 I'm Jody Lazard. I'm a professor at the Law Faculty. Before I start, I want to just thank the Law School for organizing this. I also want to thank the Faculty of Agriculture for hosting us. I'd like to thank the organizers and the community and the whole center. And I want to thank the audience for being here. If you weren't here, this would all be for nothing. So I'm happy to see our local people. So I've always had an interest in the law as it relates to animals, which I suspect stems from my sort of inexplicable love for dogs and cats as a child. And when I became a lawyer and then a professor, I was really excited about the fact that I could incorporate that interest into my work now. So I taught a course on animals and the law at the Law School in the fall. And a lot of what I'll talk to you about tonight stems from there. I'll just offer a brief caveat, which is that everything that I'll talk to you about tonight is sort of my academic interpretation of the law as it relates to animals. I'm not a member of the Nova Scotia Bar, not yet at least. So none of this, of course, is legal advice. I'll also say that animal law is an incredibly vast field. And insofar as I can claim any expertise, so to speak, I would say my expertise is more about our treatment of companion animals. And that's what I've sort of researched and written about so far in terms of law relating to animals. Although I'm very happy to answer questions about other areas and subjects to the best of my abilities. So what will I talk about tonight? What I tried to do with the poster is highlight the contradictory ways that we think about and relate to animals and how the law relates to animals. So on the one hand, you know, we love animals or many people do, and I suspect probably quite a few people in this room would agree with that. We think of them as family members. We're horrified when we hear sort of horrendous stories of cruelty in the news. We want to think that we do a good job of protecting their interests. On the other hand, we use animals every day. We eat them, we lock them up in enclosures far from their natural habitats, and pay money to go and look at them. We pay money for them to entertain us in circuses, for example, although that's happening sort of less and less in North America. In things like rodeos, which believe it or not happens to be a timely subject in Nova Scotia. You may have heard something about that on the news. I'll come back to it. In places like zoos and aquaria, of course, places like Marine Land and the Vancouver Aquarium. And of course, there are places closer to home as well. We use products, cosmetics, household products, medications, most of which have been tested on animals, and these are not usually painless procedures for the test subjects for the animals. Now, I don't plan to talk too much about animals as research subjects, given the relatively short time I plan to speak for, but that's just another example of how the law as it relates to animals does not necessarily map on to how most people think or feel that animals should be treated and protected. So what I want to do using a couple of examples is really bring this sort of contradiction to light. By talking to you about a couple of different categories of our treatment of animals and about how the law does or does not protect them within those categories or in the context of certain activities. And I'll do that by talking about four categories specifically, although if there are questions about others, as I said, I'm happy to try and answer those during the Q&A. So my plan is to talk for about 40 minutes or so and then open things up to discussion. And the four things that I plan to talk about are animals as family members and what the law says about their status as part of our family and what happens relative to animals when families break down. I'll talk about federal anti-cruelty laws in the criminal code. And I'll explain how while it doesn't do this expressly, the criminal code effectively distinguishes between different types of animals that sort of garner protection under the code. I'll talk about animals in entertainment and we might think about zoos and aquaria in this category as well. So I know that there's a lot of talk out there about the idea that some zoos are engaged in research and conservation activities and that may be true in certain places, but I do think that the line between entertainment and aquaria in particular can be a blurry one. And then lastly I'll talk about animal agriculture, animals that we eat or whose products we eat or consume. And there I'll talk mostly about the rules around transportation of farmed animals, which are, I mean I won't lie, pretty much the worst in the developed world, at least from the perspective of the animals' interests. Okay, so I'll get into part one now, which is companion animals or animals that we consider part of our families. And just to get a sense of who we're talking about, these are my companion animals. That's Rumpel, Golden Doodle, and Slim Jim, the domestic short-haired cat. So some more context. Estimates put the number of Canadian households with companion animals at around 60%. In terms of dollars, Canadians spend around $8 billion a year on their household pets. And that number comes from a study relied on by the Canadian Veterinary Association published a few years ago. So I think it's fairly safe to say that Canadians care about their animals. Now that 60% doesn't take into account sort of marital or family status, but the fact that so many families include dogs and cats and other types of pets as well, because they're so popular in Canadian families, they're going to become an issue when families break down. So 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 kinds of family property, because animals are in fact property. So in the eyes of the law, your dog or your cat or your lizard or bird or whatever animal you share your home with is the equivalent to your couch or your fridge or your office chair. So some people here I'm sure know this, others maybe not. When people learn this, they tend to be quite surprised. I think it's off-putting to think about your dog as a thing, as garnering the same treatment as your desk. So what does this mean that animals are mere property when families split up? So the divorce rate in Canada is about 40%. We saw or I mentioned that about 60% of families include a companion animal. So it's not uncommon that a dog might get caught up in a dispute between a divorcing or a separating couple. So what should happen with those animals when people can't work things out on their own at the time of family breakdown really depends on who you ask, because there are varied opinions on this from the legal system. So from judges more specifically and most relevant for our purposes because when things go south following a divorce or a breakup when people argue about property and can't work things out, ultimately these disputes may end up in front of a judge. So what judges think about this really matters and also what judges say is going to guide sort of negotiations in future cases. So what judges think about this varies. So on the one hand there's one end of the spectrum which represents the view that this kind of thing determining who gets custody of a dog is a complete waste of court time and resources. And I put custody in quotes because the term custody doesn't apply here. Animals are property. Judges don't determine who gets custody of an expensive painting or a car or anything else 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 most of the cases have to do with dogs. So I'll refer to dogs for the most part. So this end of the spectrum that thinks that this is really just a waste of time is a direct application also represents a direct application of the principle that dogs are property and that subject to an agreement or an express sort of transfer of ownership. The general rule about property is that the person who purchased the property owns the property. That can become a little less straightforward in the context of a divorce and family property but at a very basic level with respect to property owner is purchaser. So judges at this end of the spectrum with respect to animals might accompany their reasoning with statements like dogs are not children, we don't buy and sell our children for profit and that people shouldn't be encouraged to resort to the courts for this kind of thing to determine ownership of a pet. And that to ask a judge to determine ownership of a dog is as silly as asking a court to make an order with respect to a particular set of cutlery because one partner happens to be particularly attached to that cutlery or silverware. Now it's true that animals are property and the property designation comes from precedents that are centuries old and established when we knew a lot less about animals capacity to feel pain and to develop emotional bonds the way we do now. And there are people working to change that, to change the property designation