SPC recommends review of animal control bylaw

By Lethbridge Herald on October 13, 2023.

Al Beeber – LETHBRIDGE HERALD – abeeber@lethbridgeherald.com

The Community Safety Standing Policy committee of Lethbridge city council on Thursday voted unanimously to recommend the City do a thorough review of its animal control bylaw.

The motion by the SPC members calls on council to direct the City manager or administration to provide an amalgamated, modernized draft animal control bylaw to repeal and replace several bylaws – dog control bylaw 5235, Wild And Domestic Animal Control Bylaw 3383 and Pigeon Bylaw 2609 and include draft provisions for the regulation of cats by the third quarter of 2024.

Thursday’s meeting was the last for the SPC which on Nov. 1 merges with the Cultural and Social SPC to become the Safety and Social SPC.

Planned engagement for the animal bylaw review includes the Community Conversation event scheduled for Oct. 23, a City website survey, other survey results collected at the animal shelter and feedback from the animal welfare committee.

The existing dog control bylaw was passed in 2004 and was based on best practices at the time, says a report by Regulatory Services manager Duane Ens.

Ens told the SPC that other communities in western Canada have updated – or are examining – their animal control bylaws.

The City wants to do a thorough examination of public concerns and wants and learn what other communities are doing. They also want to look at the type of manpower requirements new regulations would take.

The idea of licencing cats has come up previously, Ens said, and while the City offers voluntary licencing, there are no fines for people who don’t licence their felines. Among matters which could be considered when addressing cats are the numbers that are allowed in any household, Ens told the SPC.

The last survey that was done well in the past, Ens said in response from a question by deputy mayor and committee vice-chair Mark Campbell, suggested that 70 per cent of residents weren’t opposed to a cat bylaw while 21 per cent would be.

“Cat bylaws are a difficult thing to enforce,” Ens said, and residents wouldn’t be able to expect that such a law would prevent a neighbour’s pet from going into someone’s flower beds.

Ens said the City wants to get a sense of what people’s issues with cats are here and what is working in other communities. The City, Ens pointed out, provides $45,000 to the No-Kill Animal Association to help low-income people with the costs of spaying or neutering their pets.

Skylar Plourde, Director of Services and Enforcement at Community Animal Services, told the SPC forcing residents to spay or neuter their cats or dogs is next to impossible. He said some communities have bylaws that allow municipalities to perform such surgeries on animals that come through their shelters more than once.

In response to a question from chair Jenn Schmidt-Rempel, Plourde said in his more than nine years with Animal Services that there are peaks and valleys in the most common animals which come through.

Before and just in the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic, the majority of animals being take care of were cats. Since then, more dogs have been taken in. He said any bylaw would need to adapt to changing environs.

On Thursday, the SPC also unanimously recommended that city council give first reading to amend Licence Bylaw 5658 that will deregulate taxi fares in the city and remove the requirement for a top light.

Ens told the SPC that the taxi industry as a whole here is ready for the change.