Wow, so they passed a national law that essentially targets just a single park? How often does that happen anywhere? (I know the back story but I never knew Marineland was the only place... not saying this is wrong or right, just surprised)
Some quick searching shows that some aquariums have been doing this, including Marineland itself:
https://globalnews.ca/news/5238289/marineland-vancouver-aqua...
In this sense, passing the bill now might be less of an incentive to change and more prevention of a change back.
Might be more common than you think.
The state of Missouri passed an amendment in 2010 [1] that changed rules about a position "except counties with a population between 600,001-699,999", which just happened to only apply to Jackson County in the state. (I always assumed there was some kind of backroom dealing involved with the officials of that county.)
I can't find it now but I also think there's a similar law that used a similar population work around with a limit of 1,000,000 people, which was in danger of no longer applying to St. Louis county because the population was threatening to fall to around 999,000.
[1] https://ballotpedia.org/Missouri_Election_of_Charter_County_...
[1] This isn't a criticism, per se, but this propensity does tend to get Trudeau and his party into trouble. I voted for his government in the last election and fully support this law.
See also: Gay Marriage legalization. The Liberals passed a bill legalizing it, but only after the courts of two provinces were set to make it legal anyway.
Same with this bill. To downplay it because companies have already been adjusting to this expected reality quite petty, and they deserve full credit for the legislation of it.
A few years prior the Liberal government of the day was opposed to gay marriage and voted to confirm the status quo definition of marriage.
The Liberals of course deserve credit for seeing the obvious and not attempting any action to block gay marriage further, but they did not lift a finger to support gay marriage until the courts weighed in and forced the issue upon them.
Long term the supreme court of Canada would have struck down provincial bans on gay marriage, but not all of the provincial courts would have. Inevitable could take 10 years, or 50.
Doing it nationally and at once reduced years of suffering and human rights issues, and thus was significant.
>The Liberals of course deserve credit for seeing the obvious and not attempting any action to block gay marriage further, but they did not lift a finger to support gay marriage until the courts weighed in and forced the issue upon them.
That's simply not true.
http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/article/1241961--marinela...
http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/article/1253334--marinela...
https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/xd43jj/marineland-is-a-he...
And there's lots more, it only takes a few moments with web search to turn up plenty of allegations that Marineland and its owner are toxic.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marineland_of_Canada#Controver...
https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2011/10/03/the_man_behind_m...
It doesn't target them, it targets all Canadian wildlife institutions. The legislation has been in the works for a while, this is really codifying something federally that provinces and environmentalists have been trying to do for a while.
Just because a lot of the ground work was already done before the bill was signed into law over the last decade doesn't mean this is targeted at the last remaining holdout (who is mostly grandfathered in to be clear, they can't bread or capture but can keep what they have).
Even in the US, Seaworld has decided to phase out whales and try to push other attractions, due to shifts in public opinion. I have a feeling other US aquariums, like Chicago, will likely go the same route and not replace or breed their current dolphin/whales populations.
"Whales and dolphins that are already in captivity will be grandfathered in by the bill, meaning parks can keep all the animals they currently own."
See [Whale watching excursions prohibited in part of the Saguenay-St. Lawrence Marine Park](https://ici.radio-canada.ca/nouvelle/1178858/parc-marin-sagu...) for example.
What's the alternative where the law rules? If federal jurisdiction is where the law/regulation would belong, how else would you bring an end to that practice?
> "Marineland in Niagara Falls, Ont., says new law won't impact its operations."