but that's a difficult battle and one that will probably be ongoing for a while and I'd be happy to talk more about that in the question period but for present purposes the fact remains that animals are property. What's questionable about this kind of thinking that this is a complete waste of judicial resources and time is that taken to its logical conclusion that reasoning suggests that litigation over any kind of inanimate objects like jewelry or a china cabinet also not worthy of the court's time but the fact is judges deal with this stuff every day especially in family court. There's case law about jewelry, about furniture, about artwork, about property in other words that people have an important or a particular emotional attachment to. Now whether cases like that are in fact a great use of judicial resources is a question worth asking and I think there are probably strong arguments on both sides there. A friend of mine practices family law in Edmonton and I was chatting with her about this and she told me that she spent two hours negotiating an agreement over I don't know whether to call it custody or ownership but about who should be responsible for and have access to a pair of bunny rabbits. So this couple paid her and the opposing lawyer for two hours of their time to work this out. Now that was worked out through negotiation without going to a judge but a lot of similar issues are not and the fact remains that that is what courts are for to settle disputes between citizens using reason and logic. So this idea that determining legal ownership of an animal is a waste of time I think is a questionable approach. So that's one end of the spectrum. At the opposite end of the spectrum is the opposite view that this is in fact an important question, one that's worthy of judicial resources and that it should not necessarily be determined according to a straightforward property analysis or principles and this idea has also been recognized in the case law. So cases like this don't deny that animals are in fact property but rather they offer a reasonable recognition that animals are not the same as other kinds of property. They're not inanimate objects, they're living beings and people have emotional attachments and relationships with them. So this approach, the not straightforward property approach would look beyond who purchased the dog. So sure it would look at that as one factor in determining ownership but it would also look at other things. So it would look at who raised the dog, who exercised care and control of the animal who had the burden of the care and comfort of the animal who paid the expenses for the animal. We heard Canadians spend billions of dollars on their pets so who paid that stuff, vet bills, training, food, etc. And these factors also recognize, interestingly I think, that ownership can change between the time that the animal was acquired and the breakdown of the family say a couple of years later. So those factors come from a case, a small claims court decision from Nova Scotia in 2017 and that list of factors, I haven't listed all of them but I think those are the most interesting ones in terms of recognizing that we're talking about a relationship here. Those factors were recently relied on by a judge at the Newfoundland and Labrador Court of Appeal. In what I'm fairly certain was the first appellate court decision to deal with the ownership of a family pet. 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 someone would go to before seeking leave or permission to appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada which sets the law for the country as a whole. So it's neat to see an appellate court actually engage with this question. Animals don't get a lot of traction in the courts. So it's interesting when they do. So unfortunately those reasons relying on the sort of relational factors of pet ownership didn't prevail in that case. So appellate courts typically sit in panels of odd numbers and the two other judges sitting on that case applied a straightforward property analysis and attributed ownership of the dog to one party, the man in the relationship who had purchased the dog. Despite indicators that his girlfriend or ex-girlfriend might have also owned the dog. But the third judge, the dissenting judge, she disagreed with the majority. She looked at the evidence and she found that both parties based on their individual relationship with the dog, a Bernadoodle named Maya, that both of them owned the dog together. So she would have awarded sort of joint ownership between them. So she wasn't the majority which means that the law in Newfoundland and Labrador right now is that purchaser equals owner. But still what's interesting is the recognition by an appellate court judge of the importance of the relationship with the animal even accepting that animals are property. So sort of recognizing that animals are in fact a distinct kind of property. Not like a dining room table or a desk. So again, that reasoning didn't prevail in Newfoundland but that doesn't mean that another court of appeal in another province wouldn't go the other way. So appellate court decisions aren't binding outside of the province in which they're decided. So if and when, and I would say when because these cases, that bunny case wasn't my friend's only animal case. She's worked out sort of visitation and custody agreements about a dog. So I think it's really a matter of when this gets to another court of appeal. That court might decide to go with the sort of relational factors. Not guaranteed but certainly not impossible. So that case was not an actual victory for the woman who sort of lost ownership of the dog but it's a small victory nonetheless for those who believe like I do animals even if they are property shouldn't be treated the same way as a bedroom set. And so a bit of a victory there. And to be frank, as I said animals don't see very many victories in the legal system so it's quite significant and hopeful. Okay. So if you have questions about this issue, about ownership or animals as property more generally happy to ask to answer those during the Q&A. I just want to make sure that I don't talk too long and that I get through my four sort of categories. So I will move on to animal cruelty which it's a bit outdated but hasn't changed much with respect to animals since far before 2007. So not irrelevant. So animal cruelty which is governed as a general matter by the criminal code of Canada which is a uniform law which applies the same way across every Canadian jurisdiction or province and which defines the offense of the criminal offense of animal cruelty. So section 445.1 of the criminal code is the sort of key provision dealing with cruelty to animals and it basically tells us that people are not permitted to willfully cause unnecessary pain and suffering or injury to an animal or bird. Not sure why the code distinguishes between animal or bird. It's 150 plus years old or just about 150 years old. I don't know what the science was like when this was written. Also sets out punishment for animal cruelty which can depending on the seriousness of the offense or whether the crown elects to proceed by indictable offense which means that it's a very serious matter. Maybe if it's not their first defense the crown might go by indictable. In that case maximum five years in prison or if it's considered a less serious offense they might charge by summary conviction. Summary conviction, summary offense. For a maximum fine of $10,000 and or 18 months in prison. These were changed I believe in 2008. The sentences were much lower before that and they didn't change until egregious cases of animal cruelty started being reported in the news and judges had their hands tied about what they could do about it because the provision, the available punishment was so light. You'll notice in the slide that I've bolded a couple of words and the reason I've done that is because those words will fully unnecessary are really key to understanding how this provision works or doesn't work depending who you ask. So those bolded parts in other words tell us who or which animals this provision is really meant to protect because I think there might be some misconceptions about what the criminal code sort of does and does not protect with respect to animal cruelty. So in short, and I'll elaborate on this, but in short, the criminal code prohibits gratuitous violence toward animals. So the deliberate causing of pain and suffering unnecessarily or for no good reason. But it does not prohibit necessary pain and suffering. So it's been up to the courts to tell us precisely what that means. So some examples and these are all from the case law and right now I'm glad there are no small children here because the courts have told us that skinning a cat alive, unnecessary. Beating a dog with a shovel and leaving it in a dumpster, unnecessary. Taping a dog's mouth shut, tying up its legs and leaving it in a field to die, also unnecessary. But practices related to pig