WORKSHOP 8: Alanna Devine & Sophie Gaillard: Does the Law Protect Animals?

VIDEO OF PRESENTATION

Alanna Devine (Speaker)
Director of Animal Advocacy Montreal SPCA

Sophie Gaillard (Speaker)
Attorney SPCA de Montréal

Kathrin Herrmann 
Assistant Scientist Center for Alternatives to Animal Testing, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health

Adam Shriver 
Professor Oxford Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics

Moderator

Not all animals are equal under the law. Although someone who sadistically mutilates a cat or a dog would undoubtedly be subject to criminal prosecution, mutilating pigs, cows, and chickens without anaesthesia constitutes a standard – and legal – practice on factory farms across the country. Similarly, while regulatory standards closely govern how dogs and cats can be kept in petshops, small exotic animals sold in the very same petshops, such as parrots or reptiles, benefit from virtually no legal protection whatsoever. 

In this presentation, Me Alanna Devine and Me Sophie Gaillard, respectively director of and lawyer for the Montreal SPCA’s Animal Advocacy department, will provide an overview of existing federal and Quebec animal protection legislation and, using actual cases they have worked on at the SPCA, will discuss some of its pitfalls.

R. v. Menard (1978), 43 C.C.C. (2d) 458 (Que. C.A.) : https://www.animaljustice.ca/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/R-v-Menard-FINAL1.pdf

Regina v. Pacific Meat Company Limited et al., [1957] 119 CCC 237 (BC County Court): https://www.animaljustice.ca/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/Regina_v._Pacific_Meat_Company_Limited_et_al.pdf

R v Heynan, [1992] AJ No 1181 (AB Prov Ct): https://www.animaljustice.ca/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/R-v-Heynan-1992-AJ-No-1181-AB-Prov-Ct.pdf