Canada/Animal protection laws have no teeth

[Animal 0]

Thu, October 26, 2006


Animal protection laws have no teeth
By LICIA CORBELLA



Bill C-17. Bill C-15. Bill C-15B. Bill C-10. Bill C-10B. Bill C-22. Bill C-50. Those are the names of proposed federal laws designed to put some teeth into our animal protection laws in this country just since 1999.

And yet, we're still stuck with a law that defines animals as nothing more than property and that was written back in 1892, about the same time Henry Ford put the finishing touches on his first automobile.

Under that law, the most vicious crimes against animals allows for maximum sentences of only six months in jail or a $2,000 fine.

That means the two monsters who allegedly tortured Daisy Duke, a Lab, border-collie cross on Oct. 8 in Didsbury will likely just pay a minor fine if convicted.

But in a country that just sentenced Calgarian Rudolf Hawker on Tuesday to just 35 months in jail for stabbing his wife, Helga Hawker seven times -- including once in the heart -- perhaps such tickles on the wrist are all citizens should expect.

Well, not Tamara Chaney, a 29-year-old Didsbury dog groomer who has launched a legal petition asking the Conservative government to reintroduce Bill C-50 -- the best of all of the above proposed animal protection laws.

Chaney says when she learned Daisy Duke had all four legs bound, a bag pulled over her head, duct tape across her snout, a rope around her neck and then was dragged behind a vehicle for one kilometre before being left to suffer on a dirt road, she believed something had to be done.


The dog was put to sleep by a local vet called to the grim scene.

It had a broken neck, back and pelvis.

The dog's owner, Daniel Charles Haskett, 19, has been charged with animal cruelty. Another 17-year-old male, who can't be named, was also charged.

"The current law is antiquated and needs changing," says Chaney, who urges those interested in the petition to call her at 403-335-8152 or to e-mail her at orcagirl77@yahoo.ca.

Chaney says she's being inundated with calls for the petitions, which Wild Rose Conservative MP Myron Thompson has agreed to present in the House of Commons when it's ready.

"Right now, animals are just defined as property," Thompson said yesterday from Ottawa. "That has to change. People who can be so cruel to an animal, they don't stop there."

Dr. Randall Lockwood, a Washington, D.C., psychologist, a VP with the Humane Society of the U.S. and one of the world's leading experts in the field of animal cruelty, agrees.

"While not everyone who abuses animals will become a serial killer; virtually every serial killer first abused animals," he says.

Thompson says he has brought the incident to the attention of Justice Minister Vic Toews.

"I've already talked to him about it and it just about made him sick. I plan to keep bringing it up until things change," vows Thompson.

A spokesperson for Toews says the minister is introducing bills that correspond with the party's election promises, so he won't be introducing Bill C-50, though he does plan to support Liberal Senator John Bryden's Bill S-213, which will toughen the penalties for animal cruelty.

Cheryl Wallach, spokeswoman for the Calgary Humane Society, says the Canadian Federation of Human Societies opposes this new bill because it is not nearly as good as Bill C-50, which was passed by all parties in the House during the last government, but was held up in the Senate.

For instance, points out Wallach, when two dogs were tied to a tree in Edmonton and beaten to death with baseball bats, the two accused were not convicted.

Why?

Because a vet testified the dogs likely died after the first blow, and under the 1892 law, that's not considered cruel. And in 1892, a Model T Ford was considered fast.

(Calgary Sun)
http://calsun.canoe.ca/News/Columnists/Corbella_Licia/2006/10/26/2134065.html