Downtown Montreal moves to limit dogs on streets
Last Updated: Tuesday, February 12, 2008 | 4:29 PM ET
CBC News
Montreal's Ville-Marie borough is working on a bylaw that would make it illegal for anyone to have more than two dogs in public, a rule that one homeless man says unfairly targets him.
After fielding several complaints from the public, the downtown borough is considering a bylaw to limit the number of dogs one person can have in public at any time, Ville-Marie Mayor Benoit Labonté told CBC News.
"We received a lot of complaints from citizens and merchants about the number of dogs in Ville-Marie [and] the number of dogs associated often with one person walking with more than one or two dogs, sometimes dangerous dogs," he said.
The number of formal complaints about dog bites is on the rise, Labonté said, and even professional dog walkers would be subject to the bylaw.
Mario Paquet, a homeless man who owns eight dogs, believes the borough is persecuting him by proposing the bylaw.
Paquet and his dogs are a familiar sight on Ste. Catherine Street East, where they spend most of their time walking the sidewalks or huddling in store entrances.
Paquet has had to defend his dogs after they bit people and he was ticketed.
He's convinced the bylaw is being written with him in mind.
"I'm the only one," he told CBC.
"I've seen people walking one or two dogs, but never more than that. Even in the street, when you see one person with more than one or two dogs, it's because they are dog sitting."
Paquet is prepared to fight the bylaw because it threatens his canine companions, a legal battle that is legimitate, according to constitutional expert Julius Grey.
It's illegal for any city to pass a law directed at one person, because "that means a bylaw is passed in bad faith," Grey said. "Any attempt to single out one citizen because you disagree with him amounts to bad faith."
The borough would have to prove that complaints have been made about people other than Paquet, Grey said.
The Ste. Catherine St. Merchants' Association, which has brought many complaints to the borough, told CBC that many calls it gets are related to Paquet's dogs.
If the bylaw is passed, Paquet said he's reluctant to give up his dogs.
"Maybe I'll move," he said. "But until then I'll do whatever I can to break it, to annul it."
The borough council will vote on the proposed law as soon as April or May.
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