I’m so excited to have Selma as a guest writer this month.  She is known for her work and dedication in lobbying to overturn the Breed Specific Legislation in Ontario.  Selma Mulvey is a native Torontonian who now lives in Ontario’s farm country with three dogs. She is a lifelong dog lover and became a social activist in 2004, fighting the Ontario “pit bull” legislation. She is the Director, Legislative Analysis at the Dog Legislation Council of Canada and has blogged about the politics of dog ownership at Caveat since 2005.

ENDING ONTARIO’S REIGN OF TERROR
By Selma Mulvey

On November 30, 2011, amid a flurry of excitement, a Private Members’ Bill to repeal Ontario’s breed-specific legislation (BSL) was brought forward and passed First Reading.

What makes Bill 16, Public Safety Related to Dogs Statute Law Amendment Act, 2011 so special is that it has been co-sponsored by members of all three parties in the Legislature.  Randy Hillier (PC – Lanark, Frontenac, Lennox & Addington), Cheri di Novo (NDP – Parkdale-High Park) and Kim Craitor (Lib – Niagara Falls) are proudly standing together for dog owners’ rights in Ontario.

One person commented “When I heard there was tri-party support and the Bill passed First Reading, I broke down and cried.”

Can most of us imagine bursting into tears over the announcement of a Bill simply coming up in the Legislature?  That illustrates the kind of stress dog owners in Ontario have been living with for the past seven years.

Breed-specific legislation in Ontario has affected law-abiding owners of unoffending mutts – dogs that have not bitten or even growled at anybody – beyond what most people would or could endure.  One of the fallacies of this scheme (and there are many) is that it will control irresponsible, negligent or criminal dog owners.  The trouble with that is that only law-abiding people obey laws, the ones who are never a problem in the first place.

Dog owners now have good reason to be optimistic, given the tri-party status of Bill 16, and are already busy getting petitions signed, planning events and looking forward to the re-opening of Ontario’s parliament in February.  Bill 16 is scheduled for Second Reading on February 23, 2012.  We hope many supporters will come to a rally that day in front of the Legislature from 11:30 – 12:30 pm.  (Details are available on Facebook, search for Yes We Can! Rally for Hershey’s Bill 16).

They look forward to the end of the fear that has gripped the community since the law was enacted in 2005. They can’t wait for the day when they no longer have to live in fear that their loveable mutt may be mistaken for an illegal  “pit bull” and seized and killed, just because somebody doesn’t like the way he looks, or worse, the way they look.

We have given the Bill the nickname ‘Hershey’s Bill’.  Hershey was a beautiful brown dog who worked as a St John’s Ambulance therapy dog.  Originally rescued from a bad situation, she was believed to resemble one of the three breeds banned in Ontario.  When the “pit bull” ban came in, poor old Hershey lost her job.  It was very sad, because she looked forward to visiting hospitals and nursing homes to bring cheer to the people there.  Her sweet and gentle nature made her a favourite visitor at those places.

Hershey is no longer with us, but her name lives on among Ontario dog owners as an example of how unjust and unkind this legislation is.

Ontario’s “pit bull” legislation has taken good dogs with good owners off the streets and out of the dog parks while allowing irresponsible owners of other dogs to carry on unchecked. It has diverted valuable resources towards pointless searches for illegal “pit bulls” and has wasted huge amounts of municipal and provincial money on court cases trying (largely unsuccessfully) to prove that dogs are “pit bulls”.  It has completely confused everybody from animal control officers to the average dog owner on the street.

Bill 16 will attempt to restore sanity to the province, to get everybody away from the diversionary witch hunt and back to dealing with the tiny minority of owners who ignore warning signs, don’t bother training or socializing their dogs, let them run loose or worse, encourage them to be fearful and unpredictable.

People like me want laws to be fair, universal and easily understood but most of all, we want them to be effective.  Unfortunately, banning a shape of dog fails to address problem owners in any meaningful way, and, in creating a false sense of security, does a disservice to all the people of Ontario, dog owners or not.

You may hear on TV or read in the newspaper that dog bites have decreased since the breed ban came in.  That is simply not true.  If one cherry-picks from incomplete databases the numbers can be manipulated to show anything.  When you play the numbers straight and get them from reliable sources (such as Public Health departments), it is clear that dog bites have remained stable across the province.  This is to be expected, since that’s been the experience everywhere else.

Many places that had tried breed banning rejected it.  Holland, Norway, Italy, Germany and Scotland have all repealed laws banning dogs by shape.  A Bill recently passed in the House of Lords in England which would rescind the notorious Dangerous Dogs Act – one of the first (and worst) examples out there – and replace it with legislation that works.  That Bill must still pass in the Commons.

On this continent, many towns and cities, too many to list here, have either rejected BSL outright or have rescinded it.  Toledo, Ohio, a place held up by the government as a shining example of success, has fired its dog-catcher and repealed its ban on ‘pit bulls’.   There are several state-wide law prohibiting BSL, among them Texas, Maine, Illinois, Colorado, Florida and California.  Vancouver repealed its breed ban in 2005 when data showed it didn’t work.

And that is the key.  Jurisdictions that have actually collected data and analyzed it have found that BSL doesn’t work.  It’s time Ontario grew up and started treating its citizens like adults.

Dog owners now have good reason to be optimistic, given the tri-party status of Bill 16, and are already busy getting petitions signed, planning events and looking forward to the re-opening of Ontario’s parliament in February.  Bill 16 is scheduled for Second Reading on February 23, 2012.  We hope many supporters will come to a rally that day in front of the Legislature at noon.  (Details are available on Facebook, search for Yes We Can! Rally for Hershey’s Bill 16).

In the meantime, please visit http://www.bringbackthebulls.com/ for more information and to sign the online petition.  If you can, please print out a hard copy and get a few signatures, then mail it to Randy Hiller’s office.  Every signature will help!