On October 28, 2009, Ms Mendès tabled Bill C-468 to amend section 148 of the transportation of animals regulations. The bill was seconded by Frank Valeriote, Liberal Member of Parliament for Guelph, Ontario, and Alexander Atamanenko, NDP Member of Parliament for British Columbia Southern Interior (left, in photo). To date, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency has not reduced the transport timelines. Along with the Canadian Coalition for Farm Animals, we continue to pressure the federal Minister of Agriculture, the Honourable Gerry Ritz, to amend the transport timelines to a maximum of 8 hours (visit the "Farm Animals" campaign section at http://www.animalalliance.ca/ for more information).As well, we're still in the middle of an enforcement complaint we submitted in order to protect cormorants on Middle Island, Point Pelee National Park. There will hopefully be a resolution in favour of the cormorants in the months to come.
And we continue to work to end the commercial seal hunt. On a separate but related note, Liz, unexpectedly, had to head out to Halifax to try to stop the commercial grey seal hunting on Hay Island - what is supposed to be a provincially protected wilderness area! Approximately 1,400 seals have been killed for their pelts, bashed on the head with bats and skinned with box-cutters. We believe the government has not met the requirements of the Wilderness Areas Protection Act in order to allow this activity. In spite of submissions from a number of groups, Bill 50 is to receive Royal Assent this week.
So some good news and some not so good news.
On a positive note, our office foster, Alice has gone to a wonderful home - yay! And we now have four FIV kittens tearing the office apart -- it's a wonder how anything gets done here = )
