 Okay, it's just after seven, so I'm gonna get started. First, I'll just acknowledge that we are gathered on ancestral and unceded territory of the MacMaw. I'll also acknowledge and thank the Dean of the Law School, Dean Cameron, for facilitating this series and also the organizer, Elizabeth Sandford, for all her hard work. And also, thank you to the audience. Obviously can't do these without an audience. So, I've always had, also I'm Jodi Lazar, I'm an assistant professor here. That's my contact information. I've always had an interest in the law as it relates to animals. I've been teaching the animals in the law seminar here at the law school for two years now. And the fact is that this is a really interesting time to talk about animal law. People are interested, clearly. Governments are listening and I'll talk a little later about current changes on the legislative landscape where animals are concerned and it'll become very clear that I think we're in some kind of moment. Because change is not only on the horizon, it's actually happening now and that's all positive. But there are also some problems here and I'm gonna talk about those as well. So, a caveat, the usual lawyer line. What I say here is my academic interpretation of these questions, it's not legal advice. I'll also add that animal law is really a vast field. It's criminal law, but it's also provincial regulatory law. It's science and agriculture and food law. It's a comparative law to a certain degree. We often look to other jurisdictions to see how things are done there. So, I'll tell you from the outset that I can't claim to be an expert in all of those things. That I'm still learning myself every day. But I will relay to you what I do know and I'll try to answer any questions that come up later on. So, what will I talk about tonight? I've tried to highlight in the poster the contradictory ways that we think about and relate to animals and how the law relates to animals. You know, on the one hand, we love animals or many people do and presumably most people in this room do. There are family members and we're horrified when we hear stories of egregious cruelty. At the same time, I'll also add that people who eat animals generally wanna know that the animals were treated well. We care. On the other hand, the fact is that we use animals every day. Many people eat them. We lock them up in enclosures far from their natural habitats. We pay money to go and look at them. For them to, in some cases, we pay money for them to entertain us. So in circuses, for example, although this is happening less and less and not certainly a positive, in things like rodeos, which may seem irrelevant to Nova Scotia, but actually there was one here last spring, in zoos and aquaria, places like Marine Land and the Vancouver Aquarium and places closer to home as well. We use products, cosmetics, house cleaning products, medications that have been tested on animals. These are not typically painless procedures for the animals. Now I don't plan to talk much about animals as research subjects, but that's just one example, come on in, of how the law relating to animals does not necessarily map onto, I think how most people feel animals should be treated and protected. So what I wanna do using a couple of examples is bring this idea to light by talking to you about the different ways that humans interact with animals and how the law either does or does not protect them in those contexts. And I'll also talk to you about the changes on the horizon. And I'll do this in four parts. So my plan is to speak for about 45 minutes, maybe a little more, and then open things up to discussion. And the four things that I wanna talk about directly are these. So first animals as family members and what the law says about them when families break down. And I'll talk about cruelty laws, mostly federal law, and how the law has the effect of distinguishing between companion animals and other animals. It's not expressed, we'll see that, but it's there. I won't show any distressing images, but some of the incidents I'll describe briefly are fairly graphic, so be warned. I'll talk briefly about animals in agriculture and here I'll talk mostly about the rules surrounding the transportation of animals used in agriculture or farmed animals, which are pretty much the worst in the developed world, at least from the perspective of the animal's interest. And then I'll talk about the changes happening now. I'll add, there are a lot of things that I'm not talking about. Again, animal law is a really wide subject. I couldn't possibly be comprehensive in less than an hour. So again, I won't talk about animal testing other than when I discuss current bills in parliament, because one of them relates to that. I won't talk about captivity, again, except insofar as that's affected by one of the bills. In fact, the law around certain types of captivity is poised to change. And I'll be brief on agriculture because it's a huge topic, it's a complicated topic, and it's not something I can really do justice to in this time. And again, all that said, I will try to answer whatever questions you have during the question period. Okay, so I'll get right to part one now, which is companion animals or animals that we consider part of our family. So first, some context. Estimates put the number of Canadian households that have companion animals at around 60%. So that's pretty big. In terms of dollars, Canadians spend around $8 billion a year on their household pets. And that number comes from a study relied on recently by the Canadian Veterinary Association. So I think it's fairly safe to say that Canadians care about their animals. Now that 60% doesn't take into account marital or family status. But the fact that so many families include dogs or cats and other types of animals as well, because they're so popular in Canadian families, they're going to become an issue when families break down. When couples get divorced or split up if they're not married. And in many cases, that means that the law is going to get involved. Just like it does for all other kinds of family property because animals are in fact property. So if anyone here is wondering why I have a picture of a chair next to a picture of a dog in the eyes of the law, your dog or your cat or your pet lizard or animal of choice is the equivalent of your chair or your couch or your fridge. I'm sure some people here know this. Others maybe not. And when people hear this for the first time they tend to be quite surprised. It's off-putting, I think, to think about your animal as a thing, right? As garnering the same legal protection and treatment as your kitchen table. At least where property law is concerned. So what does this mean when families part ways? Well, the divorce rate in Canada hovers around 40%. And as we saw, about 60% of families have a companion animal. The divorce rate, of course, is not include couples that are not married who split up. So people in a relationship or common law spouses. So again, it's not uncommon that a dog or a cat or what have you might get caught up in a dispute between a separating couple. And what should happen with those animals when people can't work things out on their own following a breakup? That really depends on who you ask because there are quite varied opinions on this from the legal system and more specifically from judges who are most relevant for our purposes here. Because when things go south following a breakup that's where things ultimately are going to wind up when they can't be worked out. Your issue will land in front of a judge. So what judges think about this issue matters. And again, those thoughts vary. So on the one hand, there is this view that this kind of thing determining who gets custody of a dog is a complete waste of court time and resources. And to be clear, the term custody doesn't actually apply because animals are property. Judges don't determine who gets custody of a dog or an expensive car or a painting when a couple divorces. So the real issue here is about determining ownership of a dog. And of course this applies to other animals as well but dogs tend to feature prominently in the case law. So I'll just refer to dogs to keep it simple. So that's one end of the spectrum and that's sort of a direct application of the principle that dogs are property pure and simple and subject to an agreement or an express transfer of ownership. The general rule about property ownership is the person that purchased the property is the owner of the property. That's a little less straightforward with respect to family property. But generally in the context of the divorce but generally as a basic principle the person who bought the dog is the owner of the dog. So judges at this end of the spectrum with respect to animals, they might accompany their reasoning with statements like dogs are not children, dogs are bought and sold for profit, we don't do a best interest of the dog analysis like best interest of the child. That people should