slaughter, practices that cause pain and suffering with evidence that there are less painful ways available, necessary. So I'm not going to get into the details of the particular practice in question in the case that established that rule this precedent. Because the case was decided in 1957 and I know that slaughter practices have of course evolved since then. But the case is nevertheless a leading one, or a leading authority on this question of necessity and what it means to cause unnecessary versus unnecessary suffering to an animal. So in other words it's a fundamental case that we teach in an animal law course for example for the purposes of understanding this provision of the criminal code. Because the courts reasoning there basically that humans have a legitimate interest in eating pigs and that therefore causing them pain and suffering is necessary. That reasoning is still good law and it applies way 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 is going to depend much less on the treatment in question than about the animals use. And that's basically a direct reading of this pig slaughter case, it's called the Pacific meat. Because the judge there tells us that if someone were to carry out these actions on a pig for no good reason in his words to hear it squeal or for any other sadistic reason he says unequivocally that that person would be guilty of animal cruelty. So animal cruelty is really about use and not about the act in question. Which of course tells us something about which kinds of animals are going to be protected by the criminal code. All those first cases I listed to you were all about dogs and when I said earlier we don't like hearing about these egregious cases of cruelty in the news typically they're about dogs sometimes cats. The case that led to the sort of I don't want to call it overhaul because it was just a very minor change to the punishment or available sentences for animal cruelty the case that led to that was about a cat. So farmed animals and animals used in agriculture not really protected by the criminal code. It's going to be exceptionally rare really an egregious case of cruelty outside of the realm of any accepted practice that someone involved in agriculture is going to be charged criminally under the code for animal cruelty. And this case the Pacific meat case is basically why. So dogs and cats sure but even that is not so straightforward. So Nova Scotia just effectively banned cat decline. The Canadian Veterinary Association has come out strongly against the practice and Nova Scotia has been the first province in Canada to pick up on their I don't want to say recommendation condemnation. The CVMA calls it non-therapeutic partial digital amputation the amputation part being key I think because that's what decline is it's basically cutting off a cat's finger at the end of its last knuckle. It's painful it's unnecessary. Has anyone ever been charged under the criminal code before the ban in Nova Scotia? I'm fairly comfortable saying no. No one has been charged under the code for cutting off the ends of a cat's fingers. So the ban is great like I said Nova Scotia is the first place to do this. I hope that other provinces follow suit it's long overdue. You talk to people often you know people in Europe and you talk to them about decline and they're like that's crazy what is that because their animal welfare laws are far more developed than ours but this is a positive change and hopefully it'll set a trend for the rest of the country. But I use this example to illustrate the weaknesses in the criminal law because if someone were charged under the criminal code for causing unnecessary suffering to a cat prior to the ban or anywhere else in the country right now they could easily demonstrate that it's not in fact unnecessary that it's a regular thing that we do to cats. In other words it's an accepted practice and that there is no less painful alternative. In fact they don't really need to prove that there's no less painful alternative. In the PIG case there was a less painful alternative that other slaughterhouses and I think places in the United States were using but it wasn't as cost effective and the judge said that's okay. It's also not true that there's no less painful alternative to decline there are but the point remains the same any criminal charges for decline would likely fail. So one more thing I want to say about the criminal code and the reason it's not great at protecting animals interests. So that's a fairly well fed horse probably not the best illustration of the story that I'm about to tell you which is about the interpretation of the willfulness requirement in the code and our understanding of the willfulness requirement 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 the willfulness requirement the fact that someone needs to willfully cause unnecessary pain and suffering that needs to mean something. So the leading authority on willfulness is a case out of Alberta about a man who ran a tour company in the Yukon and he had about two dozen horses as part of his setup and at the end of the tourist season he brought his horses in November down to Alberta for the winter put them out to pasture was told that it's a great spot and the horses will be fine. In March so four months later local farmers became concerned about the condition of the horses they looked very skinny and they called the RCMP depending on you know where you are in the country if it's urban or rural place who enforces sort of the criminal laws respecting animals varies between the police and sort of local humanities and SPCA so this was in Grand Prairie and the RCMP was obviously mandated to enforce these provisions so they called the police the RCMP showed up and it turns out that three of the horses died of starvation and the remaining he had 21 horses were emaciated so because of the weather we're talking Grand Prairie in the depth of winter most of the hay and the grass available to the horses was covered in ice so there was no controversy that the horses you know did in fact starve that their owner failed to provide suitable and adequate food in other words that they suffered unnecessarily however the cruelty provision of the criminal code requires that somebody act willfully and here there was no evidence on the record that the owner in question intended to let his horses starve and die so the evidence in other words did not establish that he knew that leaving the horses unattended in this pasture over the winter would probably result in them going hungry and the judge reasons that the loss of the horses would result in a serious financial hit for the individual which he obviously would not have willfully intended therefore the neglect or you know cruelty could not have been willful and incredibly in coming to his conclusion the judge relies on evidence by a local vet to the effect that this kind of neglect and starvation of horses and other livestock in the area is common which led the judge to conclude that it was actually not unreasonable for the accused to hold these kinds of misconceptions so to summarize on the criminal code the treatment in question has to be unnecessary and accepted practices even where there is a more humane alternative will typically be understood as necessary and the treatment has to be intentional and all of that has to be proven I'm sure you've heard this phrase before beyond a reasonable doubt by the crown by the crown prosecutor in order for the charges to succeed because we're in the realm of the criminal law the burden of proof is really high because the consequences of a criminal conviction are also really high you know in addition to punishment you have a criminal code there's lots of stigma associated with that so proving that somebody willfully harmed cause unnecessary pain and suffering to an animal is not an easy feat by any means so not a lot of great stuff happening under the criminal code and where criminal charges are successful sentences are generally quite light so I don't want to spend much time on sentencing but we saw that the provision prescribes a maximum sentence of 5 years for the most serious cases for the most serious offenses and general principle and criminal law is that the maximum sentence is for the worst offenders so I haven't surveyed every single case law every single case decided under this provision since the punishment, the available punishment was changed about a decade ago but I'm quite confident in saying that nobody has ever gotten a 5 year sentence under the animal cruelty provision of the criminal code I think 2 years is probably the max and it's very rare so one of these sort of instances I mentioned earlier a man was sentenced to 2 years plus 3 years probation plus a 25 year ban on owning an animal after pleading guilty to taping a dog's muzzle shut binding its legs and leaving it in a field to die he also sort of abused a position of trust some friends of his had given the dog to him to turn over to the SPCA because their daughter was allergic so