Stop Animal Cruelty in Canada

[tigeresss]

International Fund for Animal Welfare January 3, 2005

Urgent: Stop Animal Cruelty in Canada

Support Bill C-50 during the 2006 election campaign!

For the past six years, IFAW has worked tirelessly to pass tougher animal cruelty legislation in Canada. Unfortunately Bill C-50, an Act to amend the Criminal Code of Canada with regards to Animal Cruelty, has died once again with the disbanding of Parliament.

Now I need your help to ensure that when Parliament resumes it will reintroduce appropriate anti-cruelty legislation to protect animals in Canada from abuse. The upcoming election is a great opportunity to tell candidates that animal welfare is an important voting issue for you.

Bill C-50 is crucial legislation that removes animals from the property crimes section of the Criminal Code, thereby protecting strays and wildlife as well as owned animals. It provides tougher penalties for those convicted of criminal abuse and neglect of animals, increasing penalties up to five years in jail and fines up to $10,000. It also gives judges the important ability to ban serious cruelty offenders from ever owning animals again.

Please help us make sure ALL candidates hear the following three messages from the Canadian public:

Six years is long enough. There has been adequate debate on this anti-cruelty Bill as well as ample protection given to animal-use groups and aboriginal groups. The Bill must now be passed without further changes.

Hunters, anglers and animal-use industry groups are asking to be exempt from this legislation with regards to the Criminal Code of Canada. This is unacceptable. There are protections in place that ensure what is currently legal in Canada will remain legal under the term “lawful excuseâ€. For example, police are not exempt from assault laws in the Criminal Code of Canada even though their jobs may require force. No one should be exempt from the Criminal Code of Canada.

93% of Canadians support tougher anti-cruelty laws and government must respond by passing this legislation immediately.

Here’s what you can do to prevent animal cruelty right now:

Send a letter to your electoral candidates asking them to support the legislation without changes or exemptions.

When candidates and campaigners come to your door, tell them you support Bill C-50 as written and you DO NOT support any exemptions. Ask them if they support the legislation and tell them it is a voting issue for you! If they don’t support the legislation without changes or exemptions tell them you cannot vote for them.

Call the candidates’ offices and indicate your support for the legislation without exemptions. Ask the candidates to respond with their positions.

Attend all-candidates meetings and raise this issue.

To learn more about the urgent need for new animal cruelty legislation in Canada please visit the IFAW website where you can find sample candidate letters and questions. You can also contact us directly at 1-888-500-IFAW.

Thank you for your support. Together, we can finally pass legislation that will better protect animals in Canada.

Thanks for all you do,

Fred O’Regan

President and CEO

P.S. There’s never been a better time to speak out against animal cruelty in Canada. The upcoming election promises to be fierce, and candidates need your vote more than ever. Tell them your vote depends on their support of Bill C-50 without exemptions by sending them a letter right now.

http://www.ifaw.org

 

[justaboutgeese]

This bill is not all it seems until you get into the meat of it. It will effectively end hunting fishing in Canada. That is one of the reasons it died last time. Its my hope that it dies this time as well. It is poorly written. I also am against animal cruelty but the way this bill can be interpreted leaves to much open to create problems in the future.

 

[shminifancier]

aaasrrrggg

 

[justaboutgeese]

aaasrrrggg

????????

 

[tigeresss]

Not saying I agree with it or not, I'm simply passing the above along.

Although I do think fishing should be stopped, it's ruining our enviroments and screwing so many things up.

 

[rabbitsfizz]

We are in the middle of exactly the same thing, and last time it "died" for exactly the same reason. What both our Governments, and the US needs is a law that stops people in the governments from tagging their own personal agendas onto these big "Whales" of "Obviously need to be passed" bills, hoping they will piggy back through without anyone noticing them.

Everything you have said Tigeresss, is obvious and true, and yet, here comes Vic to tell us someone has attached their own little "personal agenda" bill to this and it will end Hunting and Fishing if it goes through. Whilst this continues to be allowed to happen, these bills will continue to fail.

Our amendments to animals cruelty bill will in all probability fail AGAIN because someone has tagged "tail docking" onto it!!!! Now I am ardently anti Tail Docking, and it will be banned over here, pretty soon, but I HATE to see a Bill that really needs to go through NOW, that tightens up REAL "cruelty" issues (I do not consider Tail Docking "cruel" per se, just amazingly stupid!!) fail again because of this stupid little personal vendetta bill "piggy backing" through , do they not think people will notice these things??

Stop the "piggy back" bits of the law, that allows people to add bits at the last minute, and the laws that need to be passed will get through.

Remember the law about killing Wild Horses last year??

That piggy backed on a law that had to be passed, so it was able to be pushed through, even though it was agreed that most did not want it.

It is the way the laws work that is at fault here, and I have seen this time and time again.

There is always an "if and a but" at the end of these worthy causes.

I agree animals cruelty needs to be addressed BUT if it affects Hunting and Fishing, FORGET IT!!

I could not support such a Bill.

