I have posed the questions from your email with my response following.

1. Isolated guard/yard dogs; prolonged keeping of dogs in yards, pens, garages, on chains, etc.?

Vancouver City Council must adopt a by-law that allows for enforcement against people who keep any animal, not only dogs, in isolated captivity, for long periods of time. To me this is a "no brainer"! I continue to not understand why decision-makers waste so much time debating and deferring to lawyers on such obvious issues. One of my disappointments when I was previously on City Council was that the Domestic Animal Committee that I chaired could not get the majority of Council to act on our recommendations for such a by-law.

2. If necessary, request Charter change in order to pass a by-law on the keeping of animals/the welfare of animals?

During my previous two terms on Council, I read the opinion of the Vancouver Law Department and the legal opinion of the Vancouver Humane Society lawyer regarding the need to change the Charter of Vancouver before being legally allowed to pass a by-law on the keeping of animals. It was and is my lay opinion that a Charter change is not necessary. I believe that the City Council should pass such a by-law immediately rather than spend any more time with lawyers debating the Charter. At the same time as passing the much needed by-law, the City should also ask that the Provincial Government change Vancouver's Charter if that level of government deems it necessary, to ensure clarity of the Charter and to ensure enforcement of the by-law is not challenged. (Although, it would certainly be interesting to see the public response to a legal challenge by someone who was keeping animals in such deplorable conditions!)

3. Cats?

Certainly cats must be considered in relation to necessary by-law changes or new by-laws. Included in this is the need to pass a long overdue spay/neuter by-law. Again, Vancouver has delayed the obvious need for such a by-law unnecessarily due to the legal debate regarding the Charter. This was another recommendation that we on the Domestic Animal Committee (1997-99) could not get the majority on Council to support; in fact, we could not even get a report through the City's management team for Council when the City Pound was making the same recommendation.

I commend you and the many animal advocate organizations in Greater Vancouver for not giving up on these issues. It is indeed sad that decision-makers are not willing to take action on such clearly important and humane issues. Society will be judged not simply on how it treats humans, but how humans treat other living beings.

Best,
Nancy A. Chiavario
vcaTEAM Vancouver Council Candidate
604-877-0563