I must agree with the Animal Legal Defence Fund - animal cruelty legislation in the Northwest Territories seems a bit lax.

Let's face it, if you were to tie ol' Lassie up to the back bumper of your truck and burn down Franklin Avenue at 80 km/h, your fines for speeding and littering would be far higher than the maximum fine under the NWT Dog Act, which is $25 and/or 30 days in jail. Of course, after scraping your poorly departed mutt off the road, the police could decide to charge you criminally under Canadian law for cruelty to animals, but again, it's not like you'd be spending your days pounding railroad spikes outside some dusty parchment farm for the next 10 years. The maximum penalty under the Criminal Code is a $2,000 fine and/or six months in jail, and I would guess most sentences don't come close to the maximum.

Yes, we abuse animals here in the Northwest Territories and most often, get away with it. It's no wonder the NWT, once again, shares the dubious distinction with Nunavut of being the "best place" in Canada to exercise critter cruelty, according to the California-based Animal Legal Defence Fund (ALDF).

On the contrary, you wouldn't want to be in New Brunswick if you were thinking about throwing your kid sister's hamster into the microwave. Animal abusers there face fines up to $100,000 and maximum jail terms of 18 months. New Brunswick's recently upgraded animal cruelty legislation has bumped the Picture Province from the bottom tier up into fourth place among other civilized jurisdictions in this country like Manitoba and Nova Scotia.

The NWT is one backward place in the eyes of animal rights activists, and that claim is hard to argue against.

There have been several heart-wrenching stories in recent months of dogs left without food and shelter in the freezing cold, and in cramped and soiled conditions, of the hand-wringing from law enforcement officials who decline to press charges.

It would seem easy to ratchet up the penalties, to lock up the abusers and shame them with all sorts of humiliating prohibitions, but I'm not at all surprised by the NWT's reluctance to do so.

NWT residents, unlike say, duck hunters in Ontario, still rely on animals for food and clothing. To engage in a campaign of "strengthening" animal protection laws here in the NWT would inevitably be viewed with suspicion.

Every time governments "get tough" we can expect the nanny state apparatchiks to come clambering out from under their desks to tighten the screws in ways most people never imagined.

They're really tough on animal abusers in California, home of the ALDF, but it's a state wound so tightly that 3,000 people are fleeing every week because they can no longer keep up with the crushing wave of bureaucracy washing over them. Not even porn producers are safe.

The state's worker safety board is demanding actors wear condoms while filming "scenes." Goodbye Los Angeles, hello Prague! Is anybody surprised Arnold Schwartznegger is on TV begging people to move there every night - to California!

We might also want to ask what's the point in having penalties on the books with gazillion dollar fines and lengthy jail terms when it's ultimately all just window-dressing anyway.

The ALDF applauds Ontario - No.1 on its tough on cruelty list - for its mandatory restrictions on ownership of animals for those convicted of animal cruelty.

If it's so swell there then why are we being treated to house of horrors stories at the Toronto Humane Society with its dead cats in the attic? Will this group now be forevermore banned from owning animals too?

A couple months ago, voters in Switzerland, where it's illegal to keep single goldfish - you must own multiple - and you must be certified to own a dog, defeated a referendum proposal for the government to hire lawyers to represent animals believed to have been "abused."

The referendum was sparked by a lawyer who unsuccessfully prosecuted a group of anglers who took too long reeling in a big pike. By this guy's definition, I, along with most residents of the NWT, are a bunch of blood-crazed killers.

But that's how these things progress when we're too lazy to educate, and opt for heavy-handed prosecution instead.

We do have our work cut out for us in the Northwest Territories. The plight of dogs in particular, a generation or two removed from "the land of feast and famine," needs to be addressed. But locking people up and handing them crippling fines is not necessarily the answer. Better resources for neutering strays and teaching children better habits in dealing with animals will be more effective in the long run.

• Mike W. Bryant is assignment editor for Yellowknifer. Contact him at 766-8236 or by e-mail at minder@nnsl.com