Quebec Animals will no longer objects - And do not forget also some people unable

Animals will no longer objects in Quebec.

And do not forget the people can no longer perform human gestures every day.

Recently the minister Pierre Paradis indicated its intention to amend the civil code

professors and graduates are among the signatories a manifesto calling for a new legal status for animals.

By Claude Gauvreau

January 31, 2014 at 2:18 p.m.

The manifesto demands that the Civil Code of Québec provides animals with a status of being sensitive.

In just 10 days, nearly 29,000 people, including professors and graduate of UQAM, signed the manifesto titled Animals are notthings.It requires that the Civil Code of Québec provides animals with a status of being sensitive. Written by Sophie Gaillard, a lawyer with the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA) and Martin Gilbert, a postdoctoral researcher at McGill University, in collaboration with author Elise Desaulniers, the document has received the . support of many Quebec personalities from the world of science, arts, culture and

media,the authors of the manifesto reminder that the Civil Code currently divides the world into two basic legal categories: people - humans and also legal persons such as corporations - and the property is to say everything. - houses, chairs, toasters and animals ...

In other words, a dog, a cat or a cow differs not a toaster or a chair from the legal point of view. To injure or mistreat an animal equivalent to deteriorate as well. Nothing more, nothing less.

Equating animals at things is to ignore the development of knowledge, especially in neuroscience and animal ethics, says the manifesto. StevanHarnad,Professor of Psychology and Chair Canada Research in cognitive science, was one of the first signatories of the manifesto.

"The scientific community recognizes that animals have cognitive and emotional capacities, they are living beings with sensitivity, can feel pleasure and pain, "he said. Evidenced by the Declaration on the conscience ofCambridge,July 7, 2012, who argues that animals, including all mammals and birds as well as many other species, like humans have the neural substrates of consciousness.

" If animals are not things, so it is legitimate to take into account their interests and their moral value, among others in the way they are treated in laboratories and in industrial farming, notes Stevan Harnad. Anyone in contact with animals or has a pet can easily understand.

"Quebec,the last class

According to the sixth edition of the nonprofit organization American Animal Legal Defense Fund, issued last summer, Quebec ranks last among Canadian provinces in terms of legislation on animal protection.

The problem is the rigidity of the civil law, says the professor of the Department of Legal Sciences Martine Lachance, another signatory of the manifesto, which manages the Group International research in animal law (GRIDA), the only of its kind in the country. "Quebec has improved regulatory conditions surrounding the care and breeding of dogs and cats, she said, but many other animals remain unprotected and are experiencing great suffering, especially farm animals and wildlife .

"TheCanadian Criminal Code also contains significant gaps, says the researcher. This does not prohibit killing unnecessarily wild or stray animal. In addition, offenses against animals, such as gestures of cruelty causing unnecessary suffering, appear in the section entitled "Wilful and Forbidden Acts for certain goods."

A third category?

The manifesto does not specify the particular form that might take the new legal status of animalsoptions.

are two  Possible observes Martine Lachance. "The first, which I prefer, is to create in the Civil Code a third category separate from that property and that of people who recognize the sensitive nature of living animals.

The other option, which was adopted in France, Austria, Germany and Switzerland, maintain animals in the category of goods, while giving them the special quality of material good, as distinct from inanimate objects.

"Whatmight be the consequences of a change the status of animals in our civil law? It all depends on the nature of the new status. Laws that would give protection to be because it is a sensitive would open a breach in the doctrine that the condition for having rights is to be human. "Extract animals category of goods at least promote the establishment of measures to limit their suffering in slaughterhouses and farms," ​​says the professor.

The aim of the manifesto is to launch a public debate in order to change the legal status of animals. "The law is always behind the company, said Martine Lachance. This is when it calls for changes that the legislature passes the measure, as was the case regarding the rights of women and marriage between persons of the same sex.

"ForStevan Harnad," the fact that the manifesto has collected many signatures in such a short time shows that attitudes have changed and it is possible to undertake the reforms that s'imposent.»

http://www.actualites.uqam.ca/2014/4315-professeurs-diplomes-parmi-les-signataires-dun-manifeste-pour-un-nouveau-statut-juridique