not be encouraged to use the courts for this kind of thing to determine ownership of a dog and that to ask a judge to make an order about ownership of a dog is as silly as asking a judge to make an order with respect to a particular set of silverware because one partner is particularly attached to it. And I use that example because that analogy was made in one of the cases. Now the property designation comes from legal precedents established centuries ago when we knew a lot less about animals capacity to feel pain and develop emotional attachments. And there are people working to change that but it's an uphill battle and that's likely to continue for years. So the fact remains that animals are property. What's questionable about that reasoning I think and other judges think as well, which I'll get to. The problem with that thinking is that taking to its logical conclusion that kind of reasoning suggests that litigation over inanimate objects like jewelry and China cabinets is also not worthy of the court's time. But the fact is judges deal with this kind of thing all the time, right? There's case law about jewelry, about furniture, about artwork, about property in other words that people have a particular attachment to. Now weather cases like that are in fact a great use of the judiciary's time is definitely a question worth asking and one where there are probably strong arguments on both sides. A friend of mine practices family law and we were discussing this and she told me that she once spent two hours, billable hours of course, negotiating over bunnies and what would happen to those bunnies when a couple broke up. So both her and the opposing lawyer were paid for two hours of their time to work this out. That's a choice that these people made. That was worked out without going in front of a judge so good for them. But many similar issues are not and the fact remains that that's what courts are for to settle disputes between citizens using reason and logic. So the idea that determining animal ownership is a waste of court's time may be questionable. Now that's one end of the spectrum. At the other end is the opposite view that this is an important question that it's worthy of judicial resources and that it should not necessarily be determined according to a straightforward property analysis. And this idea has also been recognized in the case law. So these cases don't deny that animals are property but I think rather that they represent a sort of a reasonable recognition that they're not the same kinds that animals are not the same kinds of property or not the same as other kinds of property. You know, they're not inanimate objects. They're animals, they're sentient and people have emotional attachments to and relationships with them. So this approach would look beyond who purchased the dog. So while it might take that into account as one factor for determining ownership it would also look at other things like who raised the animal, who exercised care and control of the animal, who bore the burden of care and comfort for the animal, who paid the expenses associated with the animal. So vet bills, food, training, that kind of thing that $8 billion that we heard about. And the idea here is that these factors recognize that ownership can change after an animal was acquired. So these factors come from a case. Originally a small claims court decision in Nova Scotia in 2017. And last year in January, they were relied on by a justice of the Newfoundland Labrador court of appeal. In what I'm quite sure is the first appellate court decision to deal with ownership of a companion animal. So for those who don't know, appellate court decisions are significant. They set the law for that province. They're the last step that a case goes to before the Supreme Court of Canada which of course sets the law for the entire country. So it's neat to see an appellate court engaging with this issue and taking it seriously. Now, unfortunately, those reasons didn't prevail in that case. So courts of appeal sit in odd numbers. And the two other justices carried out a straightforward property analysis and granted ownership to the person who had purchased the dog. But the third justice, the dissenting judge, she disagreed. So she looked at the evidence and she found in fact that both parties owned the dog despite that only one of them had paid for it. Her, Maya, looked at the evidence and determined that they were both owners based on their actions and on their individual relationships with the dog during the time that they were together. So she was not in the majority which means that those reasons don't prevail. They're not the law for Newfoundland and Labrador as of now. But what's interesting here still is the recognition by a court of appeal justice of the importance of the relationship with the animal even accepting that animals are property. So this recognizes in other words that animals are a distinct kind of property. They're not like a dining room table. So again, these reasons didn't prevail but that doesn't mean that another court of appeal in another province might not adopt them in going the other way. Appellate court decisions are not strictly binding in other jurisdictions. So if and when this case does come up again and it probably will outside of Newfoundland and Labrador it's not beyond the realm of possibility to think that another judge might pick up on that kind of reasoning and make it law in that province. Not guaranteed but certainly not impossible. So not an actual victory here for the woman who lost ownership of the dog but a small victory nonetheless. For those who believe that the law should in fact treat companion animals as different from a bedroom set. And to be frank animals don't see many victories in the legal system. So this is significant and hopeful. There's another takeaway here I think and that's even though I'm clearly of the view that this kind of question is fair game for a court that it's not a waste of a judge's time to resolve this kind of dispute. There's still a risk in placing these cases before a court because there's a decent chance that a straightforward property analysis will apply. So if you and your partner get a dog together you both cared for the dog together maybe you cared for the dog more than your partner and things changed and the relationship changes during the years since acquiring the dog unless you bought the dog with your credit card or a check in your name there's a good chance that as the law stands today the ownership will go to your partner if they bought the dog. So placing this kind of thing in front of a judge like any issue really but more so here because of the state of the majority of the cases carries risks which means that it's a good idea like in most family law disputes to try to keep this kind of thing out of court to try to resolve the issue on your own at least until the law more broadly speaking recognizes that there are or there may be other valid considerations than who originally purchased the dog. Okay so if you have questions on this custody issue or ownership I'll ask you to either write them down or remember them I'm gonna move on to cruelty. So it's a terrible picture but as a general it illustrates that as a general matter animal cruelty at the federal level is governed by the criminal code of Canada which as I'm sure most people here know is a uniform law meant to apply uniformly across jurisdictions across provinces and which defines the offense of animal cruelty. So this is the central provision dealing with cruelty to animals and basically what it tells us is that you commit an offense if you willfully cause or if you're the owner will fully permit to be caused unnecessary pain and suffering pain, suffering or injury to an animal or bird and you'll notice that I've bolded certain words in there because those words are really key to understanding how this provision works or doesn't work depending on what you ask. So those bolded parts in other words tell us who or which animals the provision is really meant to protect because there are some, I suspect that there are some misconceptions out there about what the criminal code does and does not do with respect to animal cruelty. So to put it simply or bluntly the criminal code prohibits gratuitous violence toward animals, the deliberate causing of pain and suffering unnecessarily or for no good reason which means that it does not prohibit necessary suffering. So some examples and I apologize this is where it gets a little graphic skinning a cat alive, unnecessary beating a dog with a shovel, unnecessary taping a dog's mouth shut and leaving it in a dumpster to die unnecessary these are all from the case law but practices related to pig slaughter practices that cause pain and suffering even in the presence of evidence of less painful ways available necessary. And this really highlights I think the contradiction that I mentioned the idea that we as a justice system and as a society are willing to accept certain practices