Feds crack down on animal cruelty, close bestiality loophole
Posted October 18, 2018 11:02 am.
This article is more than 5 years old.
OTTAWA (NEWS 1130) – Justice minister Jody Wilson-Raybould has tabled legislation in the House of Commons to end a bestiality loophole, which was exposed in a Supreme Court decision two years ago.
The ruling found that Canada’s current law banning bestiality only applies to cases involving penetration, but Wilson-Raybould says this bill will fix that. She says the law is meant to provide protections for all animals.
“These crimes have no place in our society,” she says. “(It will) make it clear that the offence prohibits any contact for a sexual purpose between a person and an animal.”
The minister says it took two years to act because the government held wide-ranging consultations on fixing animal cruelty.
But Camille Labchuk, a lawyer with the group Animal Justice, says it took too long for the government to act and, while this bill makes an important change, it doesn’t go far enough.
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“It does not give the courts an ability to ban a bestiality offender from owning animals in the future,” she says.
This bill also expands the criminal offences around animal fighting to ban acts like promoting, arranging, and profiting from these fights, as well as breeding, training or transporting an animal for fighting.
