We've said all along that the penalties are not the most important issue. Of course we support higher penalties, and they are very much needed. We've struggled with it, frankly, because I sit here representing humane societies and SPCAs across Canada that are trying to prosecute animal crimes appropriately, and they need a better tool. So it's difficult for us to oppose a bill that's at least doing something.
But the reason we continue to oppose it very strongly is we feel so strongly that the problems need to be fixed and that increasing the penalties is just not good enough. Doing that is outweighed by the need to close the loopholes that are problematic.