In the midst of an assault of bad news over bovine spongiform encephalopathy, Canada’s livestock industry had a reason to celebrate a small political victory on another front last week.
A Senate committee has proposed amendments to a new cruelty-to-animals law that reflects proposals from farmers to reduce worries about the impact of the law on normal animal husbandry practices.
The Senate’s legal and constitutional affairs committee has proposed that government attempts to ban killing of animals “without lawful excuse” be dropped in favour of a clause that would make “unnecessary death of an animal” an offence.
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The Senate still has to approve the amendments, as does the House of Commons.
Farm groups that had lobbied hard for changes were thrilled with the proposed changes. They had argued in favour of tougher cruelty-to-animals provisions in the Criminal Code, but against anything that could be used by animal rights activists to challenge normal animal husbandry practices.
The Canadian Federation of Agriculture has called on Parliament to approve the amendments.
“We want senators to know Canadian farmers are 100 percent behind these amendments they have made,” CFA president Bob Friesen said in a statement.
“It is important to note that neither of these amendments in any way weaken this legislation. Farmers would not have supported that.”
The Canadian Federation of Humane Societies begs to differ.
It strongly opposes what it sees as a “weakening” of the animal cruelty law and insists that farmers would not be at increased risk of “frivolous” cruelty charges under the original proposal.
“I do understand the concerns of farmers that radical groups not be able to use new legislation to harass them,” CFHS program director and lawyer Shelagh MacDonald said.
“But they are not at risk of that in the original version of the bill. They are not understanding the bill.”
She said the humane societies’ federation will lobby against the proposed amendments.
But it is also walking a tightrope, because the new legislation would offer much more protection to animals than does existing legislation and it does not want to lose the advances.
“We will not tone down our criticisms of these amendments or our lobby on them, but we also do not want to see this legislation lost,” MacDonald said.
If it is not approved before Parliament adjourns in mid-June for a three month break, it may never be approved, because a Liberal leadership change next winter may mean an election call, dissolution of Parliament and the death of all unapproved bills.
“We definitely don’t want to see this lost and we realize there is a limited window for us so it is a delicate balance for us,” she said.
“We oppose these amendments as a weakening, but we do not want to lose the overall benefits of the bill.”
She said the farm lobby was the most important force in having the bill amended by senators. The humane societies’ federation accused committee members of “answering to very powerful industry lobby groups rather than the demands of hundreds of thousands of Canadians.”
