Collections and reflections

I was at Wednesday's event supporting Cheri DiNovo's bill to remove breed-specific language from the Ontario Dog Owners' Act. It was wonderful to meet all the lovely and loving bully dogs demonized by ulterior-motive politicians and media, and all their owners.

Contrary to propaganda, many, many of them are intelligent, sensible, responsible women.

These women have been called unprintable names, been harassed and assaulted, and had their lives made miserable by the Ontario McGuinty Liberals.

The article about the Bill on InsideToronto.com carries a remark of Ms. DiNovo's that really resonated with me. The Fibs' legislation encompasses animals with a broad snout, muscular, short chest and short coat and long tail. This definition is similar to 40 per cent of all dogs.

"If you took away the tail, you'd be describing most of the politicians at Queen's Park," quipped DiNovo.

Antonia Zerbisias has a great post on her Broadsides blog entitled Bully for Cheri DiNovo, with a link to Laura's story about moving to Ontario from the U.S. with no knowledge of the Liberals' "pit bull" ban. Be sure to read it.

One Bark At A Time has some lovely photos from the event. Be sure to scroll through the comments and read Fran's comment about the older lady and her "pit bull", it will bring tears to your eyes.

KC Dog Blog reports that Puerto Rico is the latest jurisdiction to repeal breed-specific legislation, and many others are following suit.

Dalton McGuinty is, of course, dancing around on this. He said the Fibs consulted dog experts. What he doesn't say is that the Fibs ignored the dog experts' advice. I believe the word to describe that is prevarication. He's fudging it.

I am profoundly disappointed by the responses from Liberal MPPs Laurel Broten and Kathleen Wynne. They're issuing goose-stepping form response letters. I expected better from both of them.

Ms. Broten owns a dog that under the Liberals' BSL is a definition (e) "pit bull". I can't see any specific exemption in the legislation or the regulations for a purebred dog. As I understand it, you must obey the law if you're not specifically exempted. Ms. Broten's dog is walked unmuzzled and in the past ran offleash. Does Ms. Broten not understand that under her own party's law, she should be obeying the law and always muzzling and leashing her dog?

Ms. Wynne, the Minister of Education, apparently believes that it is just fine to discriminate on the basis of appearance. That's rather frightening. Is this what will be taught in schools, that it's all right in Liberal-Land to discriminate because of the way something or someone looks? That does not strike me as an intelligent or informed opinion.

It is past time to repeal the Ontario Liberals' unfounded, unjust, inhumane, vague, shoddy and fiscally irresponsible breed-specific legislation. It's definitely BS L.