all of that led to a charge for an indictable offense and he pleaded guilty and he got 2 years what's really interesting about this case is certainly the sentence but in the media coverage all of the media outlets made a point about reporting that from the moment that he was in prison from the time he was arrested the accused or the offender he pleaded guilty had to be placed in solitary confinement for his own safety and protection the idea of course being that his crime was really egregious the crown called it a despicable act of depravity but what I think is interesting about that is that people clearly care about this stuff we put sex offenders and pedophiles in protection for their own good because people are so sickened by their crimes and if he was in the same kind of danger it's because people really care about animals but a lot of the people I think that have these strong feelings don't know quite how little the law actually does to protect the same animals because really this was an exceptional case okay so that's the criminal code which is a federal law provinces also have animal protection legislation I won't go into any detail on it I'll probably refer to it I will refer to it a little bit in a couple of minutes and I can answer questions on it during the Q&A but what I will say is that the provincial laws generally have the same kinds of exceptions built into them and often more expressly than the criminal code which doesn't really say that much okay so I want to move on to captivity and entertainment and there's really so much to say about this but I'm going to limit my remarks to one particular type of animal entertainment because like I said it's actually quite timely in Nova Scotia these days believe it or not and that's rodeo related events so that is a very scared calf a baby hog-tied and being pulled across the ring by its neck at least I assume that he's scared and uncomfortable because of the look in his eye I don't know how close you can see it but he looks quite fearful and probably in pain this image I think says quite a bit about the animals that entertain us the photo is by animal activist photographer Joanne MacArthur she has a number of books documenting sort of captive animals and our treatment of animals so this is a calf roping event again in the context of a rodeo and the reason that I thought rodeo was a good example to use tonight of animals and entertainment is because you may or may not have heard there is a professional bull riding event coming to Halifax in May also an event that typically is held in the context of a rodeo like the Calgary Stampede there's also a petition circulating online for I guess it's directed toward the Scotiabank Center to not host the rodeo but so far it's on so sorry not the rodeo it's not a full rodeo it's just the bull riding event so as I understand bull riding the contest or the sport is to see which rider can stay on a bucking bull the longest and in order to get the bull to buck they fit the bull with what's called a flank strap which is like a tight belt fastened sort of just in front of its you know just in front of its hind legs like in the equivalent of our groin and some people are of the view that this is painful for the bull that the strap irritates them and then causes them to buck trying to get it off which is not an unreasonable conclusion I think because that's the point in putting the strap on them in the first place other people say it's more of a tickle bull riding events are also often associated with the use of cattle prods and generally abusive conditions that the animals are kept in there's no evidence of that in this case but that's generally where the resistance seems to come from in addition to just using the animals this way for others opposed to this kind of event it's more about the imagery again the use of animals for our entertainment and the idea that it's our right to overpower animals for sport for fun but bull riding is not the most controversial rodeo sport it's certainly not safe for human or animal but things like calf roping and racing which I believe is the sort of banner event at the Calgary Stampede those are more problematic for animals clearer it's clearer in those cases that animals do in fact experience pain and suffering calf roping is what's in that image so it's an event where a rider sort of runs into a ring mounted on a horse and it's timed for how long it takes for them to catch a running calf using a rope or a lariat dismount by its neck dismount from their horse run over the calf tie at least three of its legs together that's not going to be happening in Halifax next month but another reason that this is a sort of timely discussion to be having and this news I'm about to tell you is not local but it's highly topical in the world of animal law last summer as part of Montreal's 375th birthday celebrations the city hosted a rodeo which a lot of people thought was strange because Montreal's not Calgary there's no history of sort of western culture or cowboy culture or anything like that there when it was announced a lawyer Lauprof at the University of Montreal together with a group of students they went to court and they asked the court to issue an injunction against the rodeo an injunction is basically when the court tells an individual or a group you must do something or you must stop doing something so here the group was asking the court to stop the rodeo because according to the group the group requested the injunction activities like this contraven the province's animal protection law so the case resulted in a bit of a compromise as a result of the action an advisory committee on the safety of rodeos was established by the Ministry of Agriculture in Quebec and as part of the committee the professor in question a man by the name of Alain Rois was given permission to convene a group of experts including a vet and an animal behaviour specialist to observe the rodeo and then report to the committee and this would apply not only to the Montreal rodeo which was a one off but also to an annual event held in a small town about three hours outside of Montreal called Saint Tit and that event brings a massive amount of tourism and millions of dollars to a quite small town fairly important to the economy in that place now the reason that this is a newsworthy story today is because the report of the sort of expert committee came out last week and was submitted to the committee at the Ministry of Agriculture and that photo was taken during one of the events observed not sure if that's Montreal or the smaller one they also released a series of videos they're the kinds of videos that when they come up in your Facebook feed they're greyed out and you have to actively consent to look at them because they might contain violence or graphic images and they're very unpleasant to watch they show horses falling over tripping over their feet and not being able to get back up horses sort of running into walls bulls trying to escape from their holding pens before their events they show calves having their necks twisted in the context of this event because the competitors in a calf roping event are racing against the clock so they're not being gentle with the animals so the gist of the report is that all of these events or during all of these events animals undergo what they term real probable and potential physical injuries at alarming rates not to mention the fear and pain that animals experience during these events and those are not my words that's a quote from a veterinarian who watched the footage the past president of the society for veterinary medical ethics and there are a number of other passages like that in the report and surrounding documentation so basically what the report concludes is that in allowing the events to go forward Quebec is actually in breach of its own animal welfare law which prohibits abuse and mistreatment of animals that may cause that may affect the health of animals or expose them to distress and as I mentioned earlier most provinces I think it's 9 out of 10 provinces have a similar law in place although they vary in scope and applicability so let's go on a little bit about rodeos and calf roping and calf roping is particularly egregious but the reason I spend time on this is because the fact is none of this is illegal so virtually any practice institutionalized practice dealing with captive animals whether that's horses or elephants or dolphins and killer whales the activities that involve animals whether they're whether they're forced to perform or whether they're simply placed in an enclosure they're all perfectly legal none of them are captured by either the criminal code or the provincial prohibitions on causing an animal to be in distress or if they are we don't know about it because the people that carry out these activities are never charged so we may or may not agree on the ethics of zoos and aquaria but we can probably all agree that things like calf roping are not necessary things like keeping a killer whale