in certain contexts. Now I'm not gonna get into the details of the particular practice that the judge in this case found necessary the cases from 1957 and the practices have changed since then but it's still a leading authority on this question it's one of the fundamental cases that we teach in an animal law course for the purposes of understanding the criminal code provision on cruelty because of course reasoning here is still good law and the reasoning goes where humans have a legitimate interest in something here eating pigs causing them pain and suffering may be necessary and this applies beyond slaughter as well. So what the case law basically tells us about this provision is not that it protects animals from cruelty but rather that it protects or immunizes what we deem as necessary cruelty and what's necessary depends a lot less on the treatment in question than on the animals use and that's basically a direct reading of the pig slaughter case because the judge there tells us that if someone were carrying out these actions the actions, the slaughter practice in the case if someone was carrying out these actions on a pig for no good reason he says to hear it squeal or for any other sadistic reason that person would be guilty of animal cruelty. So animal cruelty is really about use and much less about the act in question which obviously tells us something about the kinds of animals that are going to be protected by the criminal law. So farmed animals, animals use in agriculture, not really. It's going to be exceptionally rare on a egregious case of cruelty really outside of the realm of accepted practice that someone involved in agriculture will be charged criminally for animal cruelty and this case is basically why. So dogs and cats, sure but even that is not so straightforward. So many of you may have heard Nova Scotia recently about a year ago or in the fall actually officially banned cat decline or non-therapeutic partial digital amputation. The thinking is it's painful and it's unnecessary. My rhetorical question for you is whether anyone was ever charged criminally for decline under the cruelty provision before this ban came into effect and you can probably guess the answer which is no because it's an accepted medical practice. I'll just say, I can't say definitively no, I have not read every single cruelty case ever rendered in Canada but I'm going to go out on a limb and say no. So the ban is great, I don't want to diminish that. Nova Scotia was the first place to formally do this and it's long overdue. Other provinces have since followed suit as of this past weekend. It's now prohibited in all of Atlantic Canada which is great. But I use this example to illustrate the weaknesses in the criminal law because prior to the ban if someone were charged under the criminal code with causing unnecessary suffering to a cat by decline that cat they could easily demonstrate that it's not in fact unnecessary. It's a regular thing we do to cats for a legitimate reason and there's no less painful alternative which in fact there is but the point remains the same criminal charges would probably not succeed here. Okay, so I mentioned willfulness and necessity I haven't talked to you about willfulness yet. So in the leading decision interpreting willfulness or interpreting the willfulness requirement had to do with a cat. The accused got mad at his daughter's cat, cat's name was Sammy. It's rare that animals are named in court decisions often actually when the judge starts naming the animal you get a sense of where they're gonna end up not true here. So Sammy knocked over a garbage can there was garbage all over the kitchen floor and in response to this the accused chased Sammy around the house with a broom. Sammy hid under the bed. The man swiped at him with the broom handle and then Sammy spent the whole night in the furnace room. He wouldn't eat and he didn't come out for a whole day. Eventually the accused and his daughter his daughter's cat took Sammy to the vet where he was X-rayed and diagnosed with a broken light. There was no doubt that the accused has had caused the break, right? He admitted what happened at the vet. He said that he swiped at the cat with the broom handle and he made contact. So this is obviously not a case of interpreting necessity. It's clearly unnecessary to discipline a cat with a broom to break its leg. So this case turned on the willfulness requirements and whether the accused intended in other words to break Sammy's leg. And of course he didn't. The prosecutor couldn't prove that the accused had willfully caused Sammy unnecessary pain and suffering. So he was acquitted, which effectively means that I didn't know or I didn't mean to can be a defense to a criminal charge of animal cruelty. So in other words, an individual accused of animal cruelty needs to have knowledge that their actions will probably cause unnecessary pain and suffering. All right, last thing I'm gonna say about the cruelty provisions of the criminal code. So that's a fairly well-fed horse. So not the best illustration of this case. I didn't take you through the criminal code provision on neglect, but there is one and it's been interpreted in a very similar way as the cruelty provision. So it too requires that neglect be willful, which in itself is an oxymoron and hard to wrap one's head around. That aside, the interpretation of the willful neglect provision of the code confirms this. It comes from a case where someone's horses did not look like this. It's a case about the failure to feed one's horses. And basically what it tells us is that that requirement of willfulness, just like for causing unnecessary suffering that here with respect to neglect, it matters. So the authority on interpreting the neglect provision is a case from the Yukon, sorry, actually from Alberta. The case is about a man who ran a tour company in the Yukon and he had about two dozen horses. And at the end of tourist season in November, he brought his horses down to Alberta for the winter. In March, local farmers in the neighborhood started to become concerned about the condition of the horses and they called the police. And as it turned out, three of the horses had died of starvation and the rest were emaciated. So because of the weather, this was in Grand Prairie, Alberta in the winter. Most of the hay and the grass that was left for them was covered in ice, so they couldn't get to it. So there was no controversy that the horses starved and that their owner failed to provide suitable and adequate food. But don't forget, the offense requires that the neglect be willful. And here there was no evidence that the accused intended to let his horses starve and die. So the evidence in other words didn't establish that he knew that leaving horses unattended in a pasture in northern Alberta for the winter would probably result in them going hungry. The court reasons that the loss of the horses would result in a serious financial loss to the accused, which he could not have willfully intended. And in coming to that conclusion, the court relies on evidence from a local vet to the effect that this kind of neglect and starvation of horses and other livestock is actually not that uncommon, which led the judge to conclude that it was not unreasonable for the accused to hold these misconceptions. So to summarize on the criminal code, the treatment has to be unnecessary, accepted uses of animals are necessary. The treatment has to be intentional. And of course, because we're in the realm of the criminal law, the offense has to be, the lack of necessity and the willfulness has to be, and the actual act of course, has to be proven beyond a reasonable doubt by the crown, by the prosecution for charges to succeed, which is a high burden of proof for a good reason because criminal charges are serious and the consequences of criminal charges are serious as well. But what that means here is that there's not a lot of great stuff happening under the criminal code for animals. And where charges under the code are successful, they're typically accompanied by a light sentence. That's also changing, but people typically are not satisfied with sentences under the criminal code. I don't wanna spend a lot of time on sentencing, but the provision that we looked at, yes I can go back, the punishment is set out there, and it provides for a maximum of five years in prison. Again, I haven't surveyed every single case decided under this, the sentence changed in 2008, but I'm fairly confident in saying that nobody has ever seen five years. I think two years is the max and it's pretty rare. So a couple of years ago, an individual was sentenced to two years followed by three years probation and then a 25 year ban on having animals. So I had mentioned this one, he pleaded guilty to taping a dog's muzzle shut, binding its legs, this is different, and leaving it in a field to die. What's interesting about this case is the sentence certainly it's high, but in the news reports, the media talks about