Sunday, January 4, 2009

With Freedom comes obligation

You can only protect your liberties in this world by protecting the other man's freedom. You can only be free if I am free. Clarence Darrow

I have it on good authority that there weren't forty concerned animal lovers at the public forum HRM held to discuss ByLaw A 300. Over a third of Nova Scotia's population ( 372,679 vs 938,310 ) live in the HRM with easily over 100,000 households within the HRM boundaries. Even if only ten percent of those homes were pet owners ( and the unofficial estimate is actually much higher) that was still an appalling display of apathy.

So you might ask why I, who live 'far from the madding crowd', would care about this. How does an HRM AC bylaw affect a middle aged grandmother living in the Valley? If you ask that, perhaps you are unfamiliar with the fact that in Nova Scotia, all the municipalities belong to the Union of Nova Scotia Municipalities, http://www.unsm.ca/. This is the same group of folks who tried to sneak BSL in through the provincial legislature undercover of a municipal housekeeping bill, Bill 138.

On their own website, the UNSM clearly stated that one of its ongoing priorities is "UNSM/AMA sub-committee prepared changes to MGA to make dog owners more responsible for actions of their dogs. These changes will give municipalities more tools to work with to address dangerous dogs and their owners. Legislation anticipated to be introduced in Spring 2008."

Why don't we have that now? Clauses 6 - 8 of Bill 138 did not pass in the House. And why was that? Voter feedback is why. Strong networking at the grassroots level ( inspired by my friend Joan's diligent attention to the situation) had animal loving voters around the province emailing and calling their MLA's.

Which is exactly the same reason ByLaw A 300 made it to the gate. There was not enough strong voter feedback from the animal loving voters in HRM. And why was that?

Its easy to be apathetic about things that we don't feel concern us. For instance, when the crisis on Wall Street began, people without stocks simply shrugged and felt that wasn't their problem. When Canadians started losing jobs because of that, when credit became hard/impossible to get, then more people became concerned.

The truth is that we should be concerned any time we empower our politicians, bureaucrats or their employees to do anything on our behalf. Every law that is passed has the potential to affect us in some way.

For instance, people who consider themselves to be responsible dog owners might feel that penalties for dogs running at large might not affect them. And they will keep on thinking that right up until that one in a thousandth time when Spot slips off the leash or slides out the door or simply forsakes well patterned total recall.

People who have indoor only cats might not worry about 'running at large' cat bylaws until they personally discover what a determined and clever cat can be capable of. Nor would they even consider the desperate plight of feral cats that get caught in the AC 'running at large' web. Then of course when AC can 'catch and kill' feral cats, there is the whole other sticky wicket of enabling AC officers to use their own judgement. I'm sure you all remember the tragic case of Duckie, the elderly housecat who was killed within a couple of hours of being seized by AC.

The real crunch of the problem with Bylaw A 300 is threefold:


  • Animal Control officers should never have been given the authority to kill any animal, owned or otherwise, and worse...

  • there is too much room for interpretation in the definition of a dangerous dog and, even worse

  • there is too much scope for complaints to be used to further neighbourhood vendettas

When I was a girl in school, our grade six teacher had us learn a poem by Pastor Martin Niemoller that changed my life


When the Nazis came for the communists , I remained silent; I was not a communist.
When they came for the trade unionists, I did not speak out; I was not a trade unionist.
When they came for the Jews , I remained silent; I was not a Jew.
When they came for me, there was no one left to speak out.


Tomorrow,( Monday the fifth of Jan) , at Nine AM in Supreme Court (General Division) The Law Courts Building; 1815 Upper Water St.; Halifax, NS with Justice Duncan R. Beveridge presiding, Francesca Rogier will be having her day in court. Not because of Bylaw A300, but in spite of it. She has gone to great length and expense to have a judge, not an AC officer, make this life and death decision about her dog.


Remember that this is not even about one woman and her dog.... this is about the need to change such dangerous legislation. If we wish to keep living in a democracy, it is everyone's obligation to 'speak for those who cannot speak for themselves"

History will have to record that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition was not the strident clamor of the bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people. Martin Luther King Jr

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Thank You! Thank You! Thank You! Someone finally got it right, and so brilliantly said.