After nearly three years of swimming against a strong current of Conservative opposition, a bill that would ban whale and dolphin captivity in Canada has cleared the Senate.

After a surprise vote late Tuesday, Bill S-203 is now making what many say is a long-overdue leap to the House of Commons.

Tabled in December 2015 by former Liberal senator Wilfred Moore, the Ending the Captivity of Whales and Dolphins Act has faced Tory opposition led by Sen. Don Plett, the party’s whip and caucus critic on the bill. He has repeatedly used procedural obstruction to keep it from moving to a vote — a tactic that appeared to have the support of the Conservative caucus.

A Conservative amendment that would have excluded the Vancouver Aquarium from the scope of the bill was defeated ahead of Tuesday’s vote by a vote of 49-29. A sub-amendment that would have excluded Marineland was also defeated last week by a wide margin: 49-23-2.

Those are the only two facilities that keep captive cetaceans in Canada.

Ahead of the vote, Independent Sen. Mary Jane McCallum called the bill an “important and long overdue piece of legislation” and reminded her colleagues that it is 2018.

“The fact that we are only having this discussion now is, frankly, disappointing,” she said. “The fact that this bill has had such an unfortunately long tenure in this place is even more disappointing.”

Given today’s heightened awareness and compassion, she said she was frustrated that “a bill aimed at protecting some of nature’s largest, most substantial and most intelligent animals from living in insufficient confines can be mired in the Senate since its introduction in 2015.”

While facilities like Marineland and the Vancouver Aquarium speak of the commitment to animal care and don’t set out to do harm, McCallum said the nature of an unnatural environment means that harm is inevitable. That the reality of undue harm in captivity exists “should be enough to jolt people — namely this chamber — into action.”

“This issue of animal cruelty is unacceptable in the 21st century in and of itself,” she said.

“This concern is compounded by my personal belief, shared by many, that having these majestic and intelligent animals in captivity is simply unnatural. It is against the very nature, biology and physiology of these animals to be swimming around in tanks when they are wired and built for the vastness of an ocean.”

At committee, senators heard from several witnesses from the Vancouver Aquarium about the need for and benefit of research that is done on whales and dolphins in captivity. McCallum called that “an argument of convenience.”

“Nothing about cetaceans in captivity is natural, including their behaviour. If scientists are truly interested in observing and understanding the actions and behaviours of these animals, they would be best suited doing this in the wild, where they are able to exist freely and without constraint,” she said.

“Colleagues, it is my belief that aquariums have these animals in captivity, first and foremost, to turn a profit. It is important that we do not confuse entertainment for education. The actions and reactions elicited from these animals while in captivity is a far cry from what their usual behavioural patterns and habits are in the wild. … It is incredibly unfortunate that the entertainment must come at the expense of the welfare of these animals.”

Plett then asked her if she’d ever been to the Vancouver Aquarium or Marineland “to inspect this horrendous facility that everybody is talking about — to inspect this small little bathtub that these whales are swimming around in.”

“I have been there,” he said. “I see the joy on these cetaceans’ faces — on the belugas’ faces — when they come out and get food.

McCallum said she had been to Marineland, but added it doesn’t matter if animals in captivity have the best of accommodations: “It is unnatural.”

Conservative Sen. Tom McInnis spoke of how he initially thought the bill was good legislation, but his position changed completely, “partly because much of the testimony from those supporting the bill was unsubstantiated. That is to say, it was their belief or opinion.”

“There are many diverse opinions on the issue of cetaceans in aquaria and captivity, and many founded on emotion and not necessarily fact,” he said. “Much of the testimony from the proponents of the bill was contradicted by expert evidence.”

At committee, however, in addition to researchers from the Vancouver Aquarium who spoke out against the bill, senators also heard from animal welfare advocates and a slew of scientists, including: Dr. Hal Whitehead, a renowned marine biologist from Dalhousie University; Dr. Naomi Rose, a marine mammal scientist; Dr. Ingrid Visser, a marine biologist in New Zealand who has studied orca for decades; and Dr. Lori Marino, a neuroscientist and expert in animal behaviour. Each spoke in support of the bill, citing the harm that whales and dolphins suffer in captivity.

McInnis also stated his concern that no one had consulted with the provinces about the bill. He asked his colleagues if they were confident that the Senate isn’t interfering with provincial domain by passing the bill. However, while the general jurisdiction for animal welfare does fall to the provinces, the federal government already has criminal animal-cruelty laws (put in the Criminal Code by the federal government) on the books — which are constitutional.

