in the criminal code.

If officers are deprived of their weapons or are unable to carry out arrests effectively, it very much interferes with their important work. This new section does define weapon for the purposes of subsection (1) as “any thing that is designed to be used to cause injury or death to, or to temporarily incapacitate, a person”, and would include such things as firearms, obviously, and pepper spray and batons. It is deemed a hybrid offence. It has a maximum penalty of five years imprisonment and the crown of course can elect to proceed by indictment or by summary conviction.

As I alluded to, the president of the Canadian Police Association, Grant Obst, and his organization initiated this process and have been leading the proposed movement to bring about this specific offence. They “welcome the introduction of this new law and encourage its speedy passage by parliament”. Those are very supportive sentiments. Those sentiments are shared by the Progressive Conservative Party. We will be supporting this aspect of the bill.

Although the government could certainly do more for police, particularly in the areas of funding, speedy passage of legislation as it pertains to criminal gangs and organizations, and the seizing of stolen property, I would suggest that this is an important, practical response to a need that exists, a response to a void that exists in the criminal code.

There are other amendments that I spoke of earlier with respect to the definition of child. Removing the negative and unnecessary connotations that stem from the term illegitimate child is something that I think is certainly politically correct but it is also something that is important to those individuals born out of wedlock who have carried this unfortunate moniker.

With regard to sexual exploitation of persons with a disability, adding this to the criminal code is a specific recognition in language. Again, it is something that I feel is important not only to the legal community but to those who for reasons not brought about by themselves find themselves deemed persons with disabilities who are in the court system and are faced with these types of designations. I feel that victims of sexual exploitation will receive and should receive the same evidentiary protections that are afforded to others. Again, this is a very practical and common sense amendment that takes place in the criminal code, one we are completely supportive of and embrace in this legislation.

The technical amendments for the firearms are straightforward. They deal with licensing requirements. I think the employees and businesses that deal with these regulated items are supportive of this for the most part. It is legislation that should have and could have been included in the original bill, as unpopular as that bill was. This aspect was left out. For employees who handle or could handle firearms or prohibited or restricted weapons or prohibited devices of any kind, it brings about, in the course of duty, requirements for being authorized and licensed with respect to restricted weapons. These proposed amendments set out similar licensing requirements that pertain to others who handle firearms.

Again I would suggest that although it is necessary, it is certainly an indication that the government was somewhat negligent in its initial drafting and that it is backpedalling on other aspects of the bill.

We have seen now that the government is extending the dates with respect to the fees associated with licensing. The legislation is something that will continue to be contentious and could well wind up as an election issue in the coming days or weeks when the Prime Minister and his spouse decide to pull the plug.

Overall we are supportive of most aspects of the legislation singularly. However, we are forced to deal with them jointly in the legislation because of the manner in which it has been brought forward. As I have indicated in my remarks, there are very positive and very practical elements to all of this. It is just unfortunate that the government has chosen to bring about legislation in this way and to do so in such a fashion.

One might also question the priority given to the bill. This is not to diminish the importance of any element of the legislation, but we also have important legislation that would offer tax relief and legislation aimed at bringing about or trying to fulfil a promise the government made seven and a half years ago to redraft and rework the youth criminal justice act. That simply has not come about because the government does not like to compromise.

The government does not like to work with the opposition even when there are reasonable requests and reasonable efforts made to improve government bills, or ideas that originate on the opposition side as we have seen in many instances. The government's response is usually not to embrace those ideas but to reject them in the first instance, and then in a very Janus faced fashion turn around and call them its own. We have seen that happen on many occasions. That is the Janus-like persona of the government.

We have seen it on free trade. We have seen it on the GST, privatization, helicopters, and the Pearson airport. The government said one thing in opposition. Then, lo and behold, when it was rewarded by the electorate for making these statements it crossed the floor, formed the government and reversed itself, swallowed itself whole and condemned the very ideas it purported to support when in opposition.

This is something for contemplation by the electorate, something that no doubt will be discussed and debated during the course of a campaign. Although I do not hear much hue and cry from the opposition to rush headlong to the polls, it is quite obvious that the Prime Minister feels it is to his optimum advantage at this time. Therefore, with his persona, he is very quick to use that advantage.

Canadians will have to assess whether it was necessary. They will have to assess the timing of it. They will also want to assess his record. They will want to assess what accomplishments he can point to in his government's mandate in the short time it has been here, just over three years since the last election.

The bill has provided the impetus for Canadians to hear from members of the opposition what they think of the legislation. Also it is an opportunity to talk generally about the government, its mandate, its priorities, and to assess whether those priorities are in line with those of Canadians who are suffering at this time because of problems with health care and in the education system.

My colleague from Madawaska—Restigouche talks often about student debt, individuals with seasonal employment situations who are struggling to get by and to feed their families, and individuals across the country who find themselves mired in the justice system because the wheels of justice turn so slowly.

Perhaps there will be more time on other occasions to discuss these greater issues, but at this time the Progressive Conservative Party looks forward to dealing with the bill at committee level and dealing with the other issues in a more comprehensive fashion at some time in the near future.

Mr. Bill Gilmour (Nanaimo—Alberni, Canadian Alliance)

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to Bill C-17, an act to amend the criminal code regarding cruelty to animals, disarming a peace officer and other amendments, and technical amendments to the Firearms Act.

We have heard a number of people in various parties talk about this omnibus bill. We have had this before. The government will introduce a bill with some good points, some points that require discussion, and some points that we do not agree with. Then people have difficulty understanding what is the issue since there is such a grab bag of different subjects.

In this bill disarming a police officer is lumped in with cruelty to animals. It would be far easier if we could get a very straightforward bill dealing with one issue. We could then discuss it, deal with it and get it through the House. When it is such an omnibus bill containing a grab bag of different issues it is extremely difficult because there are some good and bad points and it is either yea or nay.