the fact that the accused, or the offender rather because he pleaded guilty. It talks about the fact that he spent much of his time in prison, right from the time he was arrested in solitary confinement for his own safety. The idea, of course, being that his crime was really egregious, the crown called it a despicable act of depravity. So people care about this stuff, right? People care about animals. You hear about similar situations when children are victims that accused or offenders have to go into solitary confinement because their crimes are so outrageous. But a lot of the same people I think don't quite know that the criminal law is not very effective at protecting animals because the two year sentence is really an exceptional case. Okay, so that was the criminal code, which is federal law. Provinces also have animal protection legislation. I'm not gonna get into any real detail on the provincial law, but I will say that the same kinds of exceptions are built into those laws as well, more expressly than the criminal code. Most of the provincial animal protection laws actually state who they do and don't apply to. Also, an increasing number of charges happen under provincial law. So I mentioned that Nova Scotia was the first province to ban defying, that others have followed suit. That kind of thing happens under provincial law. So these days, a lot of cases are being handled under provincial statutes and not under the criminal code. It's easy to understand why, based on what I've just told you about the criminal code, it's very difficult to prove that someone will fully cause unnecessary pain and suffering. Provincial offenses are easier to prove, so the crown's job is easier there, and they're also harder to defend because they don't carry the stigma of the criminal law. But that they don't mean the same thing as the criminal law I think is also problematic. So I'm not generally in favor of a broad criminal law. I don't think we should be throwing more people in jail. I think there are plenty of people in prison who probably don't belong there. But the criminal law, I think, also has a message-sending function. And I think that certain behaviors really do merit the symbolism of criminal sanction. Also, on a practical level, this matters. Provincial offenses, first of all, they don't create a criminal record. And second of all, an order accompanying a sentence under a provincial law, so for example, a prohibition on owning animals, going forward, that prohibition is only gonna be effective in that province. So what that means is that people convicted under a provincial law, if they're really motivated to keep doing what they're doing, they can simply pick up and move. So you hear about puppy mill operators doing this. They're shut down in one province, they're fined, it's the cost of doing business, they move and set up shop across the border, and they continue to operate with the same problematic conditions and outcomes for the animals. It's not great. That's all I'll say about provincial law. I'm gonna move briefly to animal law in agriculture. And here I just wanna focus on one aspect of the Canadian agricultural industry that's particularly problematic. There's a lot more to say about the laws around agriculture and farming, but the fact is, as some of you may know, there really is not much law on the treatment of animals on the farm, at least insofar as their wellbeing is concerned. So there are lots of regulations about food safety and some of those laws, some of those regulations coincide or are conducive to animal interests as well. But where treatment of animals on the farm is concerned instead of legislation adopted by our democratically elected leaders and debated in parliament, there's a series of codes of practices which are developed primarily by industry. I will say that these codes are better than the alternative, the alternative being no regulation or standards at all for the treatment of animals on the farm. And that was essentially the case prior to the early 2000s when these codes started to be developed. So the industry has taken an important and positive step here. But the fact remains that it's industry itself that decides the rules, that sets the baseline for criminal or quasi-criminal conduct within that industry. And I don't wanna say that there is no other area of law or life where that's the case, maybe there is, but I will say that it's quite an exceptional situation. Where the law does come into play with respect to animals in agriculture is surrounding transport, specifically transport to slaughter. And basically, despite very recent changes here, these 2019 regs were adopted in February. So despite those changes, Canada has, I think it's safe to say that Canada has the worth animal transport rules in the developed world. The previous regulations prior to the 2019 regs had been in place since the late 1970s. These current ones were adopted after a decades-long process of review and development. And in short, they're, well, as you can see, they're not much better than the situation in the late 1970s. So this is an adaptation of a chart published by the CFIA, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency who sets these regulations. And it deals with maximum time limits that an animal can be on a truck without food, water, or rest. And it's comparing them to the previous version. So cows, for example, ruminants can be transported for up to 36 hours without food, water, or rest, which is down from 48 hours under the previous rules. And just for the sake of comparisons, so here's where the comparative element comes in. In the US, the maximum time for cattle is 28 hours. In the EU, it's eight hours. Yeah, okay, that's cows. Pigs, 28 hours down from 36, which is a lot more than the eight hour maximum in the EU. Baby chicks, so these are newly hatched birds, 72 hours before and currently as well. I understand that that's the amount of time that a chick can sustain itself without food, rest, water. What this image doesn't tell us is the temperatures at which animals can be transported in open trucks on the highway. And those continue to go unregulated. Basically, they're at the operator's discretion. And that's obviously significant in a place like Canada where we have extreme weather, right? So something like minus 10 plus a wind chill is gonna feel much colder on an open trailer moving at 100 kilometers an hour, let alone minus 15, minus 20, et cetera. And of course, extreme heat is going to feel much hotter when you're jammed in a truck full of worn bodies with no ventilation requirements. With respect to rest time, in Australia, rest times are 12 to 36 hours. So the amount of time that an animal must be rested before they can be loaded back onto a truck. 12 to 36 hours depending on the species. In Europe, 24 hours rest for all animals. In Canada, eight hours up from five. So some will say that the science is divided or somewhat divided on this question about the science on stress and behavioral changes associated with long transport times. But there seems to be some consensus on the fact that the limits in Canada are simply way too long. There's also a strong consensus among Canadians. So according to data published last year, think by the Globe and Mail, before these changes were made, eight out of 10 Canadians were in favor of shorter transport times to reduce suffering and including protecting animals from extreme weather. So again, I'm not a scientist. I can't speak to the science. But what I can tell you is that according to the CFIA itself, under the old regs, two to three million animals a year die during transport every year in Canada, and approximately seven million more are condemned upon arrival at slaughterhouses for being too diseased or injured to be fit for human consumption. So that's almost 10 million dead or condemned animals per year. And just for reference in Canada, we kill somewhere in the range of 600 million animals per year. The vast majority of them are transported. So those stats on arrival at the slaughterhouse are under the old rules. We don't have numbers yet under the new limits because they're new. But they're not that much shorter and changing these was a decades long undertaking. So I think these are unlikely to change for a while. All right, last thing I'm gonna talk to you about. So a lot of what I've said is not super optimistic. This is where things get a little better. So there are currently four bills in parliament in Ottawa related to animal protection. And again, I have not done a study of this, but I have heard others refer to this situation as unprecedented. The thinking among animal advocates is that animal issues have never been at the top of the political agenda. So not much of a political priority. But it looks like that may be, I'm gonna say slowly starting to change. So what I'll do for a few more minutes is talk to you about each of the ways that the federal government is looking to change the law as it regulates our relationship with