Further questions?

I recognize the member from Waterloo.

I was listening to the member opposite, and I was thinking about what the president for the Ontario Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals said, that the PUPS Act “is a welcome and important step towards protecting dogs from unethical breeders and addressing the issue of puppy mills throughout our province.”

So my question is very simple to the member opposite: Do you agree with the president of the Ontario Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals—yes or no?

Thanks to the member from Kitchener South–Hespeler for making the very important connection between domestic violence and animal mistreatment. I attended an event once where a woman very clearly told us that she specifically stayed in that relationship because of her dog. The dog, in the end, actually saved her life, because she was facing one more beating and the dog intervened. She got out of there with the dog at the end of the day. But it’s an important connection to be made. If people are willing to mistreat animals, they’re often willing to mistreat a human being.

I do want to say, I don’t think we deserve dogs, personally. I know we’re both dog lovers. I much prefer their company to people, I must tell you as well, which shouldn’t surprise too many people.

But according to advocates, the key piece of any statute, of any law, is the enforcement. So how willing is the province to resource and equip PAWS animal welfare inspectors to enforce these standards? Because this is the key piece.

It’s now time for questions.

I appreciate the member’s comments about domestic violence. I will be very enthusiastically looking forward to hearing some of the experts that testify before our upcoming IPV committee. But one of the reasons that I think this does something is that when you look at the framework of how these prosecutions work, the crown doesn’t, in fact, prosecute these; municipal prosecutors do, who are funded by municipalities, not by the province.

Animal investigations and prosecutions are extremely time-consuming and difficult. They attract media attention. They drag on for days and days and days. When you are a busy provincial prosecutor just trying to get through your HTA cases, frankly, these can fall behind. That further discourages our hard-working animal welfare inspectors.

By tacking on a very, very high fine, it significantly focuses and increases, I think, the desire and motivation for provincial prosecutors to prioritize these types of offences. So that is how I think this will have a significant impact.

I did a lot of, at the time, SPCA prosecutions. The very last one I did before leaving the crown was a cat-hoarding case. That was six days of trial on cat hoarding alone with a single, self-represented defendant. I ended up getting a three-year prohibition. I don’t even know if I got a fine. So that was six days of trial that I didn’t end up being able to spend on the HTA offences that, frankly, fill up the municipality’s coffers.

By having these very high fines, as somebody that operated as a provincial prosecutor, I would feel much more comfortable taking six days of provincial court trial time knowing that I would be getting a very significant fine as a result. So I think it has a huge impact.

If I could snap my fingers and dispense money to all these institutions, I would. However, I must say that, with all due respect to London, I would be advocating for the Humane Society of Kitchener Waterloo and Stratford Perth first, which is also planning on doing a similar expansion. I’ve done what I can. I think the issue with these types of projects is they tend to sort of fall between ministries.

But I really appreciate the work that these organizations do, both London and the Kitchener-Waterloo and Stratford-Perth humane societies. We would be quite lost without them.

Thank you to the member for Kitchener South–Hespeler for her remarks about this bill.

I actually want to echo something that was said earlier in this debate by my colleague the member for London North Centre. He and I are both big fans of the London humane society. We both got our cats from the London humane society and are very excited about the move of the new home of the humane society in London.

This is a big undertaking. It requires significant support from the public and from other levels of government. The municipal government has stepped up. The federal government has stepped up. Londoners have stepped up, but there has been no commitment from the province.

I’m hoping, in the context of the initiatives that have been brought forward by this government to support animal welfare, that this is something that would be considered. So I’m asking the member if that would be the case.

I want to thank my colleague for her comments. I appreciated her lived experience, both as a prosecutor and as a pet owner. Like the members of this House, dogs are mostly good listeners, but they have their own minds as well, so they often make their own decisions, despite what we say.

Interjection.

I also appreciate that it was a little like going back to law school, hearing about strict liability, absolute liability, obiter dicta—all terms that take me back to my law school days.

But my question to the member is the importance of the minimum sentences: In her experience as a crown prosecutor, how does she think that these minimum sentences or fines are going to make this bill more impactful?