We agree with the Firearms Act refinements. We agree with the disarming of police officers issue. They are good points. The government should be commended for putting them in the bill. These are issues that people have been crying for for years to be dealt with. Police officers particularly have been wanting the legislation in place. I agree with it. However, by lumping cruelty to animals into the bill the waters get muddy because there are no clear definitions.

We hope we can get the bill into committee where we can discuss it. Most of us agree that cruelty to animals is simply not on. We have read the stories of the puppy mills. We have heard of 50 or 100 cats being in one house. Obviously we disagree with that. I have seen horses and cows in some barns where they are slowly growing up to the roof because the manure gets two and three feet high and people do not clean the barns. We clearly do not want to put up with that.

The difficulty occurs when it gets into ordinary agriculture practices like branding, dehorning and hunting. The definitions in the bill have to be laid out specifically for hunters and fishermen. What about aquaculture? The legislation is so loose that we need to step forward in committee to bring forth some clear and solid definitions. We need some tight legislation that lays it all out. Let me take trapping, for example. Leghold traps were banned. We have humane trapping. Perhaps that is in the bill; perhaps it is not. We need to have that cleared up.

When people abuse animals is it the start of a chain of events? Do they start by kicking a dog? Five years later are they kicking a person? Fifteen years later are they kicking their wives? Psychologists say this progression exists. We need to look at it. If cruelty to animals is the beginning of a long chain of events, it has to be stopped.

We have talked many times about wording in legislation. Often the government will leave it very loose. This is extremely dangerous because we are leaving our laws open to interpretation by the courts. We have an option as parliamentarians. We can leave it loose to be interpreted by the courts, or we can tighten it up and say what we mean. In that way we as the elected people in the House would say the way it should be. We are the elected officials. We should deal with the legislation, make it concise and make it tight so there is not a lot of room for the judicial system and it knows exactly what parliament means.

That is what we need. The bill is fuzzy in terms of agriculture. What is abuse? What is cruelty? What is a regular practice? Unless it is clearly defined we will leave it up to the courts again.

This is not where we want to be. This is not where the Canadian public wants to be. They want parliament to run the country, not push it off to the judiciary.

In closing, we agree with a number of parts of the bill such as the firearms aspects, but there are a number of concerns in the cruelty to animals area we wish to discuss. We would like to get the bill into committee, call witnesses, hear from the experts, see how tight is the legislation, and deal with it at that time.

Mr. Dale Johnston (Wetaskiwin, Canadian Alliance)

Mr. Speaker, I listened to my colleague speak about the cruelty to animals aspect of the legislation. Certainly I agree with his assessment that those who inflict cruelty on innocent, defenceless animals should be dealt with.

However, I am wondering about the definition of what causes pain and suffering. Would my colleague like to comment on the concern I hear from people in the agricultural community I represent that common practices with livestock, such as dehorning and castration of bulls and branding for identification, may be construed as cruelty to a defenceless animal?

In order to carry out these operations on farm animals, we have to restrain them in such a way that the operation can be done and the brand is readable. In the part of the country I come from the hot iron brand is still very much a legal way of identifying our livestock. It is the one permanent method that works. Ear tags and such things are ways of identifying cattle as well, but even the application of an ear tag on an animal may be construed as cruelty to animals under the bill. I am extremely concerned about that and would like to voice the concerns of constituents that have talked with me in this regard. Would my colleague like to comment?

Mr. Bill Gilmour

Mr. Speaker, my colleague has had representation from people in his riding. I suspect most members in the House have heard the same representations as well as different concerns about different aspects.

My colleague made an excellent point. This matter has to be dealt with in committee. We need to hear from the agricultural groups. Different representations need to be made.

What happened in the past? Let us look at the Inuit. Let us look at what we have done to their livelihood by the change in the fur industry. It changed a whole way of life. If we act in a knee-jerk fashion in terms of this legislation, if we act without knowing the full impact of the legislation, we can change the lives of our agriculture people.

I agree with my colleague that we have to get the experts and all worker groups together. If a common practice for farmers sounds nice to people living in Toronto or Vancouver, we may want to have a second look at it since people in the cities tend not to understand what goes on in rural areas. A knee-jerk reaction may end up doing great harm to the hunting, farming, trapping and fishing.

I cannot stress more that the bill has to go to committee to be well analyzed. Experts will appear before the committee to describe the ramifications of the different parts of the bill.

Mr. Ken Epp (Elk Island, Canadian Alliance)

Mr. Speaker, I am honoured to stand in the House of Commons to speak to Bill C-17. I echo some of the comments made by previous speakers who decry the system of having an omnibus bill that covers a whole bunch of things. It always reminds me of being offered a bowl of pudding that has a little gravel in it. It is nice eating the pudding, but when one chews on a piece of gravel it hurts.

There are a number of things in Bill C-17 that quite obviously need substantial change, substantial improvement. In the end, as is the process in this parliament and by this Liberal government, we will have the task of voting yes or no on a bill containing a number of things. It will then be thrown back at us in a very negative way, because we voted against the bill for a completely different reason.

With an election coming up, one cannot help but think the worst twist will be put on some of the things people do in the House in order to try to discredit them. That is very unfortunate. The Canadian public, the people who vote for us, should certainly have the right to know about these issues and should know our stand on them. We should not have accusations thrown at us. If I vote against the bill for such-and-such a reason, it is not fair of my critics to turn around and say “Well, here is a person who voted against this” and then name one of the really good things in the bill.

For example, I do not think one should normally be opposed to provisions that prevent a peace officer from having his firearm taken from him or her. If, in doing his or her job in maintaining the peace, a policeman or policewoman gets into a scuffle with and is disarmed by an individual who is committing an offensive act, the particular individual should be eligible for a charge of disarming a police officer. Yet if I vote against the bill because of other offensive clauses then in the next election campaign probably one of my critics will say the RCMP should not vote for those guys because they do not support their keeping their firearms. That really clouds the issue and unfortunately does not serve the Canadian public well. Nor does it serve parliament well.

