Thank you.
They are two separate amendments. I separated them because I thought one might have a chance of getting passed and the other probably not, but I think they're both appropriate amendments to make, because with the bill the way it is reading right now, in my mind, given testimony and actually the discussion from the member who put forward this private member's bill, this is really about making sure animal activists do not trespass onto farm property.
Given that, and that it is basically a trespassing bill when you keep in the clause “without lawful authority or excuse”, I felt the convictions and the penalties imposed were much greater than even the penalties that have been imposed in the legislation in Ontario and Alberta, which are similar to this in their intent. These are still higher than trespassing fees, but they're much more in line with the other legislation that's already in place, and if we're going to be adding our federal legislation onto provincial legislation, I felt that it should at least be consistent.
The first amendment is simply to reduce the amount of the fine, given also that this offence, if someone were to be convicted, I suppose, of this, does not at all entail that there was any disease or that anything happened on the farm. It was simply that they trespassed on the farm. I felt like those penalties were really out of line with that particular offence, especially since it has no element of biosecurity, breaking any prior security regulations or anything else.
This basically brings it back in line with the legislation that has already been passed in Ontario and Alberta for the same type of thing, so I'm suggesting we just reduce these penalties so that this is more in line with trespassing and with provincial legislation, although it's still more than normal trespassing.
That would be the first one. I think we should probably debate that one first before we move to the second one.