in a tank maybe three times the size of its body when its natural habitat is all of the ocean not necessary perfectly legal today in Canada keeping a lone elephant at an Edmonton Zoo and other elephants also legal even in the face of evidence that elephants and female elephants in particular are social in nature and should be around other elephants for their well-being as well as evidence of physical distress as a result of being kept indoors in a concrete pen for many months of many years in Edmonton elephants certainly can't roam outdoors most of the year they're from hot places and here I'm referring to another actual case called Reese the Edmonton out of the Alberta Court of Appeal about an elephant named Lucy at the Edmonton Zoo and I'm happy to talk more about her during the Q&A as well now okay the aquarium situation in Canada might change quite soon there's a bill in the House of Commons and also a bill in the Senate both aimed at limiting marine mammal captivity the Senate bill is a bit better it criminalizes not just captivity but captive breeding and performance and the importation of cetaceans marine mammals like whales and dolphins the bill in the House of Commons has less teeth it doesn't really do too much more than what we already do in Canada capture it's not prohibited right now but you need a permit and the Minister of Fisheries doesn't generally issue those permits they haven't for decades and the House bill is the one that's likely to pass the Senate bill is moving but it's also experiencing a lot of resistance lots of opposition to it so we'll see what happens with that okay the last thing I want to mention before I open things up to Q&A is one aspect of the Canadian agricultural industry that's particularly troubling or problematic and I can talk more about the laws around agriculture and farming if there are questions about that but the fact is as some of you will know there really is not much in the way of law dealing with the treatment of farmed animals on the farm at least in so far as the law is geared toward their well-being some people might disagree with that but that's my reading and understanding of the law there's lots of regulation about food safety some of which happens to coincide with animal interests but where the treatment of animals on farms is concerned instead of legislation there is a series of voluntary codes of practice developed for the most part by industry stakeholders and there's no real enforcement mechanism there so industry stakeholders make up a group called the National Farm Animal Care Council they publish these voluntary codes of conduct so in other words when it comes to the life of the animal while it's on the farm the law does very little it's the industry that decides the rules what I can tell you about farmed animals and this is the last the last subject that I'll talk about before before I'm open to questions is about animal transport this is one thing that is expressly regulated by by legislation and as I said earlier basically Canada has the worst animal transport laws in the developed world the current regulations around transport have been around since the 1970s they haven't changed this chart courtesy of the Globe and Mail sets out maximum transport times that an animal can be moved without food, water, rest or shelter so for baby chicks 72 hours for cattle right now it's 52 hours so two full days and some change for chickens and pigs as well it's 36 hours what these images don't tell us is that the temperatures at which animals can be transported are for these long amounts of time are not regulated at all which is significant in a place like Canada with the sort of really extreme temperatures that we have so something like minus 10 plus a wind chill going 100 kilometers an hour on a truck with an open trailer it's going to be pretty uncomfortable for 36 hours so the CFIA the Canadian Food Inspection Agency has been working on updating these rules for about a decade now with the aim of ensuring that Canada's regulations are modern that they align with international standards and that they're supported by the best science in 2013 the CFIA established a plan to drastically decrease the maximum times so those are the blue dots were proposed five years ago in March 2017 which this article is related to the Globe reported that the CFIA in response to industry pressure concerns about economic impacts revised those shorter periods and proposed new times the proposed 2016 the yellow one so back up to 72 hours for chicks and then a medium time for other animals nothing has changed since then we're still at the original current regulations but just to give you some context in the US the general rule for cattle is that 28 hours after which an animal must be unloaded given food and water and allowed to rest in Europe it's 8 hours maximum for cattle don't quote me on this but I think it might be 8 hours maximum for any animal in Europe subject to subject to them being transported in a truck that is fitted to provide water properly ventilated we don't require any of that rest times in Australia rest times are somewhere between 12 and 36 hours depending on the species in Europe 24 hours rest for any kind of animal in Canada 5 hours rest so you can have cows on a truck standing in the cold for 52 hours which takes time and energy have them stand around for 5 hours load them back up on the truck so some people say that the science is a little bit divided on this on the question of stress and behavioral changes associated with long transport times but frankly the science is unlike some of these other issues that can be debated the science is not that divided mostly there's consensus even among industry actors that Canada's times are just way too long there's also a strong consensus among Canadians generally ordinary citizens so according to data published earlier this year 8 out of 10 Canadians are in favor of updating transport laws regulations to ensure shorter times and reduce suffering and protect animals from extreme weather now I'm not a scientist and I certainly can't speak to the science but what I can tell you is that according to the CFIA itself 2 to 3 million animals in Canada die during transport every year and approximately 7 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 each year and I actually have a number about how many animals we're talking about in Canada we kill at least 700 million animals for food per year so maybe that 10 million not that much I don't know those numbers by the way are at federally inspected slaughterhouses only so federal institutions only deal with meat that's going to cross provincial borders there are provincial slaughterhouses as well although they're less and less in number which is one of the reasons that animals in Canada spend such a long time on trucks is because provincial slaughterhouses tend to be shutting down the federal ones are in operation and animals need to move long distances so at present none of these changes have been made published in 2016 either 2013 and the new ones were published in 2016 and the Gazette 1 which is sort of the government's announcement of regulations to come then they solicit feedback and decide whether to amend regulations before publishing them in the Gazette 2 which is when they effectively become law so if you're concerned as a member of the public as someone involved in the agricultural industry or practice now is the time to express your concern to the federal government about these numbers I've spoken for much longer than I had planned and I've barely scratched the surface of issues relating to animals and the law but I think I managed to get my main message across which is that when it comes to balancing the interests of humans and animals the balance right now tips way too far in favor of humans the law does very little to protect animals despite our sort of professed and sincere love and you know the fact that a lot of us care about animals which means that ultimately the responsibility needs to fall on us as citizens and as users of animals whether that's as pets or for food or for entertainment or what have you so on that note I'm happy to answer whatever questions I can thank you just a quick question what is the rationale at short times for chickens versus I don't know and if people in the audience know the answers to some of these questions because I'm not an agriculturalist I'm not a scientist then people should feel free to to chime in but I don't know Professor you mentioned earlier about the many unnecessary suffering of animals for close to old pets appear to be much higher than for livestock if I were to go to a pig farm purchase a piglet and bring home and raise it as a close to old pet which stand would apply to me? that's a really good question I'll tell you a story recently in BC the SPCA seized a bunch of potbelly pigs from a farm potbelly pigs are not really raised for eating their pets they're small and there was one pig named Molly who was adopted you have to sign a contract saying