Have Your Say

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Deadline for comments is Monday, February 29, 2016

City of Ottawa Pet Shop [Retail Outlet] By-law Review

For those who signed up by e-mail, you have already received the link directly from the City of Ottawa.

The City questionnaire represents an online public consultation, and is one of the most important steps in the process. If only 10 people respond, this issue will not be taken seriously.

There are only 2 options:

We have agreed with option 1 with supporting comments.

We have refused Option 2 for the below mentioned reasons:

If you agree with these comments, feel free to take them and implement them into your own response.

**** Option 2 is not a reasonable option and will not be supported by PAWS for the following reasons**** :

1. More monitoring of the pet stores does not address the sourcing issue. Many sources are from outside the City of Ottawa limits, and, therefore, fall outside the scope of the city's jurisdiction to enforce. This is done deliberately by stores to avoid enforcement. This is already an issue under the current bylaw, where stores produce papers that the City of Ottawa has no jurisdiction to verify or validate.
2. It presumes that the sources for these pet stores are reputable breeders. First, the sources are never reputable as CKC breeders are prohibited from selling to pet stores. Secondly, papers may be produced by the store, but this does not validate whether a breeder is ethical or responsible. Even if the papers are legitimate, they only confirm that a breeder has a licence from whatever municipality they are located in, to breed non-CKC animals.
3. This approach will involve additional areas for compliance and impose a significant additional workload on city bylaw staff. The City currently investigates only on a complaint basis and, as the City has stated, they have had no complaints. A proactive approach will require additional city resources, both personnel and financial. With current City of Ottawa budgetary pressures, it is highly unlikely that more money would be allocated for this, whereas option 1 will save the city money, time and resources.
Therefore, while seeking to impose greater obligations and controls on pet stores, it is likely not feasible that bylaw officials have the capacity to meet this new mandate.

4. Continuing to sell animals in retail outlets does not address other key issues:
   • To stop the impulse purchase of pets;
   • Reduce the breeding of animals from substandard breeders while thousands languish and suffer, and are euthanized en masse at taxpayer funded shelters.

5. The City of Ottawa has no jurisdiction over online or newspaper sales of pets. By continuing to actively allow retail sales of pets in city licensed stores, the City is effectively promoting and condoning these sales, and is complicit in the ongoing proliferation of breeding animals for profit.
6. As more surrounding municipalities continue to favour legislation in support of banning the sale of pets in pet stores, Ottawa runs the very high risk of becoming the dumping ground for substandard breeders to offload their animals, increasing the problem exponentially.

Pet Shop By-law Review | City of Ottawa