I wish that we could have a greater clarity, or at least that the government would have some openness to accepting some amendments to fix things up. It is our party's intention to propose a number of amendments to the bill in order to correct some of the anomalies in it.

By the way, speaking of firearms and officers being deprived of them, I wonder whether the federal government would be guilty of a crime if the bill is passed. The bill says it will be unlawful to separate a police officer from the weapon the police officer has in order to do his or her job of protecting the peace and maybe arresting a person. It just so happens that the attorney general's department is already disarming these people.

It happens that very close to my riding, just about a mile or so outside the boundary of my riding, is a federal institution, the Edmonton institution. I have had some representation from people who work as guards at the Edmonton institution. They are being disarmed while they take dangerous offenders out on day parole. They are not permitted to take their arms with them while they are trying to protect the public from harm by a dangerous offender. The offence an ordinary citizen could be found guilty of with this law, which we support, is an offence that is already being committed by the attorney general's department in our maximum security prisons. That is just not acceptable. We would all agree that our peace officers should be allowed to use arms in their work, especially if they are trying to control a convicted offender who is dangerous to the public. To say that somehow the public safety is increased by disarming the police officer just does not make sense to me at all. The bill does not address that question. I am just using it as an example.

In the bill there is a very great curiosity with respect to cruelty to animals. There are already provisions with respect to wilful cruelty to animals, but the bill proposes to move the section that covers cruelty to animals to the same section of the criminal code that deals with sexual offences, public morals and disorderly conduct.

It just so happens that nowadays sexual offences, public morals, and disorderly conduct are areas in which, statistically speaking, it is easier to make charges stick than it is in some of the other areas. There is a concern that by just having this in this section perhaps Canadians who are charged under these offences would have greater difficulty defending against unfair charges.

The objective in our justice system should be, but I am not sure that it is under this government, to make sure that those who are in fact guilty of a crime are so found and that an adequate deterrent punishment is meted out to them. If a person is not guilty of the crime with which he or she is charged, if our justice system is working correctly the charges should be dropped or the person should be found not guilty. Hopefully that person could go on with his or her life, having established his or her innocence. That would be the objective in an ideal world.

We all know that in the give and take in a court trial sometimes the truth is actually somewhat muddied in order to make a point as, I might venture to say, is sometimes done in the House.

It is interesting that a word is being taken out, a very important word. Words are so important in giving definitions. In the old code one would be guilty if one wilfully caused cruelty to animals. The word wilfully is being withdrawn. That raises many questions that we need to have answers to.

It is one thing for an Archie Bunker type of guy to come into the house and kick his dog as he opens the door. That is wilful. However, what happens if he walks in and does not see the dog and accidentally hits it? Is he still charged with having kicked the dog? No longer was it wilful according to the act, but he did kick the dog. That is true. He cannot say truthfully “No, I did not kick the dog”, but the fact of the matter is, he did not see the dog so it was an accident. I know that should be a valid defence and hopefully it would be kicked out. The fact of the matter is that with the word wilful having been removed all of that is put into doubt.

I do not think we should go down that road. It is a dangerous road because it makes it more difficult for an innocent person to defend himself or herself against a charge for an act that in fact was accidental.

It is interesting also that other definitions are changed in subtle ways. It used to be that persons could be held responsible if they owned an animal or if they had charge of it, as in when they were transporting it. It seems to me that according to the bill it could apply now to any animal at all that crossed a person's path.

I had a very interesting occurrence in my riding earlier this spring. I was driving along a major highway and there was a big truck behind me. It was not a semi; I think it was probably a farm truck. As I was driving along, lo and behold I saw ahead of me a mother duck with six or eight of her little ducklings start to cross the road. I faced a real dilemma right there, because I am one who would not in any way wilfully harm any animal. Of course these little ducklings were so cute besides. It is always difficult when one looks at a mother and her little children. I faced a dilemma. Do I jam on the brakes and risk having the truck run into the back of me, or do I just carry on and run over this mother duck and her little ducklings?

The story has a happy ending. I was able to slow down. I flashed my lights so that the truck behind me had fair warning. I gauged it so that I would not slow down so rapidly that the truck behind me had no capability of stopping before he was into my back end. I just judged it as well as I could and slowed down as much as I could, giving the trucker as much warning and as much distance as possible. Fortunately mother duck, seeing us bearing down on her and her family—

Mother Goose.

Mr. Ken Epp

No, it was mother duck. She said to her children “We had better wiggle our tails and get out of here”. With that they put it in hypergear and away they went. I was able to move over to the shoulder to give them a little space. The truck behind me did not have to do that. All their little lives were spared.

That of course is the object. What we are dealing with in the criminal code is people who do not have a built-in care and compassion for life, whether it is animal life or human life. That is what the criminal code is about. If all of us cared about each other, we would not need the criminal code. We would not need a codification of what happens if a person beats someone up, if someone is brutally assaulted or killed. We would not need those codes because people would not do it. Obviously the purpose of the law is to restrain those who do not have that built-in moral code and who would act on their own accord wilfully against other forms of life.

I will digress for a second. One of the definitions is that an animal is, according to these amendments, to be defined as a vertebrate or any animal that can feel pain. I guess we have a bit of a question there. One of the things I remember doing when I was a youngster is going fishing with my dad. I do not do it any more now. I do not have any time and I have lost interest in it. Many people either make their livelihood by fishing or do sport fishing.

I remember when I was a youngster we went down to a little lake south of the place where we lived. Every once in a while my dad would reward us for working hard on the farm. He would say “Tomorrow we will take a day off and go fishing”. The first thing we did was go out to the garden and dig up some worms. I remember it well. The object was to have a little pail of live worms in dirt, and off we went to the lake.

I hope you do not mind my relating this story, Madam Speaker. It is rather gruesome.

