By Alex Binkley
True North Perspective
OTTAWA
The animal welfare lobby has mostly itself to blame for the watered down animal rights bill just passed by Parliament.
Welfare groups have been all over Parliament Hill in recent weeks as well as holding rallies in cities across the country objecting to the bill and calling for stronger laws.
What they want is the kind of legislation proposed by the former Liberal government a decade ago. After some amendments, it got passed a couple of times by the Commons but never made it through the Senate.
The real reason the bill foundered is the way it was written and launched. It was drafted by the Justice Department as a sort of animal welfare wish list without consulting organizations representing farmers, hunters, trappers and aboriginals and others that deal with animals.
When the legislation was made public, they mounted a strong lobby against some of its provisions which they rightly saw as opening up their activities to constant attack by the welfare groups. So the bill was clouded in controversy even though it was sufficiently amended to make it through the Commons.
The important point in all this was the farm organizations and the others made it clear they weren’t opposed to stronger penalties for animal abuse. They just didn’t want their own rights trampled in the process. If, at this point, the welfare groups had been more interested in improving the law instead of having their own way, they would have met the farm and other organizations to work out amendments they could all accept.
That approach would have gotten everyone on side and the resulting legislation would likely have been law for some years now and perpetrators of puppy mills and dragged cats would have all received the sentences they deserve.
The animal welfare groups should have gotten together with the farm and other organizations as soon as Prime Minister Stephen Harper said in 2006 that his government was content to proceed with the bill introduced by Senator John Bryden. Given the time wasted on the previous legislation and the lack of agreement on what else should be done, Harper’s decision was hardly surprising.
However if the animal welfare groups and the farm and other organizations had come to Parliament with a joint proposal for improving Bryden’s bill, it’s most likely the bill would have shot through Parliament.
In the end there was a bizarre spectacle of Liberal MP Charlie Hubbard shepherding the Bryden bill while another Liberal was pushing the animal welfare one. The Bryden bill passed by a convincing 189-71.
The count should send a message to the animal welfare groups that they need to grow up.
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