How to get people barking mad
Matt Gurney, National Post Published: Thursday, May 13, 2010

As a rule, it's hard to provoke an Ontarian. It takes a lot to get our hackles up.

The Premier is pushing through a tax hike that he only recently admitted was a tax hike.

There are natives in Ontario towns seizing property and setting up blockades without any interference from the provincial police.

A billion dollars was blown on creating electronic health records without any progress being made.

The Premier and Toronto's Mayor responded to a drug-fuelled gang war by calling for a pointless handgun ban.

The list goes on. Yet we're not complaining. What does it take to get people in Ontario angry?

Apparently, euthanizing cute animals.

An outbreak of ringworm has led to officials at the York Region branch of the Ontario Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals to order more than 300 animals -- cats, dogs, rabbits, etc. -- euthanized immediately. The process has already begun (50 have been put down as of press time) and should be completed by the weekend.

The OSPCA insists that this is the only way to control the outbreak and that outside experts were consulted before deciding on the sad course of action. A manager has been fired for letting the situation get out of hand but insists that it isn't her fault.

Ontarians' reaction? They're mad. The story is front-page news and the lead item on almost every radio show in Toronto.

Talk radio programs are being flooded with calls from outraged listeners who make comparisons to internment camps and executions.

MPP Frank Klees, in whose riding the shelter is located, is demanding that Premier McGuinty get involved and put a stop to the euthanasia. (The government has so far refused.)

People are taking time off work to protest at the shelter and volunteering to adopt the animals and pay for the ringworm treatment on their own dime. Other veterinarians are offering to take the animals and cure them rather than see them killed.

This isn't the only animal story to grip the region. The death of several dogs from malfunctioning Toronto electrical poles stirred outrage, too. And the casualties of Ontario's pit bull ban routinely make the front pages whenever outrage flares up about a pending "execution." Police raids against the mismanaged Toronto Humane Society also generated huge public interest.

Clearly, if you mess with Fluffy or Fido, you'll soon have an angry Ontario populace on your hands. But there are far greater problems facing this province today.

As cute as cats and dogs are, we had better learn to muster up a similar level of outrage about the more serious issues that impact on restoring Ontario's place as the economic engine of Confederation.