When we got to the lake, we put those poor little live worms on the hook. We impaled them on the hook. I do now know whether the poor little worms are animals capable of feeling pain. I did not hear any of them scream, but I have never heard a worm scream in any case. I do remember that the tail wiggled when we impaled the head end on the hook so maybe there was a response to pain. We know that a worm is not a vertebrate, but it is an animal that can probably feel pain. According to the definitions in the bill, the question is, should a person who goes fishing be charged with cruelty to earthworms?

Speaking of earthworms, I remember that when I was a biology student in high school and university we dissected worms and frogs. We all did that. It is part of learning how the physiology works. We took them apart to see their different parts and to learn about the different bodily functions. We all know that medical students do this extensively in order to become good at what they are to do, which is to help us when we have an illness or injury.

Is that a cruelty? I can imagine some people saying it is pretty cruel to anesthetize a frog into oblivion so that it can be used as a research tool. Let us go one step further. How about the animals that are used in live research? Monkeys are used to duplicate some of the illnesses that befall human beings to see whether various treatments work on them. Rats and guinea pigs are used, as are other animals. Is that cruel or is it not?

Certainly we do not support being wilfully cruel to an animal, but to use an animal for legitimate scientific and medical research surely cannot be wrong. It is an advantage to us in the human realm. By taking out the word wilfully we have opened up a large question. Even with the word wilfully one could have argued that perhaps this was cruelty but now it makes it worse. We should not be getting into the area of making it more difficult for people to do legitimate scientific research even though there are arguments to be made for treating these animals very humanely, as humanely as possible. I agree with that because it is not always humane.

When I see the phrase that the animal is one that can perceive pain, I am reluctant to give this example, but I think I must. We have that very sad case in Canada that a human is not considered a human until it is fully born. One really needs to ask whether in late term abortions of human beings, that unborn human, one minute before it is naturally born, is capable of perceiving pain. In my opinion, there is no cover in our criminal code against that criminal offence any longer. That is perhaps an error that is of considerable consequence.

Madam Speaker, you have given me the signal that my time is up. I am certainly not finished talking about this topic. There are many other areas to discuss but I close by appealing to the Liberal government to change the way it works in committees. I appeal to the government to give careful thought to and actually assent to the amendments we will be bringing forward to correct some of these anomalies. Doing that would make the legislative process work so much better on behalf of Canadians.

Mr. Dale Johnston (Wetaskiwin, Canadian Alliance)

Madam Speaker, I was very interested in my neighbour's speech. Our constituencies share a boundary so I know that his constituents and background are somewhat similar to mine.

I was very interested to hear him say that the words wilful and wilfully have been removed from the bill. Anyone who wilfully inflicts pain or suffering on animals, whether it is wilful or whether it is through negligence, should suffer some sort of punishment because they ought to know better.

I listened to other members today who talked about the possibility that those who abuse animals and treat them badly are also likely to be the sort of people who abuse and treat human beings badly. I agree. I think there is a correlation between the two. I also think that wilful neglect, damage, or even neglect because a person did not know any better, should be penalized.

I would like my colleague to expound on how he feels about livestock producers who fail to adequately care for and feed their livestock and therefore cause them to emaciate and die of starvation. I would like him to comment on another practice. Where he and I come from rodeos are a big thing in the summertime. Does the use of animals in a rodeo constitute neglect or wilful harm?

Mr. Ken Epp

Madam Speaker, my colleague raises a number of important questions.

Certainly I would concur with him 100% that if a person wilfully causes discomfort and pain to an animal just for the sake of causing the pain, it is very serious. I would suggest that the person needs not only punishment from our criminal justice system but we should also arrange for that person to get psychological and perhaps even psychiatric help. There is something wrong with a person who gets his or her jollies by inflicting pain on an animal or another human being. There is a deep psychological problem there.

With respect to what I call the normal use of animals, and I am talking about farmers and, to a certain degree, animals that are used in entertainment, in circuses and rodeos and so on, I do not think the animals in those contests endure any greater pain than do our athletes in the Olympics in most instances. They run, jump, kick and do whatever they have to do.

Having grown up on a farm, I have seen horses without a rider engage in races. They love doing it, especially the little colts. Many of us have seen that. They will take off and run to the other fence to see which one can get there first, just like kids do. There is nothing wrong with our getting enjoyment out of that, certainly within the context of humane treatment.

A number of years ago I spoke to one of my friends who owned a very large pork operation. He owned little piglets. The building had several wings; it was like a hospital or a factory. There was a breeding section and a maternity section. The little guys moved through the different wings in the building, down to the end where they came to the finishing wing, after which they were hauled into the truck and taken off to market.

One critic said it was a cruel way to treat those animals. He responded by saying “These animals are treated better than a lot of humans. I give them total care. Their house has air conditioning, mine does not. It has temperature and humidity controls. They have balanced and very healthy diets. If they have an illness, at great expense to myself, I have a veterinarian on call 24 hours a day who gives them better care than does the health care system in Saskatchewan”.

We need to remember that this is part of the food cycle. It has always been thus. I do not think we can turn it around. Certainly, as my friend does we can provide for those animals, treat them humanely, and cause them absolutely no unnecessary suffering. It was the first time ever that I had actually seen a guy pet his little pigs. He took good care of them. As I say, it is part of the reality, and from thence comes the bacon to go with our eggs.

Mr. Gurmant Grewal (Surrey Central, Canadian Alliance)

Madam Speaker, the hon. member for Elk Island is a veteran member of the House. He has given a very interesting speech with very interesting answers to the questions, but a question still remains in my mind. I would like him to clarify.

How do we define cruelty? It is a relative term. For some people some things are not cruel whereas for others they are. There are cattle farmers whose livelihood depends upon killing animals for meat and other purposes. There are other activities such as sports, the circus or rodeo, which are simply for the sake of fun but which cause pain, suffering and injury to animals.

How would the member define cruelty? Would he agree that it is a relative term and that it is not defined in the bill at all?

Mr. Ken Epp

Madam Speaker, again it is a question that is almost impossible to answer. What is cruelty?

