Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I think when reading clause 4 and we talk about the ownership show, it basically makes sure that the dog is without any distress. I think that really speaks to the whole problem. An animal in distress is an animal in distress, period. I’m convinced that good judgment will prevail in this particular case. I think that I put my faith in the judgment of the courts if someone does bring forward a charge, an ill-directed charge and a charge that I think has fair and unreasonable interpretation of what distress
means. I think any decent northern judge, which I believe in the quality of the bench we have here, but I think anybody here, living here long enough would know what reasonable activity and distress is.
I’m not proposing a new definition by any means, but I know it’s an ambiguous term that someone is going to say that that dog shouldn’t have been outside and it was under duress, or that dog ran too long in a race, or was out chained up too long and it’s duress. I think that I’m convinced common sense will prevail. So I think I’ll have to vote accordingly.
The one thing I would say, though, in all honesty, is as a measure of courtesy I would have appreciated finding out this amendment would have come forward a little sooner than it being dropped on my desk and told to vote one way or the other. I mean, I would have liked to have had more time to hear my colleagues who feel that no change should happen to the act and I certainly would have enjoyed a little more time to take the consideration into seeing the deletion of this. So I would say to the mover, I’m still disappointed on the shortness of how this was now dropped on my desk without any sort of full understanding or impact of this particular motion. The reason I sort of say that is I’m going to have to lean towards the amendment as proposed, because I think at the end of the day common sense should prevail and I think our bench will make sure that that’s a reasonable interpretation, regardless of the activity, whether it’s hunting, trapping, fishing, or even just being tied up outside.
So, Mr. Chairman, that’s my thoughts on this particular thing. I wanted to clearly say how I’m disappointed at how it’s being delivered, the amendment, in this manner. Thank you.