Remember they have already outlawed Hunting over her- You could be next!!!!

 

[justaboutgeese]

I will offer an explination that might clear up some of the opposition to this bill here in Canada. As written it will allow criminal charges to be filed if and animal suffers. Just who is to make the decision if a fish is removed from the water and dispatched with a "bonk" over the head has suffered ? Some police officer who belongs to "Friends for Animals" ? Or if a deer is shot and runs a hundred yards before dropping dead from a lethal shot ? Yes there are things that need to be addressed and are covered in this bill but the wording of it and the riders piggybacked on it will no doubt cause it to die. There are huge parts of this country that depend on the hunting and fishing for their existance. Without the dollars the hunting and fishing bring to these areas thousands of people would be out of a source of income and in the long run the animals and fish populations would rapidly overpopulate their own enviroments and suffer even more. We have this already with Black Bears here in Ontario. In so many places since the ban on spring hunts its no longer safe to bar-b-cue in back yards in many nothern areas.

 

[tigeresss]

I think it's one things for people who totally depend on hunting/fishing for them to be able to not starve to death...say for example people that live in the middle of nowhere and totally live off of the land. I do however think it's totally different to hunt/fish for sport. I also am very much against commercial fishing ESPECIALLY trolling...it's SO bad for the enviroment.

No offense intended justaboutgeese but perhaps the problem is not that there are too many bears, but that there are too many people. Why can't we spay and nueter a bunch of them, or go human hunting? I'd be up for that(note sarcasm although I do think many people shouldn't be allowed to breed but making that a law would be absolutely rediculous)...but no that's not something that's legal because humans have rights...animals don't. Which is something that I think is very wrong.

 

[justaboutgeese]

I suppose we could just move all the people out of the city of North Bay. But when the bears continue to expand where do the people go. Even in Southern Ontario where bears were unheard of just ten years ago we have more than we need. Last summer a yearling filly, a full size horse not a mini was killed by a bear not five mile from here. Nope we made the problem now it needs to be addressed.

Did you mean trolling or trauling ?? Big difference.

 

[justaboutgeese]

I suppose we could just move all the people out of the city of North Bay. But when the bears continue to expand where do the people go. Even in Southern Ontario where bears were unheard of just ten years ago we have more than we need. Last summer a yearling filly, a full size horse not a mini was killed by a bear not five miles from here. Nope we made the problem now it needs to be addressed.

Did you mean trolling or trauling ?? Big difference.

 

[rabbitsfizz]

Trawling- sorry it's the schoolteacher in me!!!

Tigeress, I wish I were as young and naive as you again, I really do- NO sarcasm here

Seriously though, I really do think a birth control for Bears is one way forward, a sort of middle ground, if you were.

I am TOTALLY for Hunting for Sport and will (and have ) defended it to the (near )death (experience)!!

BUT I am also against a load of Ijits who cannot tell a Moose from a ten year old child wearing a fluorescent orange waistcoat being let loose in the woods. After that has happened it needs a few real Hunters to go through the woods and (apart form calling 911) despatch the poor creatures the Saturday Hunters have left behind!!

I have "Weekend Fisherman" on the opposite bank of my river. They are a menace to society in general, fish everywhere and my dogs feet, after they have cut their lines and left the hook to get caught in the dogs paws!!

I'd happily shoot them.

If I had a gun license.

Or they looked like a Moose (or a child in a fluorescent orange waistcoat)

Or a Horse that did not have "Horse" written on it's side.

OK enough of the cynicism, the way forward is three fold.

First off make some attempt to slow down bear reproduction- this has actually been proven to be possible- not the cheapest option, but possible.

Secondly tighten up the laws to make sure that people issued with licenses to hunt can actually identify the animals they are hunting.

Thirdly, ENFORCE the laws!!!!

Hunting should not have ANYTHING to do with cruelty, hunting a prey animal is not cruel, deer are prey animals, they have natural flight reflexes that cause them to panic and flee.

Once they are safe they stop panicking so to say that chasing/stalking /hunting them is cruel is a nonsense.

It is what they are born for- to be hunted by a pack of hounds, brought to bay and shot or hunted by a pack of wolves and eaten alive??

Hmm, wonder which I would choose??

Do you begin to get it??

There is NOTHING "kind" about Nature.

Nothing "cruel" about (Good) Hunting.

These are standards we have imposed.

But the point here is that your government, as ours, is aware that these subjects are highly emotive, so politicians try to sneak a bill through, piggy backing on a basically sound bill, and so bring the whole thing down. By telling only a half truth, which is in fact all you did with your first statement, you do no-one, least of all the animals you are trying to protect, any favours.

 

[tigeresss]

Trawling yes my bad! Anyway, I agree with you rabbitsfizz, there's too many idiot hunters out there. I mean yes it's fine if you are licenced, are hunting for a REASON not just for the sake of being able to shoot something, are going to eat the meat you've killed, and it's done properly like you said.

What am I naive about?

 

[justaboutgeese]

Tigeress, you have a PM