I am not into this at all but I understand there are some people who experience pleasure in pain. There are special names for them, sadists and masochists. The line between pain and pleasure is really blurred there. Like I said, I am not into that at all but I can see where there would be a pretty lively debate on whether or not something is painful.

I grew up on a farm in Saskatchewan. Dad used to get us up early in the morning. When the sun came up, he would say “The Lord put the sun in the sky as a light for us to work. It would be a shame for us to waste it”. We got up early in the morning and worked until late at night. We were hot and sweaty and had chaff all over us. Someone who has never worked under those conditions just does not value a shower at all. There is nothing compared to the pleasure of a shower at the end of a day like that.

In a way it was painful. It was hard work. Sometimes we hurt at the end of the day from the physical exertion we had put out. Nowadays there is a lot more mechanization in farming. It was painful, yet it was pleasurable.

Of course the courts are going to have to rule on whether something is cruel to animals. As I said before, I have actually only been to a few rodeos in my life. The only one I wonder about is the calf roping. Sometimes it looks like they get jerked pretty good, yet I have never ever seen one having to be taken off in a truck. They always survive. They seem to be built for it.

My own opinion would be that most rodeos and circuses are well within the bounds of treating animals humanely. That is my own opinion. We need to keep it all in balance. As I said before, in all cases wilfully causing an animal pain is not permitted.

Just in passing, one more example is the training of animals, whether it be dogs or horses. Anyone who has ever done this knows it is done by a combination of reward and punishment. A small amount of pain is inflicted on the little dog who does his doody-doo where he is not supposed to do his doody-doo. Eventually he learns and becomes a trained dog, and we like him. As long as he does his thing all over the house, we do not like him. We all experience a bit of pain in that regard.

Mr. Dale Johnston (Wetaskiwin, Canadian Alliance)

Madam Speaker, as usual, my colleague from Elk Island has been very insightful and rather entertaining. I expected when he was telling us about coming down the road and seeing the mother duck that he could actually hear her say to her little ones “duck”, but I guess he left that part out.

The other day I was driving home in broad daylight on a country road that was not very wide. There was some extremely tall grass in the ditch. A deer jumped out of the ditch and I collided with it. It was totally an accident. I am sure I inflicted some pain and suffering on that deer. I am also convinced that the deer inflicted some pain and suffering on me, because I had to repair the automobile afterwards. I had to do it quickly before my wife inflicted pain and suffering on me, because it was her car.

I am looking at the bill and I am wondering if I might be guilty of inflicting pain. If someone had come along they would have seen me strike that deer. I frankly did not see the deer leave, because it rode up over the front end of my wife's car and landed behind the back door. By the time I got the vehicle stopped and got out of the car, the deer had vanished. Although I was not going very fast, it does take a few seconds to get the car stopped. I was not able to assess whether it limped away or whether it bounded off, but I am quite sure that at 60 kilometres an hour, which was about the speed I was travelling, striking a deer with a car that weighs 4,000 pounds would certainly inflict some harm on it and some pain, maybe even break some bones. I do not know.

Under the bill, would I be guilty of inflicting pain on that animal? That is one of the reasons it is so important that we keep the words wilful or wilfully in the bill.

There are many other aspects to the bill. It also deals with the disarming of a police officer and technical amendments to the Firearms Act. I frankly do not have any argument with that. I think that the disarming of a police officer, if it has not been in the code all these years as a specific crime, certainly should have been. We have to give our police officers the tools to do their job. We must respect our police officers for the job they do. Anyone who attacks a police officer should suffer the full wrath of the law. I am also talking about trying to disarm the police officer, take away his firearm.

I have no problem with the technical amendments to the Firearms Act. They seem fairly reasoned and commonsensical. On the other hand, other aspects of the bill lack that elusive quality of common sense.

Coming from a farming community, I see all sorts of things. Normally our livestock producers take the very best care of their livestock. It is in their best interest to do so because this is their livelihood. This is their living. Occasionally we hear reports on the radio or on the television stating that in such-and-such an area several head of cattle, hogs or whatever had to be humanely disposed of because they were in such a bad state of emaciation from lack of feed or they had been hauled in a truck that was so cold they had frozen spots on their carcasses. That is an offence that absolutely should be punished. There is no rationale whatsoever for causing undue suffering to defenceless animals.

Therefore I am making the case that wilful negligence should be taken into consideration, whether it is inflicting wilful suffering and pain or whether it is done through lack of knowledge or lack of attention. If someone knew or should have known those conditions would bring suffering and pain to an animal, livestock, pet, cat, dog or whatever, it would be very difficult for them to defend their position in a court of law. Those individuals should in all instances be found guilty of cruelty to animals.

I mentioned earlier agriculture and rodeos. I certainly do not support blood sports such as dog fighting, rooster fighting, or bear baiting, the old idea of putting a bear in the ring to kill dogs or turning dogs on the bear simply to entertain people who watch the fight. None of that makes any sense to me whatsoever.

We have to differentiate that from a common practice in the agricultural industry that is absolutely necessary. Farmers do not neuter their bull calves simply because they want to inflict pain and suffering on them. They do it for a very practical reason, which is that the animals fatten better and it makes them more docile. It also plays a large role in the genetics of the cattle herd. Farmers select the bulls they want to add to the gene pool of their livestock and simply neuter all the ones that do not measure up to a certain standard. That is a common practice, as is the practice of hot iron branding of cattle for identification purposes.

I know of one instance where a friend of mine who is a cattle buyer bought a load of cattle or two. He was marshalling them at a custom feedlot. He continued to buy cattle until he had a certain number and then find a buyer. He also put together orders for people who had asked him to pick out a certain amount of a certain type of cattle.

