Iqaluit set to offload care of unclaimed animals to humane society

In this 2012 photo, Michael Hatch, Iqaluit’s acting chief bylaw enforcement officer, stands with a husky dog that bylaw officers had recently picked up. (FILE PHOTO)

Iqaluit’s chief of municipal enforcement, Kevin Sloboda, takes a question about the city’s animal control policy from councillor Terry Dobbin, centre, at a city council meeting held at Abe Okpik Community Hall in Apex Jan. 13. (PHOTO BY PETER VARGA)

Iqaluit’s municipal enforcement department promises to sharpen its focus on enforcement of city bylaws, thanks to an agreement to offload all care for the city’s stray animals onto the Iqaluit Humane Society.

A memorandum of understanding between the department and the society on care for stray and abandoned animals got city council’s unanimous approval Jan. 13.

Too often, the city’s municipal enforcement officers’ duties are taken up by having to care for stray dogs collected in the city, until owners reclaim them, says the city’s chief of municipal enforcement, Kevin Sloboda.

Unclaimed dogs go to the humane society after three days, or are destroyed.

Officers not on the city’s streets are usually at the municipal animal shelter, “doing the cleaning duties and the walking duties — all these things that the humane society does on its side alone,” Sloboda said.

Plans to hire a pound-keeper for the municipal enforcement department in 2014 folded.

Instead, city administration favoured the possibility of striking an agreement with the society, whose mandate is similar to the shelter’s duties and functions.

“In the end, we were hoping that would be transferred to the humane society in an MOU, or turn around and reinstate the pound-keepers position that was defined back in 2013,” Sloboda told council at the meeting.

The MOU outlines roles of municipal enforcement and the society in caring for unclaimed animals.

Under the agreement, the city will pay a yearly sum of $55,000 to the society for care of animals at the municipal shelter, where society workers will care for animals instead of enforcement officers.

Sloboda said the MOU is a first step toward a long-term agreement with the society, which would take full responsibility for care of unclaimed animals in the city.

“I imagine this will be a pretty quick transition,” said Coun. Stephen Mansell, who is chair of the city’s public safety committee.