certain types of animals at the national level. And the first thing listed there is first because it looks like it's really going to happen in terms of the legislative process. It's pretty close. So the billing question, that's a beluga, is called the ending the captivity of whales and dolphins act. It's often referred to in the media as the free willy bill or actually called bill S203. S because it originated in the Senate, which means that once it goes through three readings in the, it means it's made its way through the Senate. And once it goes through three readings in the House of Commons and then gets royal assent, which is more of a formality than anything else, it becomes law in the books. So the bill is limited in scope. It only affects certain animals. But I think it nevertheless has significant meaning in terms of what we as a society deem acceptable treatment and use of animals. And what this demonstrates is that the majority of Canadians just no longer think it's acceptable to hold certain marine mammals, dolphins and whales, mostly in captivity and force them to perform in the interests of economic profit. So the effect of the bill is to amend the criminal code, what it will do is add another provision just after the general provision on the necessary pain and suffering. And that provision, it applies to cetaceans. So what it first does is define cetaceans as including whales, dolphins and porpoises. And then it prohibits three things. It prohibits the keeping of a cetacean in captivity. So that's not going to be allowed in Canada anymore. It prohibits breeding or impregnating a cetacean. And it prohibits possessing or seeking to obtain reproductive materials of cetaceans, which is of course how they're bred. It also includes a couple of exceptions. It will not apply to those already in possession of these animals. So that's marine land and the Vancouver Aquarium. These are the only two facilities in Canada that keep captive whales and dolphins. And it's not the kind of thing we want to see, but quite frankly, it's not really easy to move these animals. And right now, there's nowhere to put them. So these animals are grandfathered in. It also will not apply where an animal is being rehabilitated in a rescue rehabilitation situation where captivity is deemed to be in its best interest. With respect to penalty, the sentence is a maximum of six months in prison and or a fine of $200,000, which is high, clearly meant to apply to businesses. Individuals don't typically keep these kinds of animals at home. And the idea there being that the sentence needs to be something more than the cost of doing business, right? So there are two other small things that the bill does. It makes it illegal to move a wild cetacean for the purposes of taking it into captivity. And it requires an export permit in order to import or export a cetacean or a tissue culture or an embryo. But my understanding is that Canada hasn't actually issued an export permit or import permit for a couple of years now. So that's not a major change. But so that's the gist of it. So it passed second reading in parliament last week, sorry, after already having gone through the Senate. And for those who don't know that means it's pretty much poised to become law. So it would be provided it gets on the order paper for third reading before the writ is dropped for the next election, which will happen soon. That said, it would be pretty exceptional for a bill to be killed on third reading, again, which is the final debate in the House before it becomes law or before it gets royal assent and then becomes law. And again, because it originated in the Senate almost four years ago now, it's not a long time coming. It doesn't need to go back and be studied there. And in fact, the Senate studied this, the Fisheries Committee in the Senate studied the bill at 17 different meetings and heard from more than 40 witnesses. So experts in marine biology, animal behavior, fisheries, conservation, animal welfare and more. So that's the Whale and Dolphin Bill or the Free Willy Bill. It's excellent news. As I said earlier, it's limited in scope, right? There are only two places in Canada that keep these animals. There's only one Orca or killer whale in Canada that's Kiska at Marine Land and she gets to stay. But it's overall a positive for sure. If anything at all, again, I think it's an important acknowledgement by our government, our elected representatives that Canadians are not interested and don't support seeing these very cute and very intelligent animals in the equivalent of a concrete bathtub and made to perform tricks for their food. So definitely worth celebrating. Spent a bit less time on the others. Cosmetics testing, this is Bill S214. Also a Senate Bill, past third reading in the Senate in June of 2018. It's called the Cruelty Free Cosmetics Act and it amends the Food and Drugs Act, which otherwise regulates cosmetics, the sale of cosmetics testing, that kind of thing. And what it does is prohibit the sale of any cosmetic that was developed or manufactured using cosmetic animal testing. So the sale of products and not just, doesn't just prohibit the sale of products that have been tested, but it also prohibits the testing itself and it prohibits the use of evidence or ingredients that have themselves been derived through by animal testing. So again, this passed in the Senate, much less resistance than the Whale and Dolphin Bill, which face a lot of resistance from the conservative whip in the Senate. Unfortunately, this bill has not yet been introduced in the House of Commons and I think with an election coming up quickly, it has less of a chance of becoming law than the Whale and Dolphin Bill, but it's not irrelevant. Again, it's an acknowledgement that certain practices are no longer acceptable to Canadians. This is also an example of the law really just following industry practice. It's consumer driven. A lot of companies have already abandoned animal testing because people really just are not interested in cosmetics that have been tested on rabbits. It's also to a large degree, Canada keeping up to date with developments internationally. So the EU, the UK, New Zealand, they all prohibit this. California is going that way as well. So again, the law catching up to changing societal attitudes about what is and what is not acceptable conduct relating to animals. But there's also another lesson in here, which is that the law moves slowly and this is a good example of that because I'm not sure that this bill will make it through the House before the election. Third bill is on raciality and animal fighting. So that is a pit bull, which is the type of dog, pit bull type dog, type of dog that we typically associate with dog fighting. So this again is an act to amend the criminal code by doing three things. So first, it defines bestiality, which some people might find odd and wise. It's a legislative priority. So in 2016, the Supreme Court of Canada acquitted an accused person of the offensive bestiality because the act in question did not include penetration. The animal, legal animal advocacy group, animal justice, which is that legal advocacy group for animals in Canada, they intervened in that case, which means they were given permission to make arguments representing the animal's interests. There was a dissenting judgment in the case which took up animal justice's reasoning. But ultimately, the accused was acquitted. So this bill is an example of what we call dialogue theory between the legislature and the Supreme Court, where the Supreme Court says the law is problematic, but it's not really up to us to fix it. So, you know, fix it. They don't say it in quite those words, but this is the legislature responding to the Supreme Court's reasoning, basically an attempt to close that loophole by defining bestiality as any conduct for a sexual purpose with an animal. This bill also strengthens the prohibition on, well, dog fighting, but animal fighting more generally. So right now, the criminal code prohibits encouraging, aiding, or assisting, attending at the fighting or baiting of animals or birds. And the amended law would extend that prohibition to promoting, arranging, receiving money for or taking part in. It would also prohibit training, transporting or breeding of animals for those purposes. So broader offense, showing again that this is not the type of behavior that the Canadian public condones. The criminal code currently prohibits, this is the third thing that the law, the bill does, the criminal code currently expressly prohibits cock fighting and the keeping of a cock pit. So the last change brought into that offense to include any arenas for all animal fighting. I don't know that this bill is gonna pass before the election. It has not yet passed in the house and it's a House of Commons bill. So it's gotta go through three readings in the House of Commons. And in the Senate, which I don't think we're gonna see that happen before the election. So again, maybe not law