No more puppy mills in Ontario!
The province has passed a new law protecting animal rights.
Ontario has passed a law aimed at eradicating puppy mills, the first in a whole package of animal welfare measures to be implemented in the coming months.
What's that?
Puppy mills are now officially banned in the province. This is the name given to the work of unscrupulous dog breeders whose owners are concerned only with profit. The health and welfare of animals is not a priority at such "farms".
How will they be defined?
The law spells out the specific points by which authorities define puppy mills — and that's what regulation will be based on.
The province makes it illegal to inbreed (crossbreeding close relatives), to breed a bitch more than three times in a two-year period, and to breed a female dog under a year old.
The law also prohibits the separation of puppies under eight weeks of age from their mothers, and makes it illegal to keep breeding dogs in substandard conditions (dirt, unsanitary).
Liability for violating this law will come in the form of a fine: a minimum of CA$ 10,000 and a maximum of CA$ 25,000 for the death of an animal on such a farm.
Opinion on the law
Ontario will become the first province in Canada to introduce minimum fines for unethical dog breeding. Michael Kerzner, the region's chief solicitor, says numerous nuances were taken into account in drafting the bill:
"We're going to ensure that we don't penalize the good breeders, the ethical breeders," Kerzner said.
The Humane Initiative has been campaigning against puppy mills for 30 years. And its representatives are encouraged by the passage of the law, as it can now be enforced against an already prepared list of unscrupulous breeders.
But Camille Labchuk of the advocacy group Animal Justice isn't sure anything will come of this idea, because without mandatory dog licensing, it's impossible to find and identify puppy mills:
"That is a good first step, but this bill, frankly, will do little to nothing to change any operations of any puppy mill in Ontario."
What other measures are worth waiting for?
As part of breeding regulation, the new law should lead to the creation of dog records to ensure that each animal's history can be tracked. In the future, these changes open the door to other innovations already outlined by lawmakers and advocates.
It is primarily a matter of regulating the sale of dogs going forward.
The province also plans to increase the number of Animal Welfare Service inspectors, which currently consists of only a hundred people spread across Ontario.
The government is also considering banning "medically unnecessary", traumatic and dangerous procedures for dogs and cats: claw removal (so-called "soft paws"), debarking (vocal cord trimming), tail clipping and ear cropping.
