Animals and their devoted humans across the country have finally received some good news from a government in Canada.
British Columbia announced last week it was bringing in the toughest animal protection laws anywhere in the country. Perhaps the initiative will trigger some action at the federal level, now that we are in an election campaign, to fix the country’s completely inadequate animal cruelty laws. Probably not but we can be thankful the issue is still very much in the public domain.
The B.C. government is changing its Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act, including increasing penalties to as much as $75,000 and as long as 24 months imprisonment for the most serious offences, in the wake of a mass slaughter of about 100 sled dogs near Whistler last April.
To give you an idea how progressive B.C.’s law is, consider the current Alberta Animal Protection Act. If one is convicted under the provincial legislation the courts can only fine up to a maximum $20,000 and add a prohibition order against the culprit from owning an animal. There is no jail provision in the law.
B.C.’s initiative is a step in the right direction. Alberta should take its cue from this, as memories are still fresh from two recent animal cruelty cases that shocked the country and beyond.
Not only were the facts disturbing but so were the final dispositions in each case. In Central Alberta it will be a long time yet before we ever forget the shocking case of Daisy Duke in 2006 when the canine’s battered body was found on a Didsbury street on Oct. 7, 2006. After one youth accidentally ran over the pet, two males trussed up the dog and dragged the animal several blocks before running over it a second time and leaving the body on the street. Two years later Daniel Charles Haskett, 19, of Didsbury, was sentenced to 30 days in jail, which was served on weekends. Animals rights groups were outraged at the leniency.
That same year a pair of Camrose teens received one-year probation terms for killing a cat named Princess by putting the animal in a microwave oven. Once again, there was nation-wide condemnation of the crime and final court disposition. The court ruling came the same year the Stephen Harper Conservative government tossed aside Liberal MP Mark Holland’s Bill C-229 to progressively update the antiquated federal animal cruelty laws and brought in its own amended legislation.
The Conservative’s Bill S-203 on animal cruelty changed the maximum penalty from six months in jail to five years but on everything else in the law there were no changes from when it was first written in 1892.
The federal law still considers animals merely as common property. Police and Crown prosecutors across the country are still challenged with offenders and lawyers continuing to exploit flaws and loopholes in the ancient legislation to get off with either slaps on the wrist or no penalty at all. The problem for law enforcement is to meet the “burden of proof” standard, a bar set so high with the 121-year-old original law it is next to impossible to prove cruelty was wilful.
But all is not lost. Liberal MPs in Ontario, including Holland, are adding the latter’s Bill C-229 to their election platforms. The brutal slaughter of the B.C. sled dogs is still very much on their minds, despite the recent B.C. government initiative.
“The vast majority of Canadians want the loopholes in our laws closed so that known animal abusers face justice after committing egregious acts of cruelty – the government needs to act now,” said Holland at a public rally last month in Waterloo, Ont.
However, with the economy still at the forefront in this election it is more likely Holland’s bill won’t attract much commitment when a new government is elected May 2. The ghosts of Daisy Duke and Princess will still be sadly stirring for quite some time yet.
