When Lynn Redenbach heard about the beating death of a little puppy in Victoria, she found herself unable to sit still and do nothing.
The counsellor and therapist was horrified at the senseless cruelty, coming hard on the heels of the slaughter of 100 sled dogs in Whistler, so she decided to take action.
“When the news about little Bandit in Victoria came on, I was horrified and it made me feel sick,” she said. “I started connecting with people and saw on Facebook that there were some people doing a petition about that. It was only local though, so I started doing research and found there was a Member of Parliament who was trying to make some changes.”
Mark Holland, the MP for Ajax-Pickering and the public safety critic for the Official Opposition, is working to amend legislation dealing with animal cruelty to close loopholes that allow some acts of cruelty to go unpunished.
“The current bill uses the term ‘wilful neglect’ and he wants to change the wording to ‘negligent, departing markedly from the standard of care a reasonable person can use,’” she said. “He also wants to change another loophole where animals are defined as property, to define them as sentient beings.”
The proposed bill, C-229, would replace the current bill, F-203.
Holland said the issue extends far beyond single acts of cruelty, to impact on society at large.
“A clear relationship exists between animal cruelty and other serious types of crimes, including spousal and child abuse,” Holland said in the preamble to his proposed bill. “By toughening our animal cruelty laws, we have a better chance of apprehending, convicting and rehabilitating abusers, making our communities safer and healthier.”
Redenbach took Holland’s campaign to heart, downloading and printing out his petitions supporting his private member’s bill and taking them to various businesses in the Oceanside area.
She said she had little choice in the matter.
“I have always been quite tuned in to the suffering of beings,” she said. “My life’s work is working with people, but with animals, I feel so sorrowful and upset when I hear about the things that are happening — and I know there are countless other incidents we don’t hear about in the news.”
To date, the petition is available at Albertson’s Home Centre in Parksville.
“He’s hoping this will come up in April,” she said. “So this is a really crucial time. I’m taking this to every human I can to sign it.”
For more information, call Redenbach at 250-927-5099.