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Parliament fails animal cruelty test

Thomas Walkom

Canada is fond of minority parliaments. We think of them as forcing government to be more receptive.

A minority parliament gave us national medicare and the Canada Pension Plan. During the energy crisis of the 1970s, pressure from another minority parliament led to the creation of a public oil company.

When Canadians elected the current Conservative minority government, I suspect many assumed the opposition would curb Prime Minister Stephen Harper's enthusiasms. How wrong they were.

The country is suffering through what may well be remembered as the worst minority parliament in history. Thanks to a combination of laziness and fear, the opposition parties – particularly the Liberals – have let Harper run roughshod. Examples are legion, from the defanging of Canada's nuclear regulator (aided and abetted by all parties) to the war in Afghanistan (enabled by the Liberals). But nowhere is the sheer uselessness of this particular parliament more evident than in its handling of animal cruelty legislation.

In the public mind, animal cruelty is a classic motherhood issue. If you think I'm exaggerating, just read the letters to the editor every time humane society inspectors break up another grisly puppy mill.

People will tolerate all kinds of objectionable behaviour towards humans. But when a yobbo drags his dog behind an SUV, the overwhelming public sentiment is to string him up.

And yet after more than eight years of trying, Canada's elected MPs can't pass a decent animal cruelty bill into law.

The current legislation, dating from 1892, is ineffective in both scope and penalty. Efforts to update it began in 1999 but quickly ran into a buzz saw of opposition from farmers and hunters.

Elections were held; governments rose and fell. Eventually a watered-down version passed the Commons and went to the Senate – only to be bogged down again.

Animal researchers wanted to be exempted as did alligator wrestlers. Aboriginal groups worried that a ban on brutal treatment might impinge on their traditions. Jewish and Muslim groups fretted that tougher laws might affect ritual slaughter practices.

Eventually Liberal Senator John Bryden came up with the worst of all possible worlds– a new bill that would keep the loophole-ridden 1892 law as is but make the penalties (which in practice are rarely applied) harsher.

Harper's Conservatives enthusiastically embraced his private member's bill. The New Democrats and Bloc Québécois did not. Predictably, the Liberals were split.

Ajax-Pickering MP Mark Holland tried to reintroduce the compromise Commons bill. But rural Liberals tended to support Bryden's do-little Senate version. In February, his Bill S-203 sailed through the Commons justice committee with Liberal support. During committee hearings, Liberal members fretted about an election call they assumed was just weeks away. Some said they didn't much like S-203 but would pass it anyway and then fix it another year.

(The Canadian Federation of Humane Societies points out that there's faint hope of that happening. If the Commons finally rids itself of this issue, it will be hesitant to revisit it for another 100 years.)

The do-little Bill S-203 is due to receive third and final Commons approval on Friday. Those who disapprove of cruelty to animals may be interested in discovering how their MPs voted.

Will the majority of Liberals, anxious to avoid rocking the boat, fold again and support it? In Ottawa, the smart money says yes.

Thomas Walkom's column appears Wednesday and Saturday.

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