A Centretown woman who says her life was adversely affected by the loss of her pit bull companion is backing an Ottawa Valley-area MPP’s bill to repeal the province’s seven-year-old ban targeting the breed.
Randy Hillier, Progressive Conservative MPP for Lanark-Frontenac-Lennox and Addington, introduced Bill 16 in November 2011, seeking the repeal of breed-specific provincial legislation. The bill recently passed second reading in the Ontario legislature and has won significant support from all three parties.
The ban was implemented by the Ontario Liberal government in March 2005 following a series of high-profile attacks in the preceding year involving dogs identified as pit bulls.
In one incident, three pit bulls jumped a fence and attacked a two-year-old boy as he and his father walked through a park in Ottawa.
The boy’s father and a passer-by managed to beat the animals away, but were badly bitten while doing so.
It was one of a number of incidents which put public and media pressure on the government of Premier Dalton McGuinty to find a solution.
Hillier says while the incidents were unfortunate and unusual, government should find solutions based upon solid facts and science, not upon public hysteria.
He says there is technically no such breed as pit bulls, which he describes as a collective term for a number of breeds, including the Staffordshire Bull Terrier, American Pit Bull Terrier, Argentine Dogo, and others.
However, the law fails to identify these specific breeds, says Hillier.
This means there is no scientific or practical means of defining the breed the ban targets, and leaves the law subject to the interpretation of those who enforce it, which is unfair, he insists.
“It does not provide any remedy or recourse for those who are alleged to have dogs that appear to be a pit bull, and it can’t be considered lawful,” says Hillier.
“If somebody seizes (a) dog, because it’s got short, brown hair, the onus is on (the owner) to prove it is not something the bylaw enforcement person says it is.”
Liberal MPP Kim Craitor agrees. The member from Niagara-Fort Erie drew enthusiastic applause from the opposition when he, along with two other Liberals, voted for Bill 16. Despite not personally supporting the ban, he said he voted with the McGuinty government in passing the measure in 2005 because of the media pressure at the time.
“I was not a supporter of the bill when it was first introduced,” says Craitor. “We didn’t really go into the legislation to make the dog owner accountable . . . We kind of just said there’s only one kind of dog that bites, so that kind of dog doesn’t belong in Ontario.”
The Ottawa Humane Society does not support breed-specific legislation, and says the number of dog-bite incidents in the region have remained steady since the ban was introduced.
“There are many reasons that could contribute to dangerousness in a dog, including poor training, mistreatment; breed doesn’t have as much an impact as these other factors,” says Ottawa Humane Society spokesperson Mandy Chepeka.
Following the dissolution of her marriage last summer, Centretown resident Ashley Paquette relied on her dog, Jack, for emotional support. She lived in the United States at the time.
When Paquette decided to move back to Ottawa in August 2011, where she grew up, Jack could not come with her, because he was classified as a pit bull.
“He was an amazing, wonderful dog, and I had to give him up, because he couldn’t live in Ontario with me,” says Paquette, 23.
“It was probably the most devastating thing of my life, and, absolutely, the hardest decision I ever had to make.”
Still, Willowdale Liberal MPP David Zimmer defended the ban in debate on Feb. 24, arguing it was reasonable given the protection it provided Ontarians.
“We saw photographs, medical reports of children with their face torn off, adults with their genitalia chewed off,” said Zimmer, before being cut off by the legislative assembly’s raucous reaction.
Hillier dismissed Zimmer’s comments as hysteria. He says more and more citizens believe the ban is wrong, and that the right decisions need to be made.
Bill 16 is currently before a standing committee at the Ontario legislature, before it is to be brought to the assembly for a third reading and final vote, where it will become law if passed.