Tiny the Shih Tzu is shown in a photo released on Friday Dec. 14, 2012. A Victoria man accused of abusing a dog has been fined after pleading guilty to failing to provide necessities to an animal. WENDY NESBITT/THE CANADIAN PRESS

Although research has shown a significant correlation between animal cruelty, crimes of domestic violence and child abuse, when it comes to legislation and public policy in this country, it’s just not on the radar.

“We treat animal abuse and violence as something entirely separate from any other form of violence,” says Barbara Cartwright, CEO of the Canadian Federation of Humane Societies. “But we know that if an animal is suffering, a human is suffering. It doesn’t happen in isolation.”

They’re part of a larger pattern of violent crimes that often co-exist. But it’s not just that they’re linked — there’s also a correlation.

“If an animal in a family is experiencing severe abuse, then it’s likely the women and children are as well,” she says. “But even with all this focus (by the federal government) on gender-based violence, that’s not getting through.”

This violence link is still an emerging concept in Canada, however, it’s evolved elsewhere to encompass prevention and intervention practices to reduce vulnerability in animals and humans.

Cartwright says the link plays out in four main areas, the first being domestic violence.

“Abusers use the animal to control the victim — either with the threat of violence or actual violence against the animal to secure the action they want from their victim or for punishment for stepping out of line or trying to leave.”

And it works.

Recent research from Amy Fitzgerald at the University of Windsor found a strong connection between the abuse of human family members and the treatment of companion animals and reported that among women in shelters who have fled domestic violence, 89 per cent reported the same kind of violence against their pet.

Given that most shelters don’t allow a woman to bring her pet with her, up to 55 per cent of women delay leaving an abusive situation. One-third of the women who fled a violent partner go back to their home to check on the animal they had to leave behind. What’s concerning is that studies have shown women are most vulnerable to extreme violence when they try to leave, so they put themselves in grave danger by returning after having fled. Some simply move back to an abusive environment because of their pet.

Childhood sexual assault is also inextricably linked with animal sexual assault. Abusers use it as a grooming tool. The Criminal Code recognizes that, as those provisions are grouped together.

Most commonly, a serial predator starts on animals. They test out their crimes and learn what suffering looks like and how to manipulate it. Then they escalate to humans.

Cartwright refers to a common phrase around the topic: “Not all people who commit animal cruelty are serial predators. But as far as we know, all serial predators have committed acts of animal cruelty.”

Someone like Luka Magnotta is a case in point: he kept escalating because he wasn’t apprehended for his acts of animal cruelty towards kittens, despite posting videos online. Jun Lin paid the price for that with his life.

More recently, the man who is charged with killing 26 people and injuring about 20 more at a Texas church had previously been charged with animal cruelty in Colorado.

“Because animal cruelty is seen as separate from human violence, when someone commits an act of cruelty, we just treat it as the ‘dog file’ and not really that important. It’s often not even communicated,” Cartwright says.

“But it needs to be. We need to be able to intervene early.”

That’s not necessarily easy to do when so little violence against animals is being tracked. In the United States, the FBI started tracking animal cruelty through its National Incident-Based Reporting System in 2016.

In Canada, that’s not happening with either the Major Case Management System or the Violent Crime Linkage System (ViCLAS), which was put in place following several complex, multi-jurisdictional serial homicide investigations (the cases of Clifford Olson and Paul Bernardo being among most notable).

ViCLAS is a central repository to capture, collate and compare violent crimes and yet neither it nor the MCM system have files or data points to track animal cruelty in a formal way. The information may be recorded and entered into the system in other ways, but it’s not trackable.

“Certainly profilers know that animal cruelty is one of the top indicators of further violent behaviour, but we haven’t set up a system that will allow our law enforcement to track it properly,” says Cartwright.

She notes that it’s becoming more common to see child pornography and animal pornography happening alongside one another. Ditto for animal fighting and guns and gangs. They absolutely go together, but yet most police officers don’t have the training to deal with an animal fighting ring.

Animal fighting paraphernalia is very specific, so if an officer walks into a house and sees it, that should be a cue that abuse is happening, Cartwright says.

“How do we link all of this up so that animal enforcement and animal prosecutions are not happening in a vacuum to the rest of the violent system, so that we can help the animals and the animals can also help the humans?”

Given that animal violence intersects through so many sectors, that’s not an easy question to answer. But starting Monday, the CFHS is bringing together more than 200 professionals from across the country to try as part of its Canadian Violence Link Conference.