it would be good to the pig this and that but you're transferring ownership so owners of the animals can do whatever they want Molly's new owners determined they were not capable of properly looking after a pig so they shot her they cut her up they ate her and they snapchatted it and they were not sanctioned whatsoever so you raise an interesting question the reason they were sanctioned is because they didn't cause unnecessary suffering they didn't torture her they didn't do some of the things I mentioned earlier they shot her painless death and they ate her because they're her owners I mean if you torture your piglet you'll probably be in trouble but I don't know if that answers your question but I'm kind of glad that you brought that up it wasn't illegal so some amount of the illegal sense with these animal reductions guidelines and stuff is more or less along the same lines as we see develop within a lot of it's sort of like the same kind of guidelines we see with environmental productions and stuff where in especially cultural senses it's emphasizing this idea of best practices that you would become compared among your peers and what you guys also defined as like hey what is best practices for this kind of very specific type of operation there's some amount of that which is shaping and being perhaps more actively pursued but I guess my question is like do you think that you're critical of that kind of an idea for clearly animal welfare aspects and stuff but do you think that that is an appropriate structure for your just environmental stuff more generally or that like the best practices guidelines framework needs to perhaps not be as emphasized as it is in the Canadian sense it should be a little bit more strongly followed up on like it is in I guess European context so the US is a bit of an expat in some of those terms. Sure, thank you I don't have any expertise in environmental law so I can't speak specifically to that but my answer to that and I have got a lot about non-legislated rules and guidelines my PhD research is about that and family law and for me I'm okay with non-legislated rules quite frankly the government doesn't move very quickly in any area of law and it's often going to be you know the most interested parties who are going to come up with the rules of the game for me what matters is the process of creation and the people and the voices involved in the creation of those rules I don't know who is being or coming up with environmental guidelines but my issue with the the farm animal care council is the voices that have a seat at the table so if you go on their website and you look at who's a member and who's a partner I don't really know what the distinction is between member and partner but it's producers so Canadian egg farmers it's not only producers I know I'm getting there and consumers so large corporations and humane societies so the Canadian Federation of Humane Societies is on that list they're not a I mean this is where the conversation becomes difficult in terms of sort of meeting in the middle the CFHS is not an animal rights organization they're an animal welfare organization and I can't speak for them but I suspect that they make concessions in order to maintain their seat at the table I've never been at one of these meetings but for animal advocates and people who spend their time thinking about these things from the perspective of the animal the CFHS is not they're not an animal rights group of course I know that's what I mean it's impossible to meet in the middle but I also think that if I can't speak for the CFHS I think that if organizations and welfare organizations were to take a firmer approach or lean more towards animal rights they wouldn't be invited so they do so again my issue with the codes is like I said I'm not a scientist and I don't know what's best for a farmed animal I mean I know battery cages are being phased out or have been and sal crates etc my issue is more with the idea that for the most part the users and the people who stand to benefit from the rules are also creating the rules and I think from a rule of law perspective that might be problematic thank you for your remarks I was at the Food and Law conference last year there's one about that doubt and I'm wondering what you're noticing in the practice of law what appetite there is for addressing animal well-being and what movement in law discourse are we hearing around possibilities around rights of animals and or rights of humans is that balancing any more than you're seeing today you're telling us that there's a great imbalance humans dictate largely what happens is there movement that we're seeing in law or in discourse there is certainly things today you know what I said about a loss at the Newfoundland and Labrador Court of Appeal being a victory that's true so these things are getting more public attention more media coverage and the law is slowly changing there's a group in Canada called Animal Justice they're animal rights lawyers they've been around for 10 years now they have intervened in cases at the Supreme Court of Canada they're getting traction they're being listened to they're often interviewed whenever like the Molly case the Executive Director of Animal Justice would have gone on the news about that so certainly there's an appetite for it I think that some people say animal law is like the new environmental law for a long while but change will happen and I think and I hope that that's true but I think that the interests in the counterbalance are strong and I think that it's going to take longer than we've seen for other areas yeah coming up in these law cases you mean animal cruelty cases animal use animal how do you how does all of that justify that there's a particular group of people that feels very very strongly for cultural and religious reasons as a general matter Canada has allowed Halal and Kosher slaughter for years and years before the current sort of wave of immigration we have freedom of religion in Canada it's a fundamental freedom under the Charter so certainly if someone were to challenge an ability or an inability to do something based on their religion and the counterweight was animal interests I suspect that the individual, the human would win I don't know you know the ethnicity of offenders in the criminal law cases I don't think anybody sort of tracked that but it prides itself on multiculturalism and being a multi-ethnic state and if those concerns were raised then they would certainly get traction from the courts and the government yeah I don't know if that answers your question yeah I would like to see that change again I think that that needs to come from within as we heard about being judged by your peers because I can't see an SPCA investigator going to one of these auctions and lane charges because somebody prods an animal in their face maybe they should the pacific meat case the province escapes me right now but it's a provincial court case it's not a court of appeals, not the supreme court and that's our precedent, our interpretation of the criminal code and unnecessary comes from sort of a low court years and years ago so you know maybe that case is wrong and maybe it would be decided differently today but the fact is nobody is going to press charges so we don't know what the law would look like if the criminal code had to be interpreted today for the first time yeah so I'm interested in our teacher lawyers that are being trained in Canada you mentioned that you teach a course along some of this is it a required course for all lawyers and it's second part of my question for those that do take the course it's not a required course what's their general reaction it is not a required course it is an optional seminar course with a maximum enrollment of 15 last fall I had 8 I'm hoping to have at least 8 again next year but I do think that there is a strong voice among the students at the Schulich Law School to have that class and I'm really happy that I get to give it the general reaction well students self select to take that class but they're not all vegetarians or vegans or animal activists and I think most of them are actually quite horrified when they hear that the law actually does not much to help animals some are not surprised some are disheartened some you know I had a student say to me you know this is all terrible but at the same time it's like a clean slate I can go out and do this work and there's so much work to be done so in that sense I guess some feel motivated yeah I need a crane so for those of you who don't know there's a group Toronto Pig Save they have them all over the same movement all over the country people who protest at sort of street corners where trucks turn into slaughterhouses and they documented and they posted footage on social media so people know what these practices look like and a woman in Toronto gave water to a thirsty pig it was like 40 degrees out and she could see that the pig was panting and thirsty, foaming so she gave it some water got into a