Tuesday, August 9, 2016

Lawyers get training on animal rights


The University of Ottawa is offering a French-language course to law students on animal rights.

It’s a first in Canada and comes after the Quebec legislature passed laws that recognize animals as sentient beings.

While many older Canadians are skeptical about furthering the rights of animals under the law, younger people have embraced a trend towards greater protections of both animals and the environment, says graduate student and course co-teacher Justine Perron.

"It's part of the new generation's way of thinking," she is quoted by Canadian Press.

"We need to know the next generation can live here and it's not only about us," she said.

Liberal MP Nathaniel Erskine-Smith is hoping that attitudinal change translates into support of his bill, the Modernizing Animal Protections Act.

The proposed law aims to ban the import of dog and cat fur as well as the practice of shark-finning and the use of live animals in target shooting.

It also contains increased fines for illegal dog-fighting.

"It's the evolution of ideas," said Erskine-Smith.

"I think there will continue to be a greater push for protection for animals and recognition that animals should be treated in a humane way."

Manitoba Conservative MP Robert Sopuck, who has seen over half a dozen iterations of animal rights legislation introduced and rejected, has referred to Bill C-246 as a "Trojan horse" masking an agenda aimed at eliminating all animal-use.

But the bill is not intended to change how hunters hunt or farmers farm, nor to change how people use animals, said Erskine-Smith.

Animal law is now being taught at post-secondary institutions across Canada and in more than 100 law schools in the United States, including Harvard, Columbia and New York University.

And while the University of Ottawa's common law faculty has taught a course on laws affecting animals since 2012, the new civil law course will see students choose their own research topics and present a paper to their classmates at the end of the semester, Perron explained.

Through their research and findings, "the students will teach the other ones a part of animal law" that hasn't necessarily been analyzed before, said Perron.

"It's essential that future lawyers know the legal protections that animals have and realize how much work still needs to be done in animal law."

Just what we needed, eh? Lawyers in the barns!