Proposals to update 110-year-old cruelty-to-animals legislation are back in a hostile Senate this week after the government refused on Sept. 29 to accept Senate amendments to the bill.
It is the third time the House of Commons has sent the bill to the Senate, which twice has sent it back with proposed amendments.
This parliamentary game of chicken threatens to derail the bill, since it will die if the Senate does not approve it before Parliament is shut down for a pre-election hiatus, a shutdown expected as early as November.
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“We hope this time the Senate gets the message,” said Jerry Yannover, adviser to government House leader Don Boudria.
“They have made their point from the Senate. The House has three times stated its view. It is time to end the silliness and get this into law.”
At their core, the amendments first introduced in 1999 in the last Parliament would update cruelty-to-animals laws, stiffen penalties and modernize the 19th century legislation. It is strongly supported by animal rights groups and animal welfare societies.
All parties in Parliament say they support the general attempt to toughen animal cruelty penalties.
However, since the beginning, the farm lobby has joined the research community and aboriginal groups in worrying that the wording of the tougher rules will open them to charges for their treatment of animals, including branding, castration and perhaps even slaughter on the farm.
It has been a debate about words and interpretations. The government has offered language that finally persuaded the Canadian Cattlemen’s Association and the Canadian Federation of Agriculture that normal farming and animal husbandry practices would not be liable to legal challenge under the bill.
However, senators have not been satisfied.
Twice, they have insisted that for farmers, the legal language be changed from giving farmers a defense of “lawful excuse” for inflicting pain or death on an animal to making it illegal only to inflict “unnecessary death” on an animal.
The Senate Liberal majority supports the amendments.
In the Commons, the Liberal majority insists these words are unnecessary to protect farmers, hunters, researchers and trappers from frivolous prosecutions.
“The government is convinced and satisfied that the defense of lawful excuse offers adequate and unambiguous protection for lawful purposes for killing animals,” Paul Macklin, parliamentary secretary to the justice minister, told the Commons while justifying rejection of the Senate amendments.
On Sept. 29, former Progressive Conservative party leader and prime minister Joe Clark pleaded with the Liberals to accept the Senate amendments as a way of giving more comfort to farmers and aboriginals.
He said the Senate is doing its job by raising concerns. The Liberal government is showing its insensitivity to rural Canada by rejecting the amendments.
“This has been a troubled bill precisely because for so long government ministers have failed profoundly to understand the realities of life in rural Canada,” the Calgary MP said.
“That has been a recurring blemish on the government.”
Despite his plea and support for it from the Canadian Alliance, the Liberal majority voted to send the bill back to the Senate without amendment.
If the Senate refuses to deal with the House motion, or decides to have a prolonged debate, the bill could die again if Parliament is adjourned and not reconvened after a new Liberal leader and prime-minister-in-waiting is chosen in mid-November.
In the Commons, the New Democratic Party supported the government and rejected the Senate amendments because it considers an appointed Senate an illegitimate part of the legislative process.
Veteran MP Lorne Nystrom said the NDP supports toughening animal cruelty laws but rejects Senate interference.
“I am very hesitant to accept amendments that come from the other place (the Senate) when they do not have a mandate from the Canadian people,” he said.