bit of a heated discussion argument with the driver and they had their pressing charges against her for trespassing on property the property being the pigs and it was a really interesting trial the defense brought in experts in animal behavior Anita who is an activist testified, Dr. Lori Marino who is a really well known biologist who is working on opening a whale sanctuary at the moment she testified on pig behavior anyway there was a lot of hope that her goal was to be convicted, to be a martyr she compared herself to Nelson Mandela and Gandhi for civil disobedience and she was actually acquitted because it was found that feeding a pig she was charged with mischief is not actually mischief and the judge ended up so that was great for her and people were saying great cruelty or kindness is not mischief but people were actually quite disappointed with the decision because the judge who seemed really interested during the trial in hearing all these experts he really diminished the importance of that testimony in the reasons and really just dismissed all of the evidence about the sentience and intelligence of pigs and you know there was evidence about about the health impacts of eating pork and meat and all of that from doctors and nutritionists and it was a really interesting case but she won her case so the legal significance of that is that feeding a pig in a trailer is not a crime but it's actually not a victory because the judge dismissed all the you know what's an interest in the evidence I mean yeah I sympathize with that argument I do but the what happens is that the codes for my understanding when it comes to the law end up functioning as a defense to cruelty so I'm not saying that the content of the codes are understood as cool but if someone does engage in a particularly cruel practice the way the law understands the codes is as a defense to what some might what some might deem cruel behavior and I know that the codes are changing I know that there have been so someone might say in defense well this is allowed under the code therefore it's fine it's an accepted practice and they'll likely be acquitted because of that well I mean who determines what's cruel the committee that wrote the code the committee that engages in the practices so that's my issue with it yes the stakeholders but we're all stakeholders we are all stakeholders we're not all too many people talking true animals and tax conduct elsewhere in our lives so it's not an isolated separate from other ways of choosing how we make this assignment together true but I think my book is more about the current peers anyway a rather updated code practice absolutely some of some provinces in their provincial laws respecting agriculture incorporate the codes as law Nova Scotia as far as I can uncover does not Nova Scotia does not make it easy to to to find the legislation if you go on the Nova Scotia Ministry of Agriculture website they say farms and agriculture are governed by the animal protection act and the criminal code obviously not to the animal protection act no there's an exception in the animal protection act that says that inspector powers under that act don't apply to farms so it's very difficult to figure that out in Nova Scotia if provinces it's better than nothing to have provinces incorporate those codes absolutely but the problem is that not all of them do so not alone might make a difference just in terms of the symbolic meaning of the law you know if something is law you're going to take it seriously you're going to follow it um so there's no quotient Nova Scotia to have that done not to my knowledge I don't know maybe that's the step could be could you speak to that actually I am a farm animal welfare inspector so I'm a big company with the law agriculture not laws I'm hoping for discussion a lot of the absolute here in Nova Scotia we do have the animal protection act the codes are not written into that act as law we rely as inspectors we rely heavily on those codes because you have to give an opportunity for the animal owner to know what your standard you are measuring them against and although those codes may not be perfect they are science based is my understanding not emotion driven and although they may not be perfect they are what we have if you write them into the act my understanding is that if you violate any section of the code you are automatically guilty that may work in some cases but when they are also asking for an encouraging small farms to become or they're encouraging small farmers is it reasonable for them to have a $10,000 handling shoot at a scale not really but in the code for B you are required to have a handling shoot so you have to have some data taken there and some sort of rationale as to why you want the codes written right in there and so when we use those codes as an educational piece and we give them almost every single inspection we both have a applicable code and so they become valuable if we go in court because I have seen crimes referred to those and I'm not seeing the reply I have seen the defense use those but inevitably the crimes that we've dealt with use them as a reason why the person isn't the accused is meeting the standard and therefore they're guilty under the act and that is the benchmark whether it's the right benchmark or not all that we have and if they are a science base and if they are reviewed and refreshed periodically and it's ever going to be enough or soon enough that's all we can do with it it's ever changing those benchmarks ever change when I graduated I had the entourage as professors when they taught us the practices that we had then have changed dramatically in 25 and 30 years another 25 and 30 years what I've done would probably be I'd be convicted under criminal code it changes that quickly and so I think as a society we have to be aware of that but I think also and a bigger part of this is we can't let the emotions around what we think should be done govern what we actually do because there's nothing more dramatic than the emotions around the companion animals and horses and these are animals in the animal protection act and I think emotion drives a lot of what is happening in the news and I'm not saying everything is right wrong in the news but we just really need to think it through and think about what does the animal need from a biological standpoint and to answer the man's question down in the pleasure of his pet pig you know the scotia that would be defined as a farm animal there's a definition of farm animals and the pig is a farm animal and so I there's a lot going on and even in the room you can sense that there's different sort of perspectives and understanding which makes for a good discussion yeah absolutely I was actually I'd like to kind of is it reasonable to expect a small business to pay its employees a living wage well you know cover $15 an hour okay I agree 100% with you and my example is to relieve a farmer with less financial resources for providing what is correct I'm thinking more in terms of a farmer needing a handle and shoot versus having a cow that he has worked with and is able to halter and tie to the side of the fence to allow an eagle to be given versus one that you run through a shoot and trap into a shoot and give the eagle that way that's kind of the comparison that I'm thinking of not not excusing the person because they can't afford to do because that's one of the biggest issues we run into as enforcement people is that well I can't afford to have them that in here well under the criminal code if it was a dog or a cat they'd be in trouble there's a whole different set of notions and expectations around the care of farm animals and companion animals they're the one percent you know people laugh but it's true whether that's right or not is a different question and one that we're certainly not going to agree on but you know this actually I'm gonna come to your question really highlights my thinking about this sort of contradictory ways that we think and feel about animals you know certain animals cute we call them we don't sleep with them in our beds others not at all even though you know I'm not a scientist but some of the differences between these animals are not you know that serious between a dog and a pig for example in terms of pig intelligence and behavior and that kind of thing and ability to create bonds you had a question yeah I'm just kind of wondering because I've read about this mostly as a context of some of the most American animal and bioethic systems and stuff but do you have any comments or thoughts on I guess mammalian and Gordy bias in at least Canadian law like how entrenched is that bias in poor both mammals and for Gordy you know just stuff the diet animals that don't have those properties and is there any specific cases which are we trying to note in that context what is a huge amount of case law in that I mean my sense is and maybe that's why the criminal code distinguishes between animals and birds because maybe certain laws don't apply to birds