McCallum said she felt strongly that “it is inappropriate and unfortunate that a small collective would act in bad faith because of their personal stance on a piece of legislation.”

She said acting in such a way to indefinitely delay the legislative process goes against the spirit of the democratic institution they’re all a part of — and one that is predicated on the will of the majority.

“Let us put personal opinion aside and do what is right. Let us respect the democratic process. Let us vote on this bill.”

When iPolitics reached Moore, now retired from the red chamber, he hadn’t heard his bill had passed.

“Oh my goodness,” he said. “This is great news.”

He knew the vote on the amendment was going ahead and that a vote on the bill was a possibility, but hadn’t spoken to anyone for fear of jinxing the outcome.

“We were down in the trough a few times with this, but we kept going,” he said. “I’m just delighted that it has passed and that the support of the public has been confirmed.”

In June, MPs from all parties — Green Party Leader Elizabeth May, Conservative MP Michelle Rempel, Liberal MP Nathaniel Erskine-Smith, and NDP MP and Fisheries critic Fin Donnelly, along with Animal Justice and the Humane Society International — held a news conference to call on senators to stop playing games with the bill. After so much time and study, they said the bill (along with other animal-protection bills) deserved to be voted on and moved forward to the House.

May also sent an open letter to Conservative Party Leader Andrew Scheer, calling on him to wade in and tell his senators to stop blocking the bill. She said the stalling “disappoints the tens of thousands of Canadians who wish to see a vote on this bill, and reflects poorly on the national Conservative caucus.”

Between February and October of 2017, the Senate Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans held more than 17 hearings and heard from more than 40 witnesses on Bill S-203. By then, Moore had reached retirement age, so sponsorship was taken over by Independent Sen. Murray Sinclair.

“I was so encouraged to see that all-party press conference calling for the bill to get to the House,” Moore said. “I’m looking forward to that process. I don’t know if we’ll pass this calendar year, but I hope we’ll pass by next spring.”

May will be the sponsor of the bill in the House.

Shortly after S-203 passed Tuesday, Bill S-238 followed suit. It would ban the import and export of shark fins to and from Canada.

The Ban on Shark Fin Importation Act is also a private member’s bill, sponsored by Conservative Sen. Michael MacDonald. It was introduced in April 2017 and received unanimous support at the Senate fisheries committee in February this year.

Earlier this month in Ottawa, MacDonald, along with Donnelly and Liberal MP Scott Simms, held a screening of Sharkwater Extinction, the latest movie by Canadian filmmaker and conservationist Rob Stewart, who died diving in the Florida Keys in January 2017 while shooting the film.

The support for a ban on fin imports and exports also crosses party lines, as demonstrated by those who attended. Among them were May, Conservative MP Bob Zimmer, Independent Sen. Lucie Moncion, and NDP MPs Ruth Allen Brosseau, Richard Cannings and Don Davies.

The film is a follow-up to the 2006 documentary Sharkwater, which won more than 40 awards at festivals around the world and brought awareness to the practice of shark finning.

It highlighted how, despite surviving the Earth’s five mass extinctions, human greed could easily wipe sharks out within a few years. The film started a global conversation, and some shark-research organizations credited it with saving millions of sharks worldwide, Stewart’s mother Sandy told the Senate fisheries committee in January.

Sharkwater Extinction builds on the previous film’s message, and looks at how illegal overfishing of sharks across the planet has deeper consequences and threatens the collapse of the ocean ecosystem.

Canada has banned the practice of shark finning since 1994. However, fins can still be imported — and demand for them has been rising. Last year, nearly 159,000 kilograms of fins were imported into this country — a 60 per cent increase over the last five years. Most came from Hong Kong and China, and were likely from finning.

Outside of East Asia, Canada is the largest importer of fins in the world.

With many of the world’s species of shark on the brink, the University of Guelph conducted DNA testing on shark fins being sold in Vancouver to determine what species they were. Of the 59 shark-fin samples collected, 76 per cent were from species on the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s list of vulnerable species.

“This is not a political issue,” MacDonald said when he announced his intention to introduce the bill last year, with Donnelly’s support.

“I think having a Conservative senator from Nova Scotia sitting with an NDP MP from B.C. is a testament to that. It is a matter of fact that the global trade of shark fins is unsustainable, and it is decimating a critical species of the marine ecosystem.”

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