I think the first part is the fact that this bill is drawing the issue of puppy mills out into the daylight. These are things that operate on private property; in dark and locked-up barns; in cramped circumstances; in fetid, unbelievable conditions. And unfortunately, a lot of people really have no idea what a puppy mill even is. So the fact that the government is actually choosing to spend time and debate time on this issue, I think, forces people to even type into Google “What is a puppy mill,” which would get a lot farther as far as even not supporting them.

But the other part that I touched on briefly is that even for those who may not feel a particular affiliation with animals or with dogs, there is a very significant consumer protection angle here, as well, which is the fact that people spend thousands and thousands of dollars on mill dogs that they bring home that are disease-ridden, full of parasites, inbred, unsocialized, prone to bites, and then often dropped off at our humane societies that are absolutely crippled under the load of pandemic dogs. So that’s why I think this is important.

However, I can say to the member that I meet and hear from the same people, and the government, I know—as I look over at a member in particular—has a number of extremely active supporters of increasing those types of standards. So that issue is far from lacking in champions on both sides of this House.

I rise to talk about Bill 159, preventing unethical puppy sales. We know this is a serious problem and that, in these cases, the dogs are treated simply as commodities, and it’s all about profit. We do see this happening also with seniors, I have to say, with housing and long-term care, that there’s a lot of that mixed in there as well—profit taking. According to advocates, the key piece to any statute or regulations will be on the enforcement and inspection end. I will come to talk about how that’s happening on the ground right now a little bit later.

We do know that provincial animal welfare inspectors are badly understaffed right now. We also know that the abuse of animals doesn’t begin and end with puppy mills but also with other animals that are bred illegally and sold and not kept well.

One of the things that really struck me right away with this bill—and I think there are ways to improve the bill and I think that requiring licensing is one of those ways. But I’m struck by the contradiction with the section of Bill 91 that slipped in this thing about train and trial areas, which had been actually outlawed in 1997. There were only 24 of these areas left in the province, and then all of a sudden, in a bill that was about something completely different, we have a section that allows that business to expand again. It’s a very cruel business that traps coyotes, foxes, rabbits and uses them as bait and trains the dogs to rip them to shreds. It does seem like a contradiction that some animals we care about and other animals we’re prepared to let them be ripped to shreds. It struck me as a favour to somebody, because it had nothing to do with anything else in the bill at the time.

I’d like to look a little bit at what’s going on in Thunder Bay. Robin Ratz, founder and board chair of Murillo Mutts—Murillo is a small community in Thunder Bay–Atikokan, and it’s a specialized rescue facility. She says:

“‘Unfortunately, I guess my question would be is “What are the consequences, or how are they going to find out about these puppy mills?”‘”

And: “She said there are multiple puppy mills in the Thunder Bay area, including one that Murillo Mutts had a ‘really bad experience’ with last Christmas.

“A local resident had obtained a dog from a breeder, only to find out that the pup was extremely ill.

“‘In order for us to assist people like that, we have to have them surrender their animal to get care without our vet. Unfortunately, the puppy was too sick, and died. The breeder ended up contacting our rescue, and she had a second sick puppy and promised she would get it to the vet. The next day, she called and acknowledged she had no money to pay for vetting, so we brought that puppy into care as well. Between the first dog and the second dog, fees, stuff we had to throw out because it was parvo [virus], we lost about $7,000 worth of stuff.’”

This is a volunteer rescue organization.

“She questions whether the government’s proposed crackdown goes far enough, pointing to a clause in the new legislation that would prohibit breeding a female dog excessively.”

The question is: “‘How are you gonna tell that a dog’s been bred more than three times in two years?’ she asked. ‘I don’t really think it’s going to stop. It’s going to take a lot of people getting those $25,000 fines.... It usually takes an outcry before anything happens, and by then how many animals have already suffered, and how many people, like I said, at the hands of an unethical breeder?’”

So there are definitely people in the Thunder Bay area making a living off of puppy mills.

“‘It’s just wrong to do that to an animal. Some of them just over-breed them, and they live in horrible conditions ... the laws don’t protect the dogs, so they just keep going on.’”