Unbeknownst to him, this feedlot was suffering from real economic stress. One day he went there and found the sheriff had actually seized the feedlot and all of the contents therein, including the cattle my friend had bought. I do not know whether my friend had a premonition or what, but he had undergone the old western practice of putting a brand on these cattle before he put them into the feedlot. When the sheriff asked, “How can you prove you actually have cattle in here that belong to you?” He said “They have my brand on them”. The sheriff released his cattle to him immediately. Cattle could be identified perhaps with a tattoo and it might stand up, but an ear tag would not.

While we are talking about tattoos and ear tags, do they inflict pain and suffering on the livestock? If they do, would putting an ear tag or a tattoo in the ear of an animal, which is a very common practice for purebred animals, inflict pain and suffering and make one guilty of a crime under this act? Those are all questions we have to ask.

I would like to see the bill go to committee. I would like to see it amended to reflect some of the common sense and some of the practices that are common and have been acceptable for hundreds of years.

At every auction market in the country and at every rodeo there are representatives from the humane society who are there to supervise. Those people would be great witnesses before the committee because they have seen what is acceptable and what is not. They have a very good idea of an acceptable practice and a practice that would constitute cruelty.

I would like to see all the amendments we have put forward adopted by the committee. They would answer some of the concerns of farmers, hunters, agricultural groups, those in the fur trade, people in the rodeo and the circus business, and others.

Every year the Calgary Stampede takes place. There is usually a protest following or during the stampede that says the roping of cattle is unnecessary cruelty and all the rest of it. There is a long way between the catching of a calf at the end of a lariat rope and cock fighting. Cock fighting is a brutal sport in which two roosters fight until one of them is dead. To me that is a senseless and cruel sport that has no place in modern society. I agree with those people who oppose it.

Wilful neglect is certainly deserving of harsh punishment. It is absolutely unacceptable. From an agricultural point of view it just does not make any economic sense not to take care of livestock. Neglect of farm animals, where they are not properly fed or not properly bedded, is not only against the law and should be against the law but is also a very stupid economic move. If one is with the condition that one does not have the feed or the bedding to properly look after livestock, then they should be sold. There is a ready market for any livestock and they should be sold to someone who will take care of them.

Still in the livestock and farming vein, there is one clause of the bill I would like to quote from. It says anyone who “kills an animal or, being the owner, permits an animal to be killed, brutally or viciously”. I wonder what brutally or viciously killing means. Does it mean if one shoots them it is brutal and vicious and if one tickles them to death it is okay? I do not understand that at all.

If one kills a human being, is it brutal and vicious? I think so. Gophers, which are properly known as the Richardson's ground squirrel, dig up meadows and generally cause havoc with the turf. One could shoot them with a .22 or, worse yet, use a leghold trap. As we kids used to do in school days at recess, one could go out and drown them by pouring water down their holes. Perhaps we were guilty of cruel and unusual punishment with those poor little ground squirrels, but are those things all considered to be “brutally or viciously” killing the animals?

The bill goes on to say that anyone who “kills an animal, or being the owner, permits the animal to be killed, brutally or viciously, regardless of whether the animal dies immediately”, is guilty of a criminal offence. My concern is that I own livestock. The whole purpose of the livestock is to create protein, meat, for customers. To do that, since we have yet to discover a way to eat animals alive, animals have to be killed in some way.

Even if the animal dies immediately, we are guilty of a criminal offence, and even though we did not do it. I guess we hire professional hit men to kill our steers so we are still guilty of consulting with and getting somebody else to carry out our foul deeds. Even though the animal dies immediately, we are guilty of a criminal offence.

I shudder to think of how many times I have been guilty of that, because we have sent literally thousands of animals to the slaughterhouse. The animals die immediately, I think. I am not sure, but I am pretty sure that they do. They are immobilized, the butcher opens the carotid veins in the neck, the animal is bled and dies almost immediately. As soon as the carotid arteries are opened the blood pressure goes to zero and the animal is for all intents and purposes dead immediately.

However, that does not matter. I am still guilty under this legislation. That is a terrible deficiency in the bill. I hope that the committee will move to amend this or to remove any ambiguity in this area so that the person who raises chickens for a living will be able to have the chickens killed and processed. We had chicken for lunch today. I wonder how that got here. It got here because somebody killed the chicken, I hope not brutally or viciously, and I hope immediately. I hope somebody did not have to go to jail because we had chicken for lunch.

That is the kind of common sense I am talking about, which is absent in the bill and which is absolutely vital to the bill. We cannot stand to have this kind of ambiguity. We must have more clarity. The bill as it is now will cause a tremendous amount of anxiety in the agricultural community. It has already, in my opinion.

While the bill is not in the form that I would like to see, I want it to be on the record that I am a pet owner and a livestock producer and I pride myself on taking good care of my livestock. My animals are well fed, with good access to a good water supply. In cold weather I keep them bedded. We give them the very best obstetrics we can if they have difficulty calving; we do everything we can to assist them, including giving them Caesarean operations if need be, to save the life of one or the other and sometimes both.

As far as our pets are concerned, we have a little white Maltese dog that we keep in the house. She is our pride and joy. Our children grew up and left and we needed something to mother, so we got a puppy. I would not do anything whatsoever to make life uncomfortable for that little dog. Frankly, anyone who would is an abuser and should be dealt with as an abuser, whether he does it through neglect or wilful harm. I want to be extremely clear about that.

I support the idea that animals have a purpose in our lives. Pets have a different purpose than farm animals, obviously, but a lot of pets on the farm are also working pets, like stock dogs. We have had stock dogs on our farm that were an absolutely essential part of our operation and saved us many steps.

While I am not pleased with the bill in its present form, I am prepared to give it tentative support to get it into committee in the hope that it will be amended to reflect the common sense suggestions I have put forward today.

Mr. Darrel Stinson (Okanagan—Shuswap, Canadian Alliance)

Mr. Speaker, I want to commend the hon. member for his speech. He addressed many concerns that many of us feel and that many of us of us have heard about from a number of organizations.

There are a couple of questions I would like to ask the hon. member.

I have concerns about how far this is going to go. We know that we use mice and rats in experiments in regard to health issues. Should that be looked at with regard to this bill? That is of some concern to me.

