Wag the Dog

As I await the Ontario Court of Appeal’s decision on the legal challenge to Ontario’s breed ban, I find myself reflecting on our journey thus far.  I still have so many unanswered questions. 

If I could ask Michael Bryant some questions, and before you tell me, yes, I know he is no longer the Attorney General but the law was his “baby” and yes, I do know that I could write him and ask.  I did, many, many times.  At first I got no response.  After I wrote to boss Dalton, who did respond with a form letter answering which answered none of my questions and really simply acknowledged receipt of my letter, and implied that my concerns don’t matter because they know best, I did receive a response from Michael Bryant, but it was even more dismissive than McGuinty’s.  I felt rather like a child being told “there, there” and not to worry my little head with such things and to just let them take care of it, shoo now.  That would be dismissive and insulting in any case, but considering that I have been working with dogs for almost my entire adult life professionally, and that I am a trainer, and that I am a bite victim, requiring surgery as a child and resulting in a nasty infection that required a lengthy hospital stay with intravenous antibiotics being administered, it is even more of an insult.  I’m in good company though, because the Ontario Liberals certainly ignored a multitude of experts with even more experience than I have in the drafting and passing of this law.

I digress.  If I could ask Michael Bryant some questions and actually have him answer them I would ask him this:

• Calgary has a non breed specific bylaw that has proven to be very successful in addressing concerns with animals in society.  The law is effective, enforceable, and highly unlikely to face any costly legal challenge.  It is not controversial.  It is fair, treating all dog owners equally.  Why would you choose to pass a controversial law, open to legal challenge, costly and difficult to enforce, and unfair to three rare breeds and any short haired mixed breeds when it would be have been much easier and more effective to pass a non breed specific law?
• Why did you ignore the advice of many dog experts?
• You have said repeatedly on the news that “pitbulls” are a breed apart, and that banning them is in the best interest of the safety of Ontarians.  What data do you have to support this claim? 
• If you truly believe that “pitbulls” are a breed apart, why have you allowed provisions for transporting some of the seized dogs out of the Province, and how many have been shipped out of the Province?
• The Ontario government is spending a lot of taxpayer money to defend this law from a legal challenge during tough economic times.  Can you provide reliable and accurate data which will show that the law has decreased dog bites and has genuinely made Ontarians safer and that the law is therefore worth defending?
• How much additional money has been spent on enforcing this law, seizing dogs based only on appearance, housing dogs based only on appearance, and attaining court orders to have dogs destroyed based only on appearance?
• How many dogs have been seized and killed in Ontario under the breed ban portion of DOLA, and how many of those were purebred, registered dogs of the three breeds listed in DOLA and how many were “substantially similar”?
• Do you plan on having other “breeds” added to the ban in the future?

Honestly, the whole thing reminds me of a child who goes to more effort to make it appear as though he has brushed his teeth than it would have taken to brush them.  The Ontario government could have passed a great law, a shining example for the rest of the country if not North America.  They CHOSE not to.  The information was there.  The experts were there.  They passed this law in the face of a lot of opposition.  Passing a good law that actually did some good would have been less effort.  Heck, even implementing a Province wide dog bite prevention education program would have been less effort and probably less costly.

Could it be that the Ontario Liberal government didn’t care whether the law was effective or not, fair or not, cost – effective or not, or genuinely made Ontarians safer?  Could it be that they were more concerned with getting as much attention as possible, in order to try to appear to be doing something good in front of the cameras instead of just actually doing something good?  Call me jaded, but I believe it to be so.

So tell me, what would YOU ask Michael Bryant if he had to answer truthfully?  I will be here, awaiting a court decision.