Further: “She recalled a local situation where provincial animal welfare services was informed about pups in distress, and visited the breeder to give advice but left all the dogs behind.”

I’m going to get into a case where there was an attempt to bring in supports to deal with the abuse of animals. This is what the ministry says: “Generally speaking, the most urgent calls are responded to on the same day, where possible, but there may be times when it takes longer to respond due to when the call may have been received or because an inspector is already responding to other urgent matters.”

This is a story that took place in Rossport, Ontario. It was a case where there were seven dogs in a house. Some of them had escaped, and there was constant barking, and so many, many people tried to reach the provincial animal welfare officers.

On September 2, OPP officers came and tried to help with the dogs. There was a “public safety issue of unattended aggressive dogs running at large and attacking each other.

“The Ontario Animal Protection Call Centre was called by numerous residents” the next day, September 3, “as the dogs in question had been left unattended in high heat for over 24 hours. The call centre staff in Sudbury could not locate Rossport when I called, despite the community having a unique postal code, and was triaged as an emergency.”

Let’s just think about this for a minute. Because the person at the end of the call for provincial animal welfare officers was in Sudbury—that’s about 12 hours from Thunder Bay and 10 hours from Rossport, and they had no idea where Rossport is. Anybody who has travelled on the North Shore of Superior would know Rossport. It’s what’s called an unorganized community, but it is very much a community and clearly a community that cared, because so many got on the phone to try and address this issue.

So on September 3, they called the OPP again and “were told the OPP would not respond as animal welfare was the responsibility of the animal welfare service. The humane society was also called and the resident was told they would not respond outside of Thunder Bay city boundaries.” Rossport’s about two hours outside of Thunder Bay so it doesn’t qualify. “As it was, the two OPP officers who responded on September 2 ... did an admirable job in capturing the aggressive dog running loose in the community....

“The situation was a total breakdown for the protection of animals that were in distress and constituted a public safety situation in an unorganized community. As Rossport does not have bylaws or enforcement officers to deal with these situations, residents must rely on provincial agencies to deliver their mandated duties....

“By not having an officer respond on September 3, they are not going to be able to view first-hand the conditions the dogs were left in (it’s like having the police show up 48 hours after a murder and allowing the scene to be sanitized).”

The other piece of this was that when they did finally reach someone, the officer said, “Well, the next day is a statutory holiday. Today’s the 4th. We’ve got a statutory holiday, so we’re just not going to come.” I can’t actually imagine anybody coming all the way from Sudbury to Rossport.

So there is a problem of not having animal welfare officers where they’re needed throughout the region.

Now, the next letter I’m looking at is from somebody who works for PAWS. He’s on leave for mental health stress, and that stress has come from not being able to rescue animals he knew were in distress. So cumulative post-traumatic stress disorder is what he’s dealing with.

He says, “Ontario public service ... has been nothing but incompetent due to me and my children having to go without pay for months at a time due to ... lack of communication with other entities.”

So, apart from the specific incidents that he’s talking about, the bulk of what he’s talking about is that this changeover from the OSPCA to PAWS has not resulted in better care; it’s resulted in worse. What we know is that the cost for PAWS is actually quite a bit more than it was before, but we’re seeing fewer results, we’re seeing fewer charges, and we are seeing traumatized workers.

So partly, he writes, “It has taken OPS a year to pay employees back for expenses” and the process at this time still had not taken place. “In Thunder Bay, where I was based since 2014, veterinarians and boarding facilities will not work with animal welfare services now because they don’t pay their bills or the processing times are ridiculous” and “this is province-wide, and their stats and information sent to the government are made up.”

Now, obviously, something like this letter is hearsay, but it does suggest that there are problems in the service that need to be addressed and need to be addressed at the Solicitor General’s level.

He goes on to say, “They were pushing inspectors to write more orders, seize more animals, and lay charges.... I’ve been doing this since 2014 and many others who were let go at the beginning because they spoke out against upper management on the legalities....” Again, I won’t go into that too much, because it’s a specific case.

