It seems that there isn’t the support there once was for a ban on pit bull-type dogs in Quebec’s National Assembly.
According to a recent CBC News report, members of the Liberals and the Parti Quebecois aren’t quite so vocal in their support for Bill 128 as they were a few months ago.
Since the hearings where Anne-France Goldwater was one of the key witnesses arguing against the ban, all-out support for banning specific breeds is falling away. You can watch Anne-France’s testimony, in French, here on her Facebook page.
When asked last month whether amendments to the bill removing the sections of the bill banning specific breeds, Quebec’s Public Security Minister, Martin Coiteux, didn’t shut the door. “We’ll see whether we have to make a few amendments or not,” he said according to the CBC. “This bill, in particular, deserves a very open ear,” he said.
Liberal, CAQ, and PQ representatives all said their parties were listening closely to experts speaking on the bill. This is a far softer position than they once held, where banning specific breeds, like pit bulls, was the policy of the day.
Late last month a man in Brossard, Que. on the south shore of the St. Lawrence was sentenced to four years in prison after his dogs mauled a seven-year-old girl in 2015. Two dogs were given to the man’s elderly mother to take care of without a leash when they attacked the young girl. She suffered severe face and hand injuries and was left with a large facial scar, according to a CBC report.
Anne-France argued in a recent episode of The Goldwaters that laws like the pit bull ban won’t work to protect people, and the government needs to think more broadly. “You don’t want the next bite to be from another dog—whether it be a [poodle] or a German shepherd—and that somebody be hurt and we didn’t do anything. We really have to aim at the entire population,” she said.
This was part of The Goldwaters sit down with Montreal Mayor Valérie Plante, who was elected with large support from the dog-owner community.
“I feel like I’ve done what I said I would do regarding especially the pit bull ban, because I said, ‘This has no place in my administration, so we’re going to take it away.’ And now we are revisiting the whole process,” Plante said during the episode.
You can hear more of the conversation—in English and French!—between the Mayor, Anne-France, Daniel, and Marie-Hélène Dubé with your favourite podcast app here, or with iTunes here.
You can always subscribe to more episodes of The Goldwaters with iTunes, or via RSS for wherever you get your podcasts.