The Yukon government wants public input on plans to update its animal protection laws and expand the powers available to its protection officers.
The territorial government on Monday released a discussion document in advance of a series of public consultations during April and May.
Proposed amendments to the territory’s Animal Protection Act include:
Read Also
U.S. livestock: Cattle strength continues
Cattle futures on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange were stronger on Friday, hitting fresh highs to end the week.
- requiring owners or people in charge of animals to provide “reasonable assistance” and “relevant information” and to stop their vehicles, when ordered by an animal protection officer;
- allowing animal protection officers, with a warrant and an RCMP officer, to enter property and require animals’ owners or caregivers to produce the animals in question;
- allowing animal protection officers to get a warrant by phone to enter property;
- granting animal protection authority to the RCMP to enter property without a warrant “with reasonable and probable grounds, and under exigent circumstances;”
- raising the maximum penalties under the Act from a $500 fine and/or six months’ jail time to a $10,000 fine and/or two years’ jail time;
- allowing exemptions for certain accepted pest control practices;
- requiring anyone who injures or kills an animal with a vehicle (hitting an animal with a truck or bicycle, for example) to inform an animal protection or animal welfare office at the “earliest opportunity;”
- extending coverage under the Act to include wildlife kept in captivity;
- ensuring animals are transported “securely, safely and humanely,” citing dogs riding loose in the backs of pickup trucks as an unsafe example;
- granting animal protection officers the authority to take action when animals are abandoned, such as those left behind by tenants skipping out of rental accommodation, or those ditched at veterinary clinics or boarding kennels; and
- extending legal protection to anyone, including the Yukon government, for actions they take in good faith relating to the Animal Protection Act.
The deadline to submit comment on the proposed amendments is May 23.
The proposed amendments stem from a review of the Act in 2006. “The study revealed that while the Act was basically sound, there was potential to improve it,” the government wrote in a release Monday.