Also of great concern to me is the fact that there are two parts to this bill, one with regard to cruelty to animals and the other with regard to the disarming of a peace officer. Why would the government bring in legislation that mixes those two together? That has created a lot of concern. If someone were to disagree with part of the bill, the opportunity is there for somebody else to say that they disagreed with the legislation on the penalty for disarming a peace officer. It worries me. I do not know if we can call it cagey or crafty that a government would try to introduce a bill that has to do with cruelty to animals and throw the disarming of peace officers into the same piece of legislation. I can see no sense in this.

Could the hon. member address this as to whether or not he has heard any of these same concerns?

Mr. Dale Johnston

Mr. Speaker, I welcome the questions from my colleague from Okanagan—Shuswap.

It would be my hope that the use of medical or laboratory animals would be an acceptable practice, provided of course that they are treated humanely in the course of the experiment. We all know that because of laboratory animals there have been huge advancements in medical science. I would think that the benefits would vastly outweigh the fact that these animals have to undergo experiments. Would I support having that covered and clarified in the bill? Absolutely I would. I think it would be of the utmost importance.

The second question my colleague asked is why there is this omnibus sort of bill, why they are mixing apples and oranges. It is not my place to impugn motives to the government, but if I were the suspicious type I would say that perhaps it has been done this way in order to set a bit of a minefield for the opposition, such that if the opposition finds something insupportable in the act and votes against it, all of the above simply become fine points. What will be kept on the record on the government side is that a certain party or a certain individual did not support strengthening the cruelty to animals act.

Of course, that is all speculation. Everyone knows very well that I am not one who would impugn motives to any person or any party in the House.

Mr. David Chatters (Athabasca, Canadian Alliance)

Mr. Speaker, it is unfortunate that we are having this debate this afternoon without the participation of the government side because I would dearly love to put some of my questions to government members. Unfortunately we cannot do that because they do not seem to be responding.

This discussion we are having on what constitutes cruelty to animals is very curious. I cannot help thinking that given the government's access to the best legal minds in the country, the government could, if it wished, solve some of what appear to be inconsistencies in the bill.

Certainly one of the inconsistencies I note is that even under the existing act we seem to be wilfully participating in acts of cruelty to animals. We have heard of a number of instances. I think rodeos were mentioned. I can think of many more. A number that I have witnessed come to mind. For example, traditionally, for hundreds of years, in Atlantic Canada we have prepared lobsters by dumping them in a pot of boiling water. That seems to me, in my prairie vision, to have some degree of cruelty.

I have also witnessed a religious process of slaughtering animals that has existed in this world since biblical times and before. In my view, it certainly constituted wilful cruelty to that animal.

Yet under the existing act, these things are never prosecuted. There never seems to be a willingness to prosecute. The only thing I can see that the original act contained was a necessity of criminal intent, which protected those groups or those people participating in these things. That criminal intent is removed in this new act, which in my view lays open to prosecution all of those groups that participate in these things we talked about. I would like the member to respond to that comment, if he would, please.

Mr. Dale Johnston

Mr. Speaker, I too am quite concerned that we are not hearing from speakers on the opposite side. Members opposite drafted the bill and should be here to defend it. Their non-participation and indeed their ambivalence to this whole thing perhaps could be interpreted in a couple of ways.

Maybe they think the legislation is so great that there is absolutely no way it could be improved upon, although I do not know how they could get that idea, because every one in the House who has spoken on it so far today has suggested improvements to the bill. Perhaps they are so ashamed of it that they just want it to slip through the House like a dose of salts, with nobody noticing it. Otherwise why is someone from that side not responding from time to time?

The other question my colleague raises is the one about wilful intent. I spoke to that at some length during my remarks but I would not mind actually expanding on that just a little. He talks about the ritual slaughter of animals by certain religious groups, which absolutely does date back to the time when history began to be recorded.

We have customs whereby the native people are still allowed to carry out their whale hunt. The Inuit are allowed to kill a certain amount of whales by harpooning them. I wonder if that has been considered in the bill.

I keep going back to two points. We have to consider what has been accepted practice for literally hundreds of years. We also have to be very cognizant that whatever we put into the statutes has to be tempered with copious amounts of common sense.

Perhaps common sense is not something that is very easily divined. We can argue that what is common sense to my knowledge is not necessarily common sense to others and vice versa, but the generally accepted term of common sense should be applied in liberal doses to this particular act.

Mr. Myron Thompson (Wild Rose, Canadian Alliance)

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to participate in the debate today, and I am pleased for a couple of reasons.

The first reason is that it gives me an opportunity to explain to the people out there in television land—I do not have to explain it to people in the House as they pretty well understand the strategy behind all these things—that we are once again seeing a bill that deals with some very questionable issues.

Along with that, some of the legislation that has been put forth does truly answer the need of our law enforcement people, which in turn answers the need for public safety. This has been combined with some much needed regulations in the gun legislation, which has been flawed for quite a while. This has been mixed all together and called an omnibus bill.

Like good children who take their medicine, if we sprinkle a little sugar on it they are supposed to swallow it and like it. I have risen in the House too many times to count to address a number of bills that come with a whole pile of things in them, some that make perfectly good sense as to why they are there and others that make no sense to me at all.

I cannot understand for the slightest moment what the disarming of a policeman has to do with cruelty to animals. Why are these two issues combined in the legislation? I want to support the particular part of the legislation which says that trying to disarm a policeman will be a criminal offence, and it should be a serious one. That is a good part of the bill. However, we also have to deal with another section of the bill regarding cruelty to animals. There are so many questions that need to be answered it is not even funny.

There is no definition with regard to what is meant by so many statements. Am I supposed to warn my five year old grandson when he goes fishing that somebody might be watching him as he puts a worm on his hook? According to the legislation that possibility exists. There is nothing in there that says a chicken farmer who raises chickens for the purpose of harvesting them for food for the public is allowed to trap or harm a weasel that might be trying to destroy some of his chickens.