But he does go on to say, “The government states they care about their staff and their first responders, but it seems to be all talk. It’s said by the remaining staff we are not saving any animals, just processing dead bodies.

“I waited five months for a warrant which, as per the legislation, I didn’t even require because the senior staff didn’t know what they were doing. I had to tell my senior investigator how to lay a charge which I had to send mine to him for approval, but they didn’t know ... how to write one....

“The warrant never came, and my partner was let go because he questioned the managers,” but he says he “was one of the best inspectors in the province.”

The point is, it’s funny that they “could write warrants in” their “sleep before ... and they were always approved by the senior justice of the peace at the courts and didn’t need a five-month approval process where animals go on suffering and dying of starvation. And yes, this is still ongoing” now. He was “finally given the approval and went to the property, and I walked into a barn full of dead and emaciated pigs. It haunts me to this day, the pain these animals suffered needlessly.”

I met that gentleman. He did come to our office, and those are stories that are very hard to hear, because he already knew that this was taking place and because of mismanagement—who knows what—he wasn’t given the means to actually address the problem and now has to live with what he saw and the pain and suffering of those animals.

“Other advocates have voiced frustration about PAWS since it was created in 2019, taking over for the Ontario Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals....

“In animal abuse cases, some enforcement tools at their disposal include orders, provincial charges or criminal charges.

“But according to data obtained by CBC Hamilton through a freedom-of-information request, PAWS investigations are leading to far fewer orders and charges compared to when the OSPCA oversaw animal welfare.

“Ross, from the Ministry of the Solicitor General, didn’t give possible reasons for the drop in the number of charges ... but said the team is ‘highly trained,’ and some requests fall under the jurisdiction of police or local bylaw enforcement.”

But we saw in the case of Rossport that, in fact, there wasn’t really coverage. There wasn’t anything there to support those animals or help the people who were aware of what was happening to those animals to do something about it, because there was also no food and water for them.

From 2015 to the end of 2018, the OSPCA conducted 64,000-plus investigations and issued 16,000-plus orders, and laid almost 2,000 provincial and criminal charges. From 2020 to June 30, 2023, I believe this is, PAWS conducted at least 70,000 investigations, almost 7,000 orders, but only laid 667 provincial and criminal charges.

Now, it’s pretty clear to me in reading about the Rossport case—it’s laid out in quite a bit of detail—that charges would have been warranted in that case, but there was nobody there to actually follow through again and look after the animals.

PAWS has an annual budget of roughly $21 million, far more than the $5.75 million budget of the OSPCA. That is really the question: Why is PAWS, with a vastly larger budget, issuing fewer orders? The data suggests the province needs to provide more support for animal welfare services and be more transparent—so it might not be about more money, it might be about money better spent.

Jennifer Friedman, a former OSPCA lawyer who now practises privately says that it’s troubling to hear the drop in charges and orders, especially given what many of her clients are telling her.

What needs to change? Coulter says that PAWS needs far more than its roughly 100 inspectors to thoroughly and quickly investigate cases across Ontario. She noted that the Toronto Transit Commission has more inspectors, with 110. But the TTC is located in Toronto, so if you compare that to having 100 inspectors over the entire province, you can see why the law is not being applied even as it is without even this new law in place. She added that more training and protective measures for inspectors are also needed. I think that’s probably a good place to stop.

I do want to note and thank the member from Kiiwetinoong for his comments on the situation in First Nations communities with dogs and the lack of access to veterinary care. I was really pleased to hear about Matawa’s pilot project, and I hope that part of that pilot project is training community members to be able to give vaccinations. We know that having fully trained veterinarians available to go to communities as often as needed is difficult, even though we will be getting more veterinarians trained in Thunder Bay. One of the suggestions that’s come to our office is that if more community members could be trained to administer those vaccinations—obviously they can’t do spaying which requires a different level of skill and training, but to at least give the vaccinations, then they could be eliminating the spread of parvovirus and other parasites and problems.

