Committee discovers Catch-22 with pet bylaws
City staff, councillor say new bylaw needs to find balance between being too broad and too specific
By Joel Wittnebel/The Oshawa Express
For the second time this month, the Oshawa council chambers were visited by numerous animal lovers and animal rights advocates looking to improve the life of Oshawa’s furry friends.
Oshawa’s Responsible Pet Owner’s (RPO) bylaw and the possible inclusion of new provisions to better cover animal welfare issues within the city were up for discussion.
Taking after the bylaw adopted by Mississauga last year, new provisions could include covering issues around leashing and tethering, animals in extreme weather conditions, animals in vehicles and animal enclosures.
The proposed changes are a direct result from animal advocates in the city pushing for change.
“This is responding to numerous inquiries and letters from the public,” said Jerry Conlin, Oshawa’s director of municipal law enforcement and licensing services.
In response to the public meeting alone, the city accepted nearly 50 letters of support for amendments to the RPO bylaw.
However, in a presentation from city staff, it appeared the current bylaw, in general terms, may already cover many of these issues residents are suggesting provisions for.
The Mississauga provisions include several specifics, including the length of tethers, the amount of time the animal may be left outside, and specificationss for animal enclosures.
However, Oshawa staff suggested the general provision in the city’s RPO – that an animal is treated humanely – could be used as an umbrella term to cover all of these issues.
Conlin says that adding additional specifics to the bylaw could cause issues.
“If you become more specific, then you’re focusing on animal welfare issues A, B, C and D and then E happens,” he said. “I think the general approach is that animals being treated humanely offers the officer a lot of liberty in assessing the situation…they have a more broad opportunity here to enforce the bylaw.”
Councillor Amy England argued that specifics should be added to the bylaw, but the issue creates a Catch 22.
“If we’re too general, we might miss something because our officers won’t be trained on specifics and if we’re too specific, our officers may miss something else,” England says.
Several delegates and members of the public spoke before the committee and pushed for specifics to be added to the bylaw.
Martin Field, an Oshawa animal rights advocate, says specifics are beneficial in the bylaw and by leaving things too general they are open to a wide array of interpretation he says.
“We’re not really doing the average person in the community any favours,” he said.
The delegations and the throngs of correspondence were referred to staff to be considered in the upcoming report.