CFHS applauds B.C. move to strengthen province’s animal cruelty law
Thursday, April 07, 2011
The Canadian Federation of Humane Societies applauds the B.C. government’s plan to increase penalties for people convicted of animal abuse under provincial law, and to ask the federal government to strengthen animal cruelty provisions in the Criminal Code.
The government announced April 5th that it will increase maximum penalties in the B.C. Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act from the current 6-month jail sentence and $10,000 fine to a maximum 2-year jail sentence and $75,000 fine.
Higher penalties for convicted animal abusers was one of the recommendations made in the report released March 25 by the Sled Dog Task Force, which was initiated in response to revelations of a brutal mass killing of sled dogs in Whistler last year. The task force report also recommends:
- Changing the province’s Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act to include mandatory standards of care for animals
- Establishing a working group to develop standards of care for the sled dog industry
- Requiring annual inspections of sled dog companies operating on Crown land
- Requiring veterinarians to report suspected cases of animal abuse, and providing statutory immunity for veterinarians making such reports (a provision already included in the legislation of several other provinces)
- Increasing the capacity of the BC SPCA to perform animal cruelty investigations and of the Attorney General to prosecute animal cruelty cases
- Urging the federal government to strengthen the Criminal Code provisions related to animal cruelty
B.C. Premier Christy Clark endorsed all of the task force recommendations on April 5th, and announced an additional $100,000 in funding to the BC SPCA for cruelty investigations. We are encouraged by this signal that the B.C. government is taking animal abuse more seriously.
For animals in B.C., the premier’s support for creating legislated standards of care for animals and requiring inspections of companies operating on Crown land is particularly important. This would make it harder for animal abusers to evade legal action by simply keeping neglected or mistreated animals out of public view.
To protect animals across Canada, strengthening the animal cruelty sections of the federal Criminal Code is desperately needed. The majority of Canadians support changes to this law, which is so ineffective that the successful criminal prosecution of cases of animal neglect is almost impossible, even when animals are starved to death. Whatever the results of the current federal election, our next Parliament must urgently address this abject failure to treat animal abuse as a serous criminal offence.
Learn more & take action
See news coverage of the changes announced by the B.C. government on April 5th here.
Read the Sled Dog Task Force report here.
Demand change to Canada’s federal animal cruelty law at www.stopanimalabuse.ca
