Communities need better veterinary care

The following letter is my response to your online article published July 30 entitled “IFAW dog rescue did not occur in Kuujjuaraapik.”

My name is Margot Gallant, and I lived and worked in Kuujjuarapik as a teacher from August 2007 to June 2010. In my opinion, it is unfortunate that the aforementioned IFAW dog rescue did not occur in Kuujjuarapik, as there are many homeless, neglected and abused dogs in the community who would benefit greatly from being “rescued” from their present conditions.

In your article, municipal administrator Pierre Roussel presents only one side of a complex issue.

He fails to fully explain how poorly the stray dog problem has been handled in Kuujjuarapik in the past few years, if at all. He states that “We don’t take dogs away to be shot all the time,” and that “we respond to calls when there is a safety issue.”

Contrary to Mr. Roussel’s claims, I and other witnesses have seen dogs abused, bludgeoned and shot on occasions when there was no safety threat to the community, and I can provide additional details to any interested party to support my statement.

What Mr. Roussel also fails to mention in your article is that dog culls in Kuujjuarapik are tolerated by local residents as it is a source of income for them. Locals who participate in the dog shoots are paid a bounty by the municipality, per dog killed.

I am sure that the municipality would argue that without financial incentives, no one would want to do this “job.” I would argue that the entire concept of the “dog shoot” is simply a short-sighted and cruel way to avoid putting in the time, effort and work necessary to find more humane, long-term solutions.

Fortunately, it looks like the Municipality of Kuujjuarapik has started the work needed to bring veterinary care to the community in the immediate future. In June 2010, I met with Mayor Raymond Mickpegak, who informed me that the Inuit and Cree communities were partnering on an initiative to bring a sterilization clinic to Kuujjuarapik this summer.

This statement corresponds somewhat with Mr. Roussel’s claim in your article that “they’re [Kuujjuarapik] paying to fly in a veterinarian this year to sterilize female dogs.”

Despite the vague timeline given, I would like to congratulate the Municipality of Kuujjuarapik on this proactive approach to dog population problems in their area, and hope that other communities will follow Kuujjuarapik’s example.

I look forward to an update in the near future from the Municipality of Kuujjuarapik on the outcome of their dog sterilization clinic. I will be following this issue with great interest, as both the mayor and municipal administrator of Kuujjuarapik are now on record as saying that they will be sterilizing dogs this year.

In closing, I suggest that if the Municipality of Kuujjuarapik does not wish to be “mistakenly targeted” in the future for its poor management of dog population problems, then actions speak louder than words.

I am sure that Nunatsiaq News will provide timely coverage of Kuujjuarapik’s sterilization efforts, if and when they occur, in order to communicate this positive news to all northern communities.

Margot Gallant
Ottawa


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