Social workers, animal cruelty enforcement personnel, judges, anti-violence advocates, politicians, bureaucrats, animal welfare advocates, policy experts, veterinarians, 21 Crown prosecutors and more than 50 police officers (including the RCMP) will be in Ottawa to pool expertise.

The idea is to bring together key sectors that work to prevent and address violence against people or animals for cross-sector training on how to stop the cycles of violence.

This conference is the first of its kind in Canada and it builds on the work that’s been done since the CFHS helped create the National Centre for the Prosecution of Animal Cruelty two years ago. Cartwright says they’re looking to move forward with something similar to the National Link Coalition in the United States, which has been working since 2008 to build successful programs where agencies in these fields can cross-report and cross-train each other for more effective prevention of violence.

“This is literally the beginning of it. We have to stop having isolated conversations.”

The conference will end with a list of priorities and a push for funding and resources to deal with at least three of them out of the gate.

Among them? From a social services perspective, taking a systemic approach to ensure there’s an animal safety net in place so that a woman who is suffering has somewhere to go with her animal.

Secondly? A better legislative framework with regards to animal protections. With the federal government undergoing a review to modernize the Criminal Code, it’s the time to prioritize animals, Cartwright says. Although there are existing provisions pertaining to bestiality, those were weakened by a Supreme Court decision in June of 2016 involving a father who had sexually abused his daughters for a decade. The majority found the definition of bestiality as set out in the Code applied only to actual penetration, not to other forms of sexual assault involving an animal.

The court said it was for Parliament to “consider whether the present provisions adequately protect children and animals. But it is for Parliament, not the courts, to expand the scope of criminal liability for this ancient offence.”

In a dissenting opinion, Justice Rosalie Abella said that to limit the charge of bestiality to only sexual acts where penetration occurs “leaves as legal all sexually exploitative acts with animals that do not involve penetration. This, in turn, completely undermines the concurrent legislative protections for animals from cruelty and abuse.”

She had a hard time accepting that at a time when the federal government is looking to update the Code, “Parliament forgot to bring the offence out of the Middle Ages.”

And it still hasn’t.

Last fall Liberal backbencher Nathaniel Erskine-Smith introduced a private member’s bill to update Canada’s animal cruelty laws, which included a provision to expand the definition of bestiality and a push for tougher laws around animal fighting. It was defeated in October by a vote of 198-to-84. Notably, it was voted against by most of the Liberal caucus. At the time, Justice Minister Jody Wilson-Raybould said the defeat wasn’t the end of the conversation.

“We all agree animal cruelty is a significant social issue that needs to be addressed. In terms of looking at the animal cruelty provisions in the Code, that’s what I’ve always committed to do and we’re going to follow up on that.”

More than a year later, there’s no indication when or if that might happen.

“Every time we sit around and argue about whether or not we should update the Criminal Code sections, we’re ignoring the violence link,” Cartwright says. “We’re ignoring the women and the children that are suffering on the other end. We see a complete disconnect between the need to protect children and the need to protect animals from sexual assault.”

In addition to better laws, the country needs enforcement officers who are properly trained, educated and connected to all the other players, so that they can be enforced. In Canada, officers from 40 per cent of Humane Societies and SPCAs enforce the federal animal cruelty legislation, but there’s no funding for them, no training, no access to services. The majority of that work is paid for through fundraising. Cartwright says the federal department of Public Safety could allocate funds for money for education and training.

Although Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale sent a letter of support for next week’s conference, he won’t be there. Nor will Wilson-Raybould or Minister of the Status of Women Maryam Monsef.

“This is political. It’s policy. Yet we have very few political people coming, even though we’ve invited every single MP and every single senator,” Cartwright says, noting the event is being held less than 15 minutes from Parliament Hill.

Even getting a meeting with Goodale to discuss the issue has been challenging — and unsuccessful to date.

“They don’t equate animal protection with community safety, so we need to help them link those two things up,” she says.

“It’s also pretty clear (Monsef) needs to engage in this conversation. If the government really wants to address gender-based violence, they need to include animal protection officers and animal experts at the table. If you leave them out, you’re missing a significant part of the problem that leads to increased gender-based violence against women and their children.”

Ideally, Cartwright would like to get all three ministers in a room and give them a presentation.

“We own 17 million companion animals in a significant number of houses across the country, and yet they’re almost invisible in our legislative and policy framework, no matter where you look,” she says.

“The conversation has to happen. We have to get people talking about this. Its time has come.”