Protect an animal, call your MP

Federal animal protection and cruelty laws have not been significantly updated in 125 years.

Nathaniel Erskine-Smith, the MP for East York riding, has tabled a private member’s bill, The Modernizing Animal Protections Act, that seeks to end the sale of cat and dog fur in Canada, end the importation of shark fins, and make amendments to the practice of dogfighting and puppy mills, establishing appropriate penalties to perpetrators of animal cruelty.

Animal “abuse” is not the same as animal “use”; current acceptable animal use practices remaining unaffected by this bill.

As Canadians who do not support animal cruelty, this is our opportunity to contact our MPs and ask for their support in favour of ending animal-cruelty practices as proposed in Bill C-246.

Contact your MP before second reading and voting in Parliament on Sept. 28. Why? Because it’s 2016. Eileen Woodside, Ottawa