yet, but again, sending important messages about what we do have acceptable and unacceptable and about how the law relates to animals. Last, proposed ban on shark finning, on shark fin import and export. So shark finning involves the practice of removing fins from live sharks and discarding the remainder of the sharks while at sea. Not surprisingly, many are of the view that this is cruel. It, of course, it's painful. And aside from that, sharks can't properly function in the water without fins. They can't defend themselves from predators. So this effectively condemns them to die. The products of shark finning fins themselves are typically used to make shark fin soup, which is considered a delicacy among certain cultural groups. Shark finning itself has been banned in Canadian water since 1994. So what this bill would do is extend that ban to importing the products of finning from elsewhere. So prohibition on import subject to a permit and a permit might be issued for the purposes of scientific research that benefits the species in question. So this is not, this is being billed not as a question of criminal law or a morality but of fisheries and conservation based on what the bill calls the devastating effect of shark finning and the resulting decline in shark species in Canadian waters and around the world. So question of species conservation and management. This bill passed in the Senate. This is the Senate bill in October 2018 and it's gone through first reading in the house. I think people are a little bit more hopeful that this one will get done before the election but I don't have a magic eight ball. So we shall see. But again, a statement about the importance of here not so much a moral question although certainly there are moral elements but about ensuring the continued existence of certain threatened species. Okay. So I've spoken for longer than I planned. I've barely sort of scratched the surface of current issues relating to the law of treatment of animals. But I hope to have gotten my main message across which is that in many situations when it comes to the balancing of interests between human and non-human, the balance tends to tip in favor of humans. That said, change is happening slowly with respect to an hour range of activities but it's something. As things stand right now in my view and the view of others, the law doesn't do enough to protect animals and that ultimately means that the responsibility falls on us as just members of the public but also as users, as owners of animals whether as pets, as food, as entertainment or what have you. Okay. So before I open it up to questions, I'm going to give a shameless plug for an upcoming and related event. This was a really small sample of animal law in October, the law school, in partnership with Animal Justice, National Animal Legal Advocacy Organization is hosting, together we're hosting a national animal law conference. We've received more submissions than we could possibly have imagined from throughout Canada and the world. So we've gotten submissions from Africa, New Zealand, places in Europe, South America, it's really cool. On a wide range of interesting and diverse subjects and current subjects. So if I may say so myself, it's going to be fantastic. Anyone is welcome to attend. Registration will open in the next, I would say in the next couple of months. So watch that space. We'll of course be advertising that on Twitter and Facebook and on the law school website and Animal Justice will be advertising as well. So keep an eye out for that. All right, on that note, I'm happy to try to answer whatever questions I can. Thank you. Two questions. Okay. And the person is how would you apply to animals that aren't in a sense of like trees or wild animals? Yeah. Okay, I'll answer that. Well, I mean, in theory, it applies. The prohibition on animal cruelty and the criminal code, there are separate provisions that relate specifically to animal property, but the cruelty provisions are general and they are meant to apply various case law about an unowned cat who was treated quite badly and the individual there was convicted on the criminal code. Yeah. Second question. Has anybody ever tried or successfully and consumed simply for damages towards an animal that's been treated equally? So in a sense of like, say, somebody before they would be some cat drug, was it found guilty and it was also the other student, civilly, and then became like a trustee. In the name of the animal, no, that did happen in the U.S. There was a big case about a horse named Justice who tried to sue for his medical bills. They weren't successful, so no. But you can, of course, sue civilly for damages if someone harms your animal and you have to pay for the vet, certainly. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I have a question about the green mammal bill that's being approved. So currently, there's a group called the Male Sanctuary Project who is putting forth an idea of having a sanctuary for these males. So in your reading of this bill, if only two places can have these citations. So if, like, say, such a sanctuary was built in which it was a bigger area, not for this environmental education or conservation, just not for the public, it's just some geeky animals in a larger area suitable for their welfare until eventually they die. It cannot be reproduced again because they were in captivity and they had to work in spirits with themselves. So what's the legality around that? I would argue that they would fall under the rehabilitation exception. Yeah, that's a good question. Yeah, and yeah, I mean, I know about the Well Sanctuary Project. I imagine that if they do open, they'll try to work with places like Marine Land and the Vancouver Aquarium to take some of the animals out their hands, especially if these places are not making money off the animals anymore. Yeah. Yes. Do you know why the criminal code provision says animals and birds? Like, is there something special about birds? I get this question all the time. The criminal code for animals was written in the late 1800s. It hasn't really changed since then, honestly. The code was sort of overhauled in the 1950s, but that provision hasn't changed since then, other than the sentence. I think that historically, there were differences at the level of property between animals and birds, but I also suspect, I don't have a concrete answer for this, but I suspect that it might also have to do with the sophistication of the science at the time. Right now, I think we can all agree that birds are animals, but I don't know if that wasn't always, if they weren't always categorized the same way. But I'm sorry, it's trying to be easy. I'm gonna try to put this question as I've done this also, but it seemed to be implied that perhaps animals that we in North America would eat as food are less subject to cruelty laws, perhaps. But then you see the shark fins, and those that have been used, perhaps, for consumption, I'm just wondering why people would allow for exotic animals like dolphins or sharks or anything like that to be differentiated from companion animals, or then differentiated again from animals that we would consume. Yeah, I think the best answer I could give you there is that the real problem with shark finning is the method of slaughter. And we have laws on slaughter methods. So that wouldn't apply then to cattle. Like, do you know what I mean? Because cattle is slaughtered in a more humane way. That's the whole argument. I think if someone in parliament was asked to justify that distinction, that would be the answer. That's how I would distinguish anyway. I was wondering if you could speak to some of the rules around they condemned or non-cruel cravings. Well, you mean what makes them condemned or? Or more so. What happens to them? They're even going to ask. Looking at that from this attitude. Well, sorry, I should correct that. I'm not an expert in slaughter methods and that kind of thing and ag, which is why I didn't want to talk too much about that, but I think that if an animal is sort of downed beyond the quality of life, they would be euthanized or they might be treated depending on the circumstances. But they're not going into the food system at least not in that state. Yeah. I had a question about the Sandy Bay Hat Game. Yeah. And I'm curious in what this game was based on. So when Mekius hit the cat with the phone, like he clearly wouldn't intentionally been looking pain on the cat to, you know, to this point. So was the accused dismissed on the basis that he, that Mekius didn't locally cause suffering that happened or that he, that he didn't know that it was unnecessary to see what I mean? I think that he would probably have argued that he was just trying to scare it. I mean, I haven't read the court transcripts, but if I were the accused, that's probably what I would argue. I didn't mean to break his leg. But you made that he intended contact or he didn't necessarily admit that he intended contact. He admitted that contact