PÉTITION BERGER BLANC

Montreal to announce plan Thursday for improved animal control
By Max Harrold, The Gazette December 14, 2011 MONTREAL - The city of Montreal is to announce on Thursday its plan for improved animal control in the city, The Gazette has learned. The plan could lead to big changes in pet ownership in Montreal.

The issues include how to better handle the estimated 50,000 animals abandoned yearly in the Montreal area, whether to make the contracts Montreal’s 19 boroughs and its 15 adjacent cities have with for-profit pounds more stringent and whether to make pet licences and the sterilization of pets mandatory.

A source told The Gazette the city wants a system at the agglomeration level – for the entire island of Montreal – with an incentive-based pet-licensing system and public access to “high-volume, low-cost” pet sterilizations. People would pay less for licences and implanted ID microchips if the pets are sterilized and more if they are not. The city also wants stiffer animal nuisance bylaws for dogs barking and for picking up animal feces.

Most of all, the city wants to be seen to be “out of the convenience killing business.”

Montreal City Hall came under fire last spring after a Radio-Canada exposé that appeared to depict animals at the for-profit Berger Blanc pound being inhumanely euthanized. Many boroughs and cities still have contracts with Berger Blanc.

The city wants a system that is more of a partnership between city-run animal control services and non-profit animal welfare groups, like what is done in Calgary, the source added.

The proposal will not include a citywide ban of sales of cats and dogs in pet shops, as the city of Toronto imposed in September. Montreal’s Rosemont-La Petite-Patrie borough banned sales of pets in new pet shops last week.

Indeed, many aspects of animal control are not the jurisdiction of the city of Montreal, so it is possible the announcement Thursday will be an agreement by the boroughs and cities to better coordinate their animal control services.

Alanna Devine, director of animal welfare for the SPCA in Montreal, said the new Montreal plan should make it a priority to move away from dealing with for-profit pounds.

“If you’re a borough and you’re dealing with a pound that sells unsterilized animals, then you’re just contributing to the problem,” Devine said.

mharrold@montrealgazette.com

© Copyright (c) The Montreal Gazette

Read more: http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/Montreal+announce+plan+Thursday+improved+animal+control/5861636/story.html#ixzz1gbxz7O7w