Yes, Chair. Thank you so much. I formally move NDP-1 as an amendment to Bill C-205.
It's a relatively simple amendment to the first clause of the bill, whereby we are replacing line 6 on page 1 so that it would read “No person shall”. It's essentially removing the words “without lawful authority or excuse”.
The reason I am moving this amendment to Bill C-205 is that I've been struggling throughout the proceedings on this bill between the terms “trespass” and “biosecurity”. We've heard witnesses at one point or another say this bill is meant to address trespassing on farms. Others have said no, it's meant to address biosecurity. We've had some witnesses say that it does both.
I want to make it very clear that I think any intrusion on private property needs to be condemned. We know the ill effects it has on farmers and the ill effects it has on animals, but I want this bill to stay in its federal lane. It has to stay in its federal lane.
The federal government has very clear jurisdiction through the federal criminal law power in addressing biosecurity, but it does not have the jurisdiction to address crimes against property. Under our Constitution, that is very clearly a provincial power. Under Canadian law, animals are considered property, so any crimes against animals are considered a property matter. Trespass on property is a provincial matter.
We cannot intrude on the constitutional jurisdiction of the provinces. It's very clearly laid out under section 92.13 that property and civil rights are under the domain of provincial legislatures.
The reason I am proposing this amendment is to make Bill C-205 apply to everyone equally, so that if you are a farmer or farm employee, if you are a transport driver or if you are a protester, if you violate the biosecurity protocols in place on a farm, this law applies equally to you. That's the main essence of my putting it forward.
I'll direct committee members to the brief submitted by Dr. Jodi Lazare. She mentioned that the bill as originally written might run into some constitutional conundrums, but she did say that if we had a law that applied to everyone who enters a farm to those most likely to threaten biosecurity by transmitting disease amongst animals, that would be more likely to survive constitutional scrutiny, whereas in its current form this amendment might not survive a constitutional challenge in court.
The brief we received from Animal Justice went into a lot of detail on page 4 about how most of the risks to biosecurity have come from farm workers or from transports, from people who have gone from farm to farm. That's where most of the risk has actually come from, which has been properly documented. They did say that prudent regulatory measures to address biosecurity should focus on the gaps and failures within the sector, which again is another argument in favour of making this apply equally to everyone.
Also, Dr. Brian Evans, during his appearance before the committee on June 3, went into a lot of detail about how some of the more serious outbreaks in our country's history have been caused by workers who were not following the proper biosecurity concerns. That was the day I was having Internet connectivity issues, so I had to go back through the testimony as written in Hansard.
I'll wrap up there. This is really just my attempt to keep this bill within its federal lane and to not in any way intrude on provincial jurisdiction over trespass.