Senator Plett: Senator Sorensen, I do not think there is a person in this chamber who is opposed to closing roadside zoos, so why do we always add something that isn’t subject to debate? This is a debate about accredited zoos and what this bill will do to accredited zoos. Now, you were quite disparaging about CAZA when CAZA, in fact, is a Canadian organization.

Senator Sorensen, we are told it is urgent to pass Bill S-241, but on the day that it passes into law not a single roadside zoo will be closed because of it. Every animal currently in a roadside zoo is grandfathered in and will be left to die in those conditions. It does nothing. I wonder why we are not creating a bill that deals with the situations we have.

CAZA is an accreditation organization, as is AZA. I will get to a question here and give you a chance to answer what I have already asked. Senator Sorensen, the issue that I raised with Senator Dean last week is that Bill S-241 turns over the accreditation of Canadian zoos to an American organization. There is currently a bill before the U.S. House of Representatives called the SWIMS Act. You know what question I’m going to ask. That bill will prohibit the breeding, importation and exportation of orcas, beluga whales, false killer whales and pilot whales for the purposes of public display in the U.S.

That is very similar to rules that Canadian zoos, under CAZA, are already required to abide by. AZA is opposing this bill, yet you want them here accrediting our zoos.

And WAZA, the World Association of Zoos and Aquariums, by the way, is not an accreditation organization. CAZA is, as is AZA.

So why do we want to get somebody in here to do the accreditation when they oppose the very things that we or Senator Klyne is trying to do with this bill that they are opposing south of the border?