Nothing in the legislation explains what is considered to be cruel. Believe me, I certainly do not condone the abuse of a pet in any form or fashion. That should never be allowed and, as far as I understand, it is not allowed today. Charges can be brought against an individual who exercises these kinds of abuses.

However, the bill clearly does not set out what is an intentional, unreasonable act of abuse upon an animal for no other reason than maliciousness. There is nothing in the bill that says that the chicken farmer or my grandson will not be responsible for hurting or causing pain to an animal that is being used for the purpose for which they use them.

Why are those things mixed up? I am really surprised there is nothing here to seriously address child pornography. Why not mix that in with all this? Why not take some other issue that the government slides around and stick it in there to make it look good? Is that the reason we have this particular section stating that it is a criminal offence if someone tries to disarm a peace officer? Is it to make the other sections of this flawed bill look good? Or, is it to make me look bad for not supporting a bill because of certain aspects of it, even though I want to support it because of other aspects of it?

It makes no sense to me that grown men and women who are supposed to have at the heart of the reason for being here, one of their most elemental duties being to provide protection and safety for the citizens of our country, would put together an omnibus bill of this nature that has good little aspects, silly little aspects and unexplainable little aspects in it. It makes no sense to me at all.

Grown men and women have put together a document that is all over the map, so we will be asking for some amendments. We want some things in here that will clearly define animal cruelty for the farmers and harvesters of animals who earn a living doing what they do. According to what I see as written, it could be very dangerous to these people in their activities and could cause a lot of grief.

There are some really good reasons why someone would brand an animal but it is painful. If members do not believe me they should come out to Alberta sometime. I will take them to a branding party and show them that it is painful.

Mr. Speaker, I do not know whether you go fishing, but if you catch one on your little hook and you plan to take it home to eat because it is good for your diet, do you let it flop to death or use a stick to club it on the head? You would probably club it on the head. Wait a minute, Mr. Speaker, the way the bill is written it could be construed as cruelty to animals. I would be the last one in this place, Mr. Speaker, to want to see you toted off to court so a judge could decide, on behalf of all these brilliant ladies and gentlemen who put these documents together, whether or not it was against the law because these people cannot put something together that clearly defines what it is they mean.

I think the intent of the bill, particularly the intent on cruelty to animals, is good. I think it is well-intended. However, surely most of the people in here have a brain bigger than the fish that I was talking about. Surely their brain ought to operate a little bit to know that the bill needs some clarification. Surely the government members would not want a group of people hauled off to a court so a judge could decide for these wonderful people what it is they are trying to say in a bill. Why can they not say what they mean? Why can they not clarify the bill? What does it mean? I read it and the meaning is not there. It does not clarify whether a farmer will be charged because he dehorns. Dehorning is painful. Clarity in the definitions is not there. It will take some amendments to do it. It will be tested in committee when amendments are brought forward to make it a better bill, to make it a bill with a little common sense and allow people to understand what the intent of the government is.

To the member on the government side who is doing all the heckling and yelling about what the bill does, I am afraid it does nothing at all. It is not clear at all. What would we expect from a Liberal government except unclarity? What would we expect from a Liberal government except high hopes that a document will be placed before a judge some day so the judge can once again decide for Canadians what the law will be and what it will not be. The Liberals do not have the courage or the intestinal fortitude to make the kind of laws that say what they mean.

They are doing a fine job at jumbling them all up. They jumble them all up so no one can point the finger in their direction and say that they are not doing their job very well. They are not. Believe me, Canadians of today recognize how the government deals with justice and they do not like it. I can understand why.

Mr. Murray Calder (Dufferin—Peel—Wellington—Grey, Lib.)

Mr. Speaker, we will have the occasion tomorrow outside the Chamber to reflect back on an incident which occurred during the 12th Parliament of Canada. On the night of February 3, 1916, the former Centre Block building burned to the ground. One of the few remaining artifacts to survive the blaze was the Victoria Tower Bell which continued to chime the hour until the stroke of midnight that February night.

I am happy to announce that a restored monument incorporating the bell will be unveiled tomorrow, September 27, at noon behind the Library of Parliament, facing the Ottawa River.

The Canadian Bankers Association has generously contributed financial support for the refurbishing of the bell monument and to have it prominently displayed for the many tourists who visit Parliament Hill.

I invite you, Mr. Speaker, and all my colleagues here to attend the ceremony and to learn about this fascinating event in our parliamentary history.

Mr. Philip Mayfield (Cariboo—Chilcotin, Canadian Alliance)

Mr. Speaker, beginning in 1883 the social reformers in the government and the churches developed a system of residential schools across Canada for native children.

The common wisdom of the day was that these were necessary for resocializing native children to integrate them into non-aboriginal world. For some the experience was beneficial. For many it was painful and harmful. The Canadian Encyclopedia , page 2007, tells us that:

From the 1890s till the 1950s the government tried constantly to shift the burden of the schools onto the churches, whose members made donations, and the students, whose labour was a contribution.

Today's government is doing the same thing, attempting to place its responsibilities on the backs of the parishioners of the churches. Many of our churches face financial ruin by this callous action of the government.

I call on the Minister of Justice to acknowledge the responsibility of the government for these failed social policies and ask her to stop dragging the churches into the courts as third parties to evade her own responsibilities.

Mr. Denis Paradis (Brome—Missisquoi, Lib.)

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to welcome two new members to the big Liberal family: the hon. members for Shefford and Compton—Stanstead. After much reflection, they have decided to join the ranks of the Liberal Party of Canada. I congratulate them for responding to the wishes of their constituents in this way.

When I was elected in the 1995 byelection, and again in the general election in 1997, my constant message was this: let us not divide the federalist vote. As a continuation of that message, I am delighted to welcome my two new Liberal colleagues. The federal Liberal team is strengthened by their presence, and the entire Eastern Township region will reap the benefit.