In regard to the bill itself, it’s a step forward. I would like to see it have more teeth, and I’m hoping that when it goes to committee that will be possible, and that the idea of having licences for dog breeders is really thoroughly considered and hopefully put in to the legislation before it comes back for third reading. I think there’s a very practical aspect to having those licences, in that, if you go to a place, it’s easy to see a licence, it’s very quick to determine whether it’s a legitimate facility or not.

I think I’ll stop there. Thank you for the time and the opportunity to speak to this bill.

Further questions?

I really appreciate the member’s comments explaining how extremely impactful it can be when you see something that you just love so dearly being hurt.

I think a lot of times that we’re in this House, we debate bills and people out there, who are not always watching, are kind of wondering why we are talking about something like this. So I just wonder if the member can explain to those who might catch this in their searching why a bill like this is so important and why they should care about it—especially those who have cats. I have cats and we love our cats. Shout-out to Loki. But explain to us why a bill like this is just really important, why it should matter to them.

Thank you for your comments. I also hope to see similar results. The part that worries me is that—you might be right; perhaps that is why the number of charges has gone down. It’s difficult to say.

What I’m concerned about is the number of inspectors and what’s going on in PAWS, because it sounds to me like all is not well and that the cost has gone up, but the well-being of people doing the inspections is not being looked after. And then there are geographical gaps where there is no service whatsoever.

Again, it’s always in the application. Do we have the tools to make sure that the mills are stopped, that they’re found and that it’s possible to actually observe what is going on? That’s really my concern.

My friend from Thunder Bay–Superior North spoke about transparency in animal welfare services. I’m wondering if they’re satisfied with the level of transparency that this bill brings and how that will help with agencies in the Thunder Bay area.

Thank you to the member for Thunder Bay–Superior North for her presentation on the amendment to the Provincial Animal Welfare Services Act, 2019.

When I think about pets, when I think about puppies, when I think about dogs, I remember there are 134 First Nations in Ontario; in my riding, we have 31. I never really thought about this until now. I remember going from door to door; I don’t know if it was during a campaign or just a regular door to door. I remember one recommendation that I got from the community members. They said, “Make sure you take a hockey stick.” I said, “Why?” “Because of those rez dogs. Because of those dogs.” I had to actually turn back because all of a sudden, you hear barking. All of a sudden, they come together. Then, all of a sudden, they start barking at me, so I had to turn back.

Is this bill going to help to address that issue for on-reserve rez dogs and on-reserve people to make sure that they’re safe?

Thank you to the member opposite for her comments and really bringing to the House’s attention the reason for this bill. The stories that you’re telling are what we’re trying to prevent.

When I think about this bill—strengthening the inspections and the power of the inspectors when they go to sites, providing higher regulations and standards and communicating those out to the breeders and also educating the public so that these bad actors can be identified.

You mentioned the number of inspections, which actually have stayed fairly consistent, but the number of orders have declined. I think that would be my expectation as we improve the system and go through, and it will be further improved with this bill. I’m wondering if the member opposite would agree with that.

Thank you to the member opposite for their remarks. We know puppy mills are the site of significant animal welfare violations. I, myself, am an animal owner and an animal lover. We know of things like overbreeding, crowded and unsanitary conditions, lack of veterinary care, amongst other issues.

This legislation, if passed, will set more stringent rules, including minimum fines, to hold puppy mill operators accountable. Does the member opposite agree that puppy mill operations—these kinds of harmful breeding practices cause both physical and mental harm to dogs in the province. Just wondering if you agree with—

It’s now time for questions.

I think we all agree in this House that that is an issue, and I’m happy that the OSPCA is saying, “Yes, this is a good step forward.” We just feel that the bill could be stronger than it is and that it’s not fully addressing all of the issues that are there that are allowing puppy mills to proliferate.

So we need more inspectors working for PAWS, and we need to be looking at what’s going on within that organization, because there aren’t enough inspectors, but there is more money being spent.

To the member opposite: I was looking at the Toronto Humane Society, which said, “As an organization dedicated to improving the lives of animals, we applaud this push for stronger legislation against puppy mills.”

Puppy mills often fail to keep a dog with a contagious disease away from other dogs or animals. Does the member agree that dogs raised in these types of conditions need to be taken care of?