Don't Blame the Senate

Letter to the Editor: National Post, October 6, 2004 Page A19

Re: A Menace to Animal Welfare, Andy Lamey, Sept. 22. Mr. Lamey puts all the blame on the Senate for the non-passage of Bill C17 (subsequently C15, then C10A and C10B) dealing with cruelty to animals. He wrote that Senator Serge Joyal "demagogued" and described the Senate as "in thrall to a small set of eccentric, poorly informed men and women".

That group, all of whom objected to the passage of this flawed bill, comprises: the National Sciences and Engineering Council, the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, deans of medicine, Canadians for Health Research, medical researchers, Canada's research-based pharmaceutical companies, the Delta Waterfowl Foundation, farm animal associations and Canada's pre-eminent heart surgeon, Senator Wilbur Keon.

There is no menace to animal welfare from the Senate. The bill was originally part of a very large compendium bill of amendments to the Criminal Code, most not controversial. However, buried in this bill was a part which moved the cruelty to animals provisions in the Criminal Code away from the section on crimes against property.

In the first Bill C17, crimes against animals was placed in the Criminal Code in a section on sexual offences, public mores and disorderly conduct. After remonstrations and review, that section was moved into another part, but not reinstated in the crimes against property section.

Farm animals, horses, pets, research rats, rabbits, pigs and zoo animals are property in that they are bought and sold and owned. Cattle can be used by farmers as collateral. The bill, even in its latest iterations, makes several references to "owners" and "owning."

The intent of the animal rights movement is clear: it aims to move animals towards "personhood." The thrust of its ideology is to have a society in which, ultimately, animals will not be used for humans needs and purposes. The animal rights coalition campaigned assiduously to press Parliament to pass Bill C17 (and its later versions) with no amendments, and it mounted a massive campaign of letter writing to MPs and senators.

There are concerns still as the bill sits in limbo, such as the unscientific, undefined description of animals ("any animal with the capacity to feel pain"), and its diminution of legal protections for legitimate animal users, which existed in the Criminal Code previously. Indeed, animal rights groups have publicly stated their intention to use the "new law," (which does not yet exist) to further their goals, including disrupting and eventually banning consumptive use of animals, challenging legitimate animal use practices and to setting new legal precedents. There is no opposition to increasing the penalties in the Criminal Code for wanton cruelty to animals. This has universal approval, and could have been enacted earlier.

However, it was the intransigent stance of the animal rights coalition that is to blame for the non-passage of the greater penalties for Cruelty to Animals. It wanted too much of its ideology inserted into the Criminal Code. To paraphrase Shakespeare's Julius Caesar, "the fault, dear Lamey, is not in the Senate, but in yourselves."

-Dr. Bessie Borwein, University of Western Ontario, London, Ont.