After I'd listened to four-and-a-half hours of whining yesterday I came to this conclusion about the proposed people, dogs and parks strategy. Given that City Hall's dog police have spent more than two years chasing their tails over licences for the family pet -- with minimal results -- I'm betting council's dogged do-gooders will be no more successful in their efforts to impose new rules for the dogs and their two-legged caretakers who frequent Toronto's 1,470 parks and parkettes. I'm not surprised Mayor David Miller's lapdogs on the parks and environment committee approved the new strategy -- which deals largely with the existing off-leash zones in the 32 midtown Toronto parks and those where dog owners wish to put new ones. It never much matters to the socialists that there is money involved -- in this case an extra $1,163,200 in yearly operating funds to hire 10 bylaw enforcement officers -- so long as they can impose new rules and hire more unionized staff. The city report also notes that five new vehicles (at a cost of $175,000) are needed and at least $405,000 more must be spent yearly to install off-leash "amenities" in parks. I think a city-wide off-leash strategy is a good thing. I have often used the leash-free zone at Ramsden Park to exercise my two-year-old miniature dachsie Kishke. But despite claims by committee chairman Paula Fletcher that they've listened to the public, the plan still has the socialists' paw prints all over it. It proposes a process so bureaucratic to create a new off-leash zone, by the time one is approved the dogs concerned will be too old to use it! And it would never dawn on the Millerites to get their pet licensing strategy fixed first before trying to tackle yet another ambitious (and costly) plan. The fact that council approved $1 million more than 18 months ago to put in place an ambitious online dog and cat licensing system which is only two-thirds in place to date wouldn't even cross their minds. "We're about one year behind ... it's still early days yet," animal services manager Eletta Purdy said yesterday. It wouldn't even faze them, either, that despite the money spent since 2005 to licence the family pet, the numbers have barely budged. Purdy says of Toronto's 250,000 canine inhabitants, only 30,000, or 12%, have licences and a meagre 7% of the city's cats are licensed. Not even a presentation by Bill Bruce, Calgary's director of animal and bylaw services, on that city's off-leash and licensing strategy seemed to give them pause. In Calgary, a whopping 95,000 of the 105,000 dogs have licenses -- revenues which pay for their "entire animal program." Bruce says Calgary has 141 off-leash areas self-policed by dog owners and park users. Several of their larger parks are even adopted by dog owners, who patrol, water, mow and maintain the off-leash areas. (Heaven forbid that would ever happen here with Miller's union buddies in control.) When asked about the licensing issue, committee chairman Paula Fletcher insisted they were "on top" of pet licensing and it wasn't the "purview" of the city's parks department, refusing to even acknowledge the two issues go hand in hand. She only seemed to get doggone inspired when I asked her whether they still expect park users to take their dog poop home with them (instead of depositing it in the park bins.) "If you take your dog for a two minute walk, I don't think it's asking too much to take the poo home with you," Fletcher said. "There is zero tolerance in this city for dog poop left in parks. And there is zero tolerance for dogs pooping on sidewalks." Which begs a comment. I just can't help myself. Methinks there is zero tolerance in this city for wasteful municipal politicians who crap all over taxpayers with new rules, pet projects and creative new taxes to pay for their schemes. Not that those kinds of issues much matter to council's dogged do-gooders! |
No comments:
Post a Comment