New pet bylaw keeps Iqaluit “firmly buried in the dark ages”

“Failure to get an animal neutered or spayed will cost owners a minimum $250 fine under the bylaw.” Nunatsiaq News, Jan, 18, “2016: Iqaluit issues warning to scofflaw pet owners.”

Does this imply that all pets must by law be spayed or neutered under the newly amended law? 


This reader and pet owner and any other concerned Iqaluit residents may never know because the link on paragraph five from this story to only brings us to the original Nunatsiaq News report of the law in question passing third and final reading and the official City of Iqaluit web page, under the Municipal Enforcement page, does not appear to link to the actual RPO By-Law.

They do highlight links to the traffic enforcement bylaws (All Terrain Vehicles Act, Municipal Traffic Bylaw) and Noise By-Law on the same page, however.

The city bylaws used to be there online for residents to read, more or less. Is this an intentional omission signaling the same change in policy on publicly accessible information and transparency which poked its ugly head through the skin at the end of the last Mayor and Council’s mandate or simply the usual sub-standard City Hall and media effort to effectively communicate with and inform the public?

P.S. — Calgary, population 1.23 million, now boasts some of the lowest canine-to-canine and canine-to-human attacks or negative incidents in the world.

Their animal control experts attribute this to the expansion of off-leash dog areas and parks to 150 sites and only the most ill-informed, obtuse and authoritarian interpretation defines a pet owner walking beside their dog off leash out in the Sylvia Grinnell Park as being “at large.”

Dog owners exercise three times more often than the rest of the population and half of all Canadian households own dogs. Seven times more North American municipalities are now repealing or amending breed-specific dog legislation than are contemplating enacting these widely disproven, archaic laws.

Good job keeping Iqaluit firmly buried in the Dark Ages.

Philip Marsh
Iqaluit

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