{"id":133054,"date":"2017-11-21T21:47:19","date_gmt":"2017-11-22T02:47:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=133054"},"modified":"2017-11-21T21:47:19","modified_gmt":"2017-11-22T02:47:19","slug":"new-montreal-administration-to-move-quickly-to-repeal-pit-bull-type-ban","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2017\/11\/21\/new-montreal-administration-to-move-quickly-to-repeal-pit-bull-type-ban\/","title":{"rendered":"New Montreal administration to move quickly to repeal pit bull type ban"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"City<\/a>
City councillor Craig Sauve says there are plans to consult with scientists, veterinarians, the SPCA and dog owners about a new bylaw. (Pixabay photo)<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Montreal Mayor Valerie Plante’s new administration isn’t wasting any time moving ahead with its election promise to repeal the city’s controversial ban on pit bull-type dogs.<\/p>\n

City councillor Craig Sauve says there are plans to consult with scientists, veterinarians, the SPCA and dog owners about a new bylaw.<\/p>\n

Sauve promised it won’t take two years.<\/p>\n

It’s something that we’re going to do immediately, he stressed in an interview Tuesday.<\/p>\n

But the news comes a bit late for one Montrealer.<\/p>\n

Jessica Moore, 26, moved to the suburbs with her two pit bull-type dogs in July because of a bylaw passed in 2016 by then-mayor Denis Coderre forbidding citizens from owning such canines.<\/p>\n

Once the pit bull ban came into effect, it started getting costly as well as stressful, she said in an interview.<\/p>\n

It all started in December when we had to start paying $150 for each dog and (also) muzzling, and all the extra fees and everything.<\/p>\n

The additional costs included $50 to get each dog microchipped and $75 for a personal background check.<\/p>\n

I had to go the police to get fingerprinted and that made me feel like a criminal, she added.<\/p>\n

Sauve says Coderre’s bylaw was shown again and again to be based on bad science.<\/p>\n

He says that while his party Projet Montreal was in opposition, it looked at studies and talked to the SPCA, animal rights activists and scientists.<\/p>\n

We found that breed-specific legislation anti-pit-bull legislation was just unscientific, he said in an interview.<\/p>\n

Sauve has promised to repeal Coderre’s bylaw and replace it with one that will be much more humane.<\/p>\n

Instead of banning one particular breed of dogs, we are going to focus on how dogs are brought up, he said.<\/p>\n

We going to look at dog owners and whether they have been educated about their dogs and whether they’ve been getting any training.<\/p>\n

Sauve said it all comes down to helping them be better owners which will ultimately reduce the number of dog bites.<\/p>\n

He added that the Plante administration wants to base any new Montreal bylaw on elements found in a Calgary model.<\/p>\n

It puts the onus very much on the education of dog owners and the upbringing of dogs, he said.<\/p>\n

It (Calgary) has a good success rate and a safer environment safe for humans and for dogs.<\/p>\n

Moore, a certified dog trainer, lived in the Montreal borough of Lachine for two years before moving to the nearby town of Beaconsfield to escape Coderre’s ban.<\/p>\n

Moore said both her dogs are females aged two and four. They are mixed breeds, but in order to keep them she registered the animals as pit-bull mixes.<\/p>\n

Regardless of what the new bylaw contains, she has no plans to move again.<\/p>\n

But Moore said she is happy a new bylaw is in the works that makes more sense.<\/p>\n

SPCA lawyer Sophie Gaillard is also glad to hear there will be swift action.<\/p>\n

I think it’s pretty clear that the majority of the population was not satisfied, she said in an interview.<\/p>\n

We do know that this is a priority for Projet Montreal.<\/p>\n

Coderre’s bylaw is still in effect but Gaillard said she expects that to change very, very quickly in terms of the provisions targeting pit bull-type dogs.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Montreal Mayor Valerie Plante’s new administration isn’t wasting any time moving ahead with its election promise to repeal the city’s …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":133056,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[34462,34461,34460],"class_list":["post-133054","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news-ca","tag-city-councillor-craig-sauve","tag-montreal-mayor-valerie-plante","tag-new-montreal-administration-to-move-quickly-to-repeal-pit-bull-type-ban","mauthors-peter-rakobowchuk","mauthors-the-canadian-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133054","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=133054"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133054\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/133056"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=133054"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=133054"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=133054"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}