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!