but already the law doesn't do very well for all mammals so I don't know of any case law dealing with different genus geni thank you that's an excellent question I mean I don't know if that's something I want to talk about in Nova Scotia but some countries it's been in the news some Scandinavian countries have recently banned live boiling of lobsters you know I don't know I can't see into the future but I can't see something like lobsters I don't know I mean maybe we should ask the people who have been involved in writing the codes because they'll know more than I would in terms of what's coming and the discussions that are underway but lobsters is an interesting subject for sure I know that the science on that is very divided in terms of what kinds of what they experience when they're boiled alive but live boiling is probably not the only issue the way they're captured and housed and transported and all of that is probably problematic as well they're not fed in these tanks and grocery stores they can't move because their claws are banded together I don't know when they'll be subject of animal welfare law thank you lobsters if I'm not mistaken you know this notion defines animals as any non-human vertebrate and lobsters are invertebrate so they probably wouldn't come under well under the provincial law they're not covered it would be problematic if they were considering how we store and cook them question, you mentioned that the Quebec Committee can investigate the kind of rodeos what was the conclusion of that I don't there's the report from the observers of the rodeos and that report that I quoted a little bit from was just submitted to the committee at the government level last week there's more than one report I'll clarify there's just been the one report from the observers from the observers in Quebec which we're facing I see well that's news to me I haven't heard about the other report but what's happened at the ministry level nothing yet because they've just seen the report the thing is in the smaller community that hosts an annual rodeo the numbers are really staggering in terms of how much money it brings in every year for a very small town so I would be hard-pressed to believe that the Quebec government is going to outlaw rodeo maybe certain practices maybe they'll require sort of better standards or rules for welfare and I would love to be wrong but I can't see them banning those practices completely no not to my knowledge obviously not yes in a similar context is there any explicit recognition of the actual protected cultural events or institutions in the Canadian sense because that is some of the stuff so very historical stuff is there anything like that in the Canadian sense not to my knowledge I'm not a transportation so if you have an egg that comes your chick and when they hatch they have a little bit of that inside them so it gives them time it gives them energy it gives them 72 hours so that might be why they have more time here I've got a lot of research into transportation gels because you don't want to transport them you could transport them with that not transportation I think that's why you have more time with your chicks and I have a question and this is about companion so here in Canada local schools are for sure we have this old population problem especially in Canada but I don't know how to get there Scammy media with your pet your pet is spayed or neutered you're a monster because it's not necessary for us that's our necessary way of controlling the population for them they're able to handle that so how do we compare ourselves to them how do spaying and neutering go well like you say we certainly spay and neuter way more than European countries I don't know that they have handled overpopulation the way people might think they have there are overflowing shelters in Europe as well so I can't say that they've got to handle on the problem that we haven't achieved yet overpopulation is a real problem all over the world of dogs and cats I know spay and neuter is taboo in a lot of places in Europe how they manage the problem maybe their shelters have higher euthanasia rates I don't know but they have shelters with strays and they are I would say it's necessary when we neuter humans too people get it done all the time I just have to look at this I'm sorry so those animals are given appropriate and that's the difference and something like decline where the medication was not historically provided well if you were to neuter your own dog I think the charges on the criminal code would succeed so yes it's an accepted medical practice and also necessary you're teaching a course now is there any requirement that the students or any suggestions should take those courses in biology or animal sciences so that they have a bit more of a background so a question which said which told animal scientists is very well known should be something that a student would know before they would start to make decisions on laws there's no science prerequisite for the course I'm glad to hear that because it explains for me I still think the numbers are high just on a comparative basis with other countries and the way they do things that doesn't mean it's right but it does explain but no I mean there's no prerequisites to law school maybe for certain advanced law classes but you can go to law school with any kind of degree is what I mean there's no requirement that you come from a science background or what have you I don't know why that's funny I would say that the onus is on me to bring that information so thank you for explaining the 72-hour limit to me there are animal scholars animal rights authors who are of the view that anyone who does animal law should be up to date on the science and who spend time reading scientific journals and I think that makes a lot of sense because we offer a very good thank you just as a comment or a corollary to that also there's a fair bit of documentation of law and specifically judges but lawyers also and the construction and the conveyance of stats specifically within legal frameworks and how there could be some amount of improvement in a like hey how is this a statistic and how is it a relevant statistic and how is that going to work out yes so I agree with that I agree with that wholeheartedly I've written about judges and lawyers and lawyers the typical sort of level of knowledge in science and social science and it is certainly lacking among many lawyers when I said there's no prerequisite for law school what I mean is that you can have any undergrad degree in law school and never have taken a science course in your life and be a judge certainly that's important we do have judicial education programs in Canada they're on a voluntary basis because the principle of judicial independence but a lot of most judges take up the opportunity to learn and to learn about quantitative and qualitative research and research methodologies and sciences and they have to know these things in order to choose an expert to believe in a battle of experts in the adversarial system so yes that's true 100% I can oddly I mentioned that animal justice intervened in a case of the Supreme Court of Canada and that case was about interpreting the the term escapes me bestiality provision of the criminal code and the question for the court was whether there needs to be penetration in order for it to constitute the act and animal justice wanted to argue that there does not in the interest of the animals it's animal abuse regardless of whether or not there's penetration and they lost well they weren't a party they were an intervener bringing their case the court didn't adopt their reasoning but the court nevertheless mentioned their arguments which is significant coming from the Supreme Court of Canada and I believe that there's a private members bill from a conservative MP whose name I can't remember right now she's from Alberta but to change the wording of the bestiality provision so that that's not required I don't think they got into those details here of course of course yeah that makes sense anything that's inter provincial is federal legislation is federal jurisdiction a couple of years ago I learned recently though that there used to be agreements in place between the provinces and the feds for the feds to inspect provincial abattoirs and the feds stopped doing that so I imagine that that might have had some effect on their ability to continue carrying on operations as well absolutely in all human interests we compromise animal welfare yes well like I said it's always about finding a balance without the balance uncontroversially tips towards humans yeah it's a balance that probably should be rectified it's not going to happen overnight they do different things yeah the senate bill changes the criminal code or uses criminal law criminal jurisdiction the house bill is a fisheries issue if there was overlap then I suppose it might be like a race to the finish but I don't know that there's any overlap between them yeah well thank you very much