Canada’s so-called Free Willy bill was finally passed by Parliament this past week. And finally is the operative word.

Bill S-203, introduced by now-retired Liberal Sen. Wilfred Moore, took four long years from start to finish to clear Parliament — even though it should not have been the slightest bit controversial.

It will ban the importation of whales and dolphins into Canada, as well as breeding them here for the purpose of putting these creatures on display to do tricks for tourists.

That’s surely something everyone can agree on. Marineland in Niagara Falls is the only facility in the country that still believes it’s OK to keep such intelligent mammals penned up in pools.

If not for some Conservative senators who used every procedural tactic imaginable to stall it in the Upper Chamber for more than three years, the bill would have been quickly passed.

Still, the bigger problem isn’t partisanship. Canada already had a reputation for dragging its feet on animal rights long before Bill S-203 was introduced back in 2015. While the Free Willy bill passed by the skin of its teeth on Monday, too many other attempts to strengthen protections for animals have been left to die on the order paper or are defeated in the House of Commons.

Consider, for example, three other bills aimed at curbing cruelty to animals that have been introduced since the last election. One was defeated and the other two are destined to die when the House rises on June 21.

What’s at play? Partisanship is only part of it. Intense lobbying efforts by powerful foes of any animal rights bills comes into play. And then there’s sheer ignorance on the part of some MPs and senators.

For example, the Senate held up a bill by Conservative Sen. Carolyn Stewart Olsen, known as S-214, aimed at banning cruel and often unnecessary animal tests in the development of cosmetics, for three long years, although it too should not have been controversial.

Indeed, many leading cosmetic brands — such as the Body Shop, which backed the bill — already ban animal testing. Nor is the notion of banning the sale of animal-tested cosmetics new. It’s been in place in the European Union since 2013.

So why did the Senate stall it?

Three years ago, when Stewart Olsen was asked that question by the Star’s Thomas Walkom, she ventured that some legislators believe anything benefiting non-humans represents the thin edge of a wedge that must be countered lest it lead to rampant veganism.

If that sounds strange, consider the opposition to Toronto MP Nathaniel Erskine-Smith’s Bill C-246, the Modernizing Animal Protection Act.

It would have, among other things, banned the importation and sale of dog and cat fur and strengthened existing laws against animal cruelty by defining bestiality and prohibiting the training and breeding animals for fighting.

So how did such a bill end up being defeated in the House only months after it was introduced?

It didn’t help that there was opposition from both sides of the House from MPs who had over-the-top reactions along the lines that Stewart Olsen described. Conservative MP Robert Sopuck, for example, actually claimed it would “threaten … all animal use in Canada,” while Liberal David de Burgh added, “I do not believe tens of thousands of my constituents should risk prison for feeding their families.”

Then there’s Bill S-238, introduced in 2017 by Conservative Sen. Michael MacDonald. It would have banned the importation of shark fins, used to make a soup sold in some Asian restaurants. (Erskine-Smith’s bill also would have banned this.)

The practice of “finning” sharks, after all, has been illegal in Canadian waters since 1994. And for good reason: it involves cutting the fins off living sharks and then throwing them back into the ocean. Unable to swim, the sharks sink to the bottom and die of suffocation or are killed by predators.

Still, the sale and importation of shark fins remains legal.

That’s despite the fact that at least 17 Canadian municipalities have banned the sale of shark fins and related products. (Toronto voted to do so in 2011, but an Ontario Superior Court Judge overturned the ban.)

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Yet even this bill is not likely to make it through this session of Parliament.

Animal rights groups, the Green party and others cheered this week when the Free Willy bill finally became law. And it received widespread favourable coverage for Canada in international media.

But the disappointing reality is that our Parliament is too often the place where attempts to improve animal welfare go to die. MPs and Senators from all parties should vow to do much better after the next election.