People who are fortunate enough to live within the boundaries of the City of Toronto are now the proud possessors of a new cat by-law. Our hard working councillors had nothing better to do than sit around and debate where cats should and shouldn’t go. It wasn’t exactly a hair raising issue. Newspapers and talk shows weren’t deluged with letters to the editor and calls from irate victims of feline misbehaviour. You know that it animals could not have been causing a serious problem because the provincial Tories were not being blamed for it. If it was really important it would have been Mike Harris’fault. Everything that goes wrong is Mike’s fault. The truth is that the pet issue was no big deal. Yet the city mothers wasted time and energy debating this by-law. Not satisfied with controlling every facet of people’s lives, the councillors now want to control the lives of poor little puddy tats.
If a cat winds up on someone else’s property, the "victim" can call the Kitty Kops who will take the four legged offenders away and lock them up. Don’t even have to read them their rights. One problem with this law is that all cats will not be treated equally.
In order to commit a feline infraction, kitty will have to trespass on someone else’s property. You can bet that this won’t happen in Rosedale or the Bridle Path where houses are miles apart from each other. The only cats that will get caught are cats who live in poorer neighbourhoods where houses are closer together or strays ( ie. homeless cats). Cats that are owned by Mike Harris’ rich friends (the ones who are getting all of the tax cuts) are not going to have to worry. The by-law is clearly aimed at the most vulnerable cats in our society; the homeless and the poor If Toronto City Council had more compassion they would try and get to the root causes of why there are so many strays instead of building more pet jails. Toronto would be a much better place to live if there were more cat houses.
Another problem with the by-law is that there are a zillion cats in the megacity , but only eight Pussy Policepersons. The city even admits that they can’t enforce the by-law. You are supposed to resolve any problems that you have with your neighbours which you probably could have done without the law.
Property and business owners pay taxes which go, in part, to the salaries of councillors who pass laws that they can’t enforce and so you have to enforce them yourself. We all know what would happen to a mechanic who took your money for car repairs and then told you that you would have to fix the car. Which explains why garage mechanics are trusted more than politicians are.
It’s now only a matter of time before the city goes to the dogs.