The Quebec Society for the Protection of Animals, (SPCA) and various other animal rights groups are urging the provincial government to change the law concerning animals.
While most of Canada generally operates on a legal system based on British Common Law, the mostly French-speaking province of Quebec generally operates on a system based on the Civil Code of France.
Currently the Quebec Civil Code treats animals in the same way as movable property such that abuse of animals is considered in the same manner as damage to property.
Under the banner of “Animals are not Things”, organizers of an online petition to modify the law say they believe “animals are not toasters”, adding later “they are not things or machines but sentient beings whose lives matter to them”.
As of Wednesday morning there are over 41,000 names on the petition. Sophie Gaillard, a lawyer for the SPCA who is one of the co-draftees of the manifesto said the legal status of animals could be changed in various ways.
The manifesto states, “Likening animals to things also means ignoring the current state of scientific knowledge. Animals’ capacity to feel pain is now the object of broad consensus, at the very least when it comes to vertebrates. As research progresses, we are increasingly discovering cognitive and emotional capabilities in animals that are much more complex than once thought – and this holds true not only for primates, dolphins, and dogs, but also for cows, rats, and pigeons”
In an interview, she said the least restrictive change would be to give them a symbolically different status that didn’t really affect the way they are treated, while the most restrictive would be to grant them a legal status similar to people.
While the latter seems far-fetched, under Quebec’s Civil Code, companies can be considered in the same way as people.
She notes a third option would fall somewhere between the two extremes to grant certain rights, but still enable ownership, which is a status granted in Switzerland, Austria and Germany, where they are recognized as sentient beings. In other words she says, “That would mean people could still own them and buy and sell them but that animals would have certain rights that could be used against their owners”
The group “Animal Legal Defence Fund” lists Quebec as the worst province in Canada in regard to animal protection laws, ahead of the territory of Nunavut at the bottom of the list.
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