happened. So I think he was, you know, he was trying to scare it. Okay. I just wanted to make the patient with pain and suffering access is that if someone has like the 19th century news that animals may feel pain in the instant that he connects with a little experience later, like how people used to argue that events were circumcised, experienced a second or day later to suffer. Yeah. That if you could get away with anything, you could say, I think willfully, they've looked at suffering after the initial pain. Well, that would come down to the evidence and you'd have a vet testify that yes, the animal would have experienced pain and suffering after the fact. You know, there's also an aspect of that case that people don't really talk about, which is the psychological trauma that the cat would have experienced. And there are questions about where that kind of suffering, whether it can ground criminal charges. And I don't know that it has yet, but I think that people are looking to try to do that. Yeah. What is an organisation like the SPCA into the legal regulation? Sure. Yeah. Depending on the jurisdiction, and this is changing, so it's a bit of a moving target in places like Ontario and Alberta, but in Nova Scotia, the SPCA is mandating with enforcing the criminal code and the Provincial Animal Protection Act for companion animals. So their inspectors are the ones who are investigating and seizing animals who are victims of cruelty or distress. So they're getting by the problems to that organisation. Yeah. Yeah. That's changing in certain places. There's a recent decision in Ontario where the Superior Court found that it's untransparent and not in accordance with the principles of fundamental justice under Section 7 of our charter, for those in the room who understand what that means, that basically that it's not legitimate in our legal system for an unaccountable, non-profit organisation with no not subject to police accountability legislation and access to information legislation for them to be enforcing the law. And that happened in Ontario. In Ontario, the SPCA was also responsible for farm animal welfare, so it's a different context. That situation is not happening here. So right now, here in Nova Scotia, the SPCA is responsible for companion animals. Yeah. Yeah, I'm curious about sort of around ownership of animals, specifically same with the ownership. It's not known, for example, stray animals or it can be tested, such as surrendering to vet clinics or maybe when an animal is abandoned. Since I've worked with that group before, there are things that come up a lot such as people who bring in stray animals, re-signing, but they want to take the animal home or like that I can't have, it's a property of the SPCA or owners who give up their animals, taking them for surgery, but come up with money after they sign the form, or owners who don't respond back to the veterinarians calling them, such as leaving animals for weeks at the vet clinics and then show up later past the point that you consider a little bit too abandoned, you have to work with that. Yeah, so what's your perspective on that? I mean, that's a good question. I don't know precisely what the law is on sort of how long one has to have abandoned their property in order to lose ownership. I mean, homeward bound in HRM is mandated and paid by the city to manage strays. And I suspect that they have some policy on stray holds three days or maybe a week, whatever it is. And after that, the animal would be free to go to a home. I don't know how that interacts with any particular provincial law that sets out a time limit, but I would have to assume that hopeful wildlife would be following those rules. Yeah, sorry, not hopeful wildlife. Homeward bound. Sorry. I was going to go salad to the Dalhousie law, but it brought someone in the Ontario gentlemen who's working on sentient beings, animals with sentient beings. And I think there's three animals at the time about primates and dolphins and CHU and the third one. I just wanted to get you guys to hear anything about the progress on that situation. So you're referring to the non-human rights project and Steve Wise was the guest speaker, it's American and the third animal is elephants and they're still working on it. And they're going to be working on it until they win. And they're filing suits with different types of animals. So it started with primates and I think they have filed suit on behalf of an elephant now in Connecticut. I don't think they have done marine mammals yet. Four elephants, four elephants. They got one really good set of reasons from a dissenting judge in a New York case saying, this isn't to nonsense and we should hear this. In response to a brief prepared by a group of philosophers, one of whom works at Dalh and that was a success. It was really unprecedented to hear an appellate court acknowledge the sentience and intelligence and autonomy of these kinds of animals and say that this is something worth paying attention to. So they're writing on that, they're filing new suits on behalf of more and more animals until they get the result that they're looking for. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. I found the presentation very informative and interesting. Thank you. I would like to take advantage of having an interested audience here. You mentioned bull riding, that was some here in Maine last year at the Scotiabank Center. They're coming back. They're back here on the 1st of June, 7 p.m. at the Scotiabank Center. We will be having an information protest for Pippet six o'clock on the 1st of June outside the Scotiabank Center. So if you're interested and want to show some support, please come. I have to take one. No, that's fine. I appreciate that. I did not know that they were coming back, so that's not really welcome news, but thank you for notifying me. I won't be here on the 1st of June, but thank you for sharing that. Yep. Not being a law person, this is a reasonable question. Sure. It sounds like there's the criminal code and then there are the provincial laws. So when something comes to trial, how is it decided? Is it two separate things or you either try to put one or the other? And how's that decided? There's strategic choices that are involved in deciding whether to press charges under the criminal code or under the provincial law. So like I mentioned, it's much easier to prove the offense in question under provincial law. It's much harder to defend against, so the burden of proof is different and it's harder to defend against a provincial offense. So that would be a strategic choice on the part of the crown based on, say the egregiousness of the crime, the characteristics of the accused, the animal in question, the context of the act. Yeah. It's going to be a big one coming up in this audience for what I'm hearing on Facebook from a recent event, serenading some cruelty to dogs on just kind of addressing the scene. The MECA, is that? Yeah. I don't know, we'll see. Yeah. I think the crown would work in conjunction with the SPCA. Ultimately, the crown would decide what kinds of charges to bring. Yeah. Yeah. Some provinces have banned the breeding of certain breed and some provinces feel very strongly that we shouldn't engage in that. Where does that sit and how do you do that? I think provinces would be within their purview to make that decision. Animals are property. Property is the legislative jurisdiction of the province. I'd really have to think this through, but I wouldn't... My knee-jerk reaction is not that they cannot. That's really... Yeah. Yes, that they can. Yeah. But I would have to think that through a bit more carefully. Yeah. Yep. Can you shed any light on all three vote changes that are going to effect in the provincial regulations? What will take place with animals? Well, the Animal Protection Act was amended in the fall, so I think those changes are in effect. I've heard this, but it's the new, but it hasn't actually been enacted yet. It hasn't been proclaimed. It's been given where I was sent, but as of last week, it was still on the government's thing. It's still needed to be proclaimed. Okay. So what are the changes of that? Yeah, as far as I understand, the changes are the grounds on which... I was just looking at this. The grounds on which an SPCA inspector can enter a property. So they just need reasonable grounds to suspect that an animal is in distress, which is one of the things that people had issues with when the bill was being debated. And I don't want to say the wrong thing. I'm pretty sure it's reasonable grounds, but it's a lower threshold, I think, than it was under the previous law. And also there are specific actions and practices that are prohibited in the new law that were not expressly prohibited in the previous version such as, well, decline. So cosmetic surgeries perform solely for the purpose of altering the appearance of an animal without a medical benefit, including, so including means it's not an exhaustive list, tail docking, tail