City Overreach – Excessive Regulation of Responsible Pet Owners

I object to the blanket limit of four cats imposed by section 3(1)(a) of the Draft Animal Keeping By-law.

Section 3(1)(a) provides that no person may keep, or allow to be kept, more than four cats over the age of six months on any residential premises.

I believe this is unnecessarily restrictive and does not appear to distinguish between responsible animal ownership and circumstances in which animals are actually causing a nuisance, welfare concern or public-health problem.

Section 23(1), for example, states that no person may keep an animal that creates a nuisance or health nuisance.

The Draft By-law also defines a "nuisance" broadly as conduct that is offensive, injurious or dangerous to health, materially interferes with the ordinary comfort, convenience, peace or quiet of the public, or adversely affects the public at large.

Given those existing powers, I do not believe that an arbitrary numerical limit of four cats is necessary.

For example, consider a household with six cats where:

all six cats are sterilised;

all six cats are vaccinated and microchipped;

the property is clean and hygienic;

there is sufficient space for the animals;

there is no smell or health nuisance;

there is no noise nuisance;

the animals do not roam onto neighbouring properties;

there have been no complaints from neighbours; and

all of the animals are healthy and properly cared for.

What public-health, animal-welfare or nuisance problem suddenly arises when that household moves from four cats to five?

Conversely, a person could keep only four cats and keep those animals in overcrowded, unhygienic or otherwise unsuitable conditions. Such a person would fall within the numerical limit in section 3(1)(a), despite potentially creating precisely the animal-welfare and nuisance concerns that the By-law is intended to address.

The number of animals alone is therefore a poor measure of whether animals are being responsibly kept.

A more proportionate approach would therefore be to regulate the actual conditions in which cats are kept, rather than imposing an arbitrary blanket limit.

I would suggest that section 3(1)(a) be removed or amended along the following lines:

"No person may keep cats in such numbers or under such conditions that their keeping results in overcrowding, compromises animal welfare, creates a health nuisance or nuisance, or unreasonably interferes with neighbouring properties."

I am also concerned that these provisions create what appears to be an unnecessarily fee-driven permitting regime around ordinary pet ownership.

Under section 3(5), a person keeping a cat older than six months must apply to the City for a permit in respect of every cat, with each application accompanied by a prescribed permit fee and proof of rabies vaccination.

In addition, if a responsible household wishes to keep more than four cats, section 4 requires a further permit application to keep the additional animals, again accompanied by a prescribed fee.

This raises a legitimate concern that responsible residents are being required to pay the City simply for permission to keep companion animals on residential property that they lawfully own or occupy, even where those animals create no nuisance, no public-health concern and no animal-welfare problem.

This creates the appearance that the permitting system is as much a revenue-generating mechanism as it is an animal-control measure. If that is not the intention, the City should clearly explain the necessity of these fees, how they will be calculated, what administrative costs they are intended to recover, and why ordinary responsible ownership requires a paid permit at all.

A regulatory system should be directed at preventing harm, nuisance and neglect. It should not create an unnecessary financial burden on responsible residents merely for keeping well-cared-for companion animals on their own property.