Animal rights advocates are attempting to increase legal protections for animals by presenting petitions — signed by both animals and humans — in the House of Commons.
Julie Dabrusin, the Liberal MP for Toronto–Danforth, sponsored the petitions.
“Animals do feel joy, pain, fear. They have feelings and they deserve to have their welfare better protected,” she told the House of Commons last Tuesday.
The petition calls for the Criminal Code to be changed by moving laws prohibiting animal cruelty out of the code’s property section and into their own section devoted to animal protection.
The petition also seeks to have the code recognize animals as “sentient beings rather than property” and to require those who own or care for animals to “attend properly to their welfare.”
Sentience means the ability to feel with senses, like touch, hearing, sight, smell and taste.
Dabrusin’s petition garnered 406 human signatures. But, in a unique move, a second petition, dubbed the “pet-ition,” featured signatures — or paw prints — of animals. A third petition had signatures from both people and animals.
The petitions were organized by Mattie’s Place, a volunteer-run pet adoption agency in Toronto. In a Facebook post, Mattie’s Place explained that the pets’ petition should be valid because the rules about petitions do not specify which species are permitted to sign them.
Including paw prints, the petitions received between 2,000 and 3,000 signatures, says Denise Angus, the founder of Mattie’s Place. The paw prints were not accepted for the petition presented to the House of Commons, she says.
Family members
Canada has weak animal protection laws, Angus says. In her work at Mattie’s Place and in emergency veterinary medicine, she regularly sees animals with medical needs that are neglected.
“We’re such a polite country, we keep that under wraps,” she said. “But it’s time that everybody starts talking about it. The heart behind the petition was to really open up a conversation.”
While animal rights experts applaud the petition’s goal, they say the proposed changes are mainly symbolic.
Angela Fernandez, who teaches an animal law course at the University of Toronto, says the changes requested in the petition reflect general social views about animals.
“[People] don’t think of their dog or their cat as a piece of property, like the same as their sofa,” she said. “They think of the animal as a family member, really.”
It can be helpful to think about animals as “quasi-property,” she said. “They’re not really falling properly into the category of property, and they’re probably not falling squarely into [the category of] persons.”
While changing the Criminal Code would be largely symbolic, it could lead to courts better recognizing animals’ rights, says Camille Labchuk, executive director of Animal Justice, a national animal rights advocacy organization.
“The petition doesn’t change [animals’] status as property,” Labchuk said. “It simply moves them into a new section of the code, and it recognizes them as more or less a special form of property.”
Over time, these changes could impact how animals are treated in a variety of legal situations, she says. “I think there’s an important long-term impact for having laws that actually reflect how we think about animals, which is not just as mere pieces of property,” she said.
Hard laws to pass
Increasing animal protection in Canada has not been a walk in the park.
There have been several federal bills introduced over the past two decades aimed at increasing animal protection under the Criminal Code, Labchuk says. All failed.
The official Liberal Party platform lists several priorities related to animal protection. These include phasing out toxicity testing on animals and strengthening protections for animals in captivity. But it does not propose changing how the Criminal Code treats animal cruelty or defining animals as sentient beings.
Many agriculture industry groups oppose changes to animal protection laws because they think it will change how their businesses operate, says Fernandez. But she does not think changing the code to recognize animals as sentient beings would change farm practices.
Quebec’s animal welfare laws recognize animals are sentient beings. The law focuses on pets — called “companion animals” in the law — and not animals that are used for food production.
The Quebec law has had no impact on agriculture practices, says Fernandez.
Angus, who organized the petition, says that changing the Criminal Code could help police respond to calls about animal neglect or cruelty. Police services and provincial animal welfare organizations often do not know if responding to calls about animal cruelty and neglect are their responsibility, she says. Provincial welfare organizations “cannot keep up with the cases,” she said.
Police and provincial welfare organizations “put their hands up and they push it off to the local shelters to deal with,” she said.
“Everybody wants to keep their hands clean, because I don’t think even our authorities know what their involvement can be. The law is so loose right now, and nobody truly wants to get involved. If we can change things from a Criminal Code perspective, it at least allows police officers to have more authority,” she said.
The federal government has 45 days to respond to petitions. Government responses often include information about how the government has previously addressed issues raised in the petition or indicates what the government plans to do in the future.