nicking, setting or blocking ear cropping, devocalizing or debarking, decline, onectomy, duklau removal, or any other prescribed alteration or surgery. But that doesn't cover agricultural practices carried out in accordance with the codes of practice that I mentioned. So it's just for companion animals. So I think those are the major changes in there. How does that interact with, say, sphincter pulses? I mean, you'd argue that sphincter is necessary. Why? I think it's just plain. It's an accepted medical procedure in the interests of the species and the public. So it's, because if we're talking about the actual well-being of the animal in the past two, my understanding is that scientific evidence actually shows that it's beneficial to not alter or to at least delay alteration in and until after it's finished growing. Yeah. I think there's lots of contradictory science on that. There are a lot of vets who will do a pediatric sphincter. But like I said, the law, as it affects animals, primarily serves human interests. So the law is improving and things like these prohibited practices, for example, are good for the animals. But controlling the pet population, there's a human interest in doing that as well. And I think that a lot of people would argue that it's to the advantage of animals as well, that they shouldn't be homeless and stray and, you know, feral cats and that kind of thing. Yeah. But it would be accepted as an accepted medical practice, done humanely under anesthetic, of course. I have sort of a two-part question and I think it's written more in front of me than it is in front of me. I'm sorry. And it was essential. I actually love animals. But I was wondering, what do you think? The entertainment industry, I have not seen the Dumbo movie, but there is a little trailer wherein the, you know, the latter and the child are separated. I was wondering what your thoughts are on the influence of the entertainment industry. And then the other part of my question was more about fashion and how fashion is influencing the animal protection for coats and not so much the performance they were playing for musicals. Yeah. The entertainment stuff, you know, most of those films now are using computer generated imaging. So it's not really a question of animal abuse, although that still happens. I mean, you know, small children, we watch movies with animals in them and we grow to love animals. So I think that's probably a good thing. Fashion, we're evolving as a society in terms of what we consider acceptable and not acceptable. And there are jurisdictions that have banned fur. New York is talking about a ban on fur. I think LA has banned fur. It's just, it's no, no, it's not, you know, there are certain people who don't think it's unacceptable, but it's just no longer uncontroversial, right? People are starting to realize that some of these practices that we've taken for granted for decades and centuries are maybe not okay. And again, change is slow. The law is slow to reflect those societal changes, but they are happening. And I would say the same is true for food. More and more sort of plant-based restaurants are opening, people are starting to have a more open mind about what they eat and where they spend their money. People who eat meat are becoming more aware and more sensitive to again, to how the animals are treated before they're sent to slaughter. So yeah, I think things are changing and it's positive. So sure, a lot of the stuff I said here was grim, but you know, in the long term, things are changing in positive ways. The only exception to that might be the new Canada Hoots, you know, clothing has been exponentially developed in Europe, but that's the one of the revolutionary work trend. Yeah, there's always a fashion. No, okay, you could quote us now, not by shares. That's right. Yeah. Yep. Do you have any interesting cases where property or quality law has interacted with trade law? It's a good question. Not really. I don't know of any cases. So I think we technically have till 8.30, but we're not forced to stay till 8.30, so if nobody has any questions, you can just go with the back, yeah. How does a lot of people in this situation where an animal, where there's a dispute between ownership, let's say, if somebody's cat, gets out with the laid-out rubricates and the cat never uses the rubric. If it got to court, it would be a question of evidence and who the judge believes. Like all disputes. As a lawyer, isn't the rule, find his keepers until the true owner comes along. So if the person who truly owns the cat can prove the rule of the cat, they have the right to do it. I don't teach property law? And I remember that was a kid in a dark, a darky that was teaching her years ago. Right. That was one of his first rules, and I remember that one. Perhaps, yeah. Yeah, but it would depend on the facts and on the context and on the evidence, really. Yeah. Question here. Yes, it's been a long time since I looked at it, but my recollection is that the initial prohibitions on animal cruelty and the law to the criminal code weren't really based on protecting the animals first day, but on the idea that we can't let people do sadistic things to animals, because they're more likely to do sadistic things to children and other kind of people. Certainly. So we're protecting the general human population, not the animal. So has the kind of language that parliament uses in discussing them using bills and any other kind of amendments shifted to boards to protect the animal as opposed to the public? Yes, I think so. Yeah. The bestiality bill, for example, is a response to the idea that animals' consideration are not currently taken into account. Certainly, there are some like ick factor and morality talk there, too. But when I would say that, yes, the language of the debates has shifted. And legislators are, and courts, again, are taking this more seriously than historically. Yeah. The language of the law, that has not changed criminal code. But our thinking around it is changing. Yeah. Do you see the labeling of the animals as property and changing? That's the non-human rights project, the case trying to get to personhood for certain species. That's their objective. I would love to see that succeed. I think it's a long road. But I think there are a lot of people who would be quite happy to see that change happen. At the same time, there's not surprisingly a lot of resistance to that idea, because of what it means for industries that depend on animals and use animals for profit. I'm curious whether there are any countries, jurisdictions, that ascribe rights to animals, get in some parts of the world, recognizing that certain rivers and ecological features have rights. So I'm just wondering if that's the origin of it. Some more recent constitutions and bills of rights might include rights for animals. But I don't want to pronounce on any one specifically. I'm not entirely sure. But yes, there are jurisdictions that are much more amenable to that than ours. Yeah. So does that move well then? I mean, you mentioned earlier, references made to decisions made in Europe and elsewhere. So if that starts emerging other parts, then it could be a basis for the citizens here. The context is different, but any little bit helps. Any, if you can point to a jurisdiction that's doing something differently, why wouldn't you? As an example of something that we might adopt, certainly. Yeah. Less of a sex business, like in the sense of temporary checks. Jeremy. Any constitutional challenges to provincial legislation that does these prohibitions and penalties what it seems to be for all of us? Yes. It's really interesting. In the case about the SPCA and the accountability question in Ontario recently, the claimant, they're also challenged the constitutionality or the constitutional validity of provincial animal protection law, saying that because the federal government has jurisdiction over criminal law, that provinces can't adopt that kind of law. That argument was dismissed. But yeah. And the government of Ontario is appealing that decision. I'm not sure on which grounds. Like I don't know if it's only on the charter issue and the principle of fundamental justice or if it's also on the division of powers question. But that is not done yet. Yeah. OK. So thank you. Oh, sorry. I'm just curious, to your knowledge, there are any studies that are made publicly available regarding the amount of time that animals are allowed to be transported without food, water, or rest? Where is this information coming from that these amounts of time are suitable for their survival and well-being? It's the science we're relying on by the CFIA. I mean, you'd have to go on their website and see. They're a government organization. So these studies are government funded? No, not necessarily. No, it's the science that they're relying on. But because they're a government organization, that information should be available to citizens. Yeah. All right. Well, thank you all very much for being here.