Pit bull bylaw in hands of appeal court judges
No date set for decision after city presents case on controversial ban
After hearing the city ’s arguments on Friday, the Court of Appeal will rule at a later date whether the suspension of Montreal’s controversial pit bull ban should be lifted.
Lawyers representing Montreal argued on Friday that the city didn’t get a fair chance at defending itself last month before a judge promptly suspended part of its new animal control bylaw.
Had the city had a chance to do so, lawyer Claude Marseille argued on its behalf, jurisprudence suggests a judge would have ruled in the city’s favour.
“Even I could score a goal against Carey Price if his hands are tied behind his back and you take his pads off,” Marseille said of the decision to order the suspension.
But the Montreal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, which managed to have sections of the bylaw suspended by a judge in October, argued the city never asked for more time to prepare its arguments when the issue was first presented to the courts.
“We feel they did have enough time,” said the SPCA’s lawyer, Sibel Ataogul, outside the courtroom after the hearing. “And they didn’t raise the additional arguments they would have wanted to present in first instance.”
Ataogul said she felt the city used Friday’s hearing at the appellate court to “basically try to re-do a hearing that they already lost.”
The city also argued the suspension granted should have lasted only 10 days, that the SPCA’s arguments were mostly based on opinion, and that the bylaw doesn’t mean dogs will be ordered euthanized, only that acquiring and adopting the breed would be banned.
Marseille leaned on a court decision rendered on Thursday that ruled the city of Lavaltrie’s recent animal control bylaw that also bans pit-bull-type dogs is valid.
He said the bylaw in Lavaltrie, 50 kilometres northeast of Montreal, includes more breeds than Montreal’s
and that its description of what’s considered a pit bull is the same.
The sections of Montreal’s bylaw pertaining to pit bull-type dogs will remain suspended at least until the Court of Appeal rules on the case, meaning the dogs can still be acquired and adopted, and current owners don’t have to buy a special $150 permit or muzzle them when outdoors.
Outside the courtroom, Alanna Devine, director of animal advocacy for the Montreal SPCA, said that even if the city doesn’t order dogs to be euthanized, the end result would be the same if the suspension is lifted.
“What the city doesn’t understand is they’re saying they won’t order dogs euthanized, but that doesn’t resolve the situation that
the SPCA takes in 15,000 animals a year, a large number of which are dogs,” Devine said.
“And if we aren’t allowed to place a number of those dogs in adoption, then what happens to them?”
The three-judge Court of Appeal panel didn’t specify when it would rule on the matter.