New Petition for Ontarian's agaist the BSL

A new petition is circulating to the Legislation Assembly of Ontario. Here's how it reads:
WHEREAS
The new amendments to the Dog Owners' Liability Act are not effective solutions to the problem of dog attacks; and
The problem of dog attacks is best dealt with through a comprehensive program of educatiion, training and legislation encouraging responsible ownership of all breeds;
We the undersigned petition the Legislatative Assembly of Ontario to amend the Dog Owner' Liability Act by removing the breed specific sections and adding Courtney 's Law, in honour of Courtney Trempe. This law would protect citizens from all dog attacked, regardless of the breed, by targeting a dog's previous inappropriate behaviour and the owner's inability to properly train, contain, and socialize their dog.
We respectfully request that the Assembly create a dangerous dog registry to accurately record dog bites across the province and to properly track offending dogs.
We also request that the Assembly financially support a province-wide dog bite prevention program aimed at dog owners, children, parents, service workers, and the general public.
If you would like to participate collecting petition signatures, which you could do in many different ways, press here and copy the petition. There are quite a few ways about getting signatures, depending on the time you have at hand to collect them.
Make copies and hand them to family and friends interested and have them also gather signatures. Take copies to different vets, pet stores, and anywhere else that pet owner population goes to. Please ask permission first. Then there is the leg work of stopping the public and discussing the what this petition represents (a good time to educate some people) and also door to door. Be creative and come up with your own sources and idea's.
GOOD LUCK!!! The Pitty's NEED us!
You may be wondering why we are calling this amendment, Courtney's Law. During The Legislative Hearing, Donna Trempe had this to say.
DONNA TREMPE
The Chair: I'd like now to call Donna Trempe. Thank you very much for coming this afternoon. Welcome to the committee. You have 10 minutes for your presentation. You can choose to use all of it or part of it. If you don't use the whole 10 minutes, then the remaining time will be divided among the parties for questions. Please begin by stating your name for Hansard.
Ms. Donna Trempe: Donna Trempe. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen of the Legislative Assembly, for inviting me to make a contribution to the debate on Bill 132 and the issue of dangerous dogs. My husband, my son and I are among the people most intimately involved in this issue and most grateful that the Attorney General is actively looking at the whole issue of dangerous dogs in Ontario. My family and I think it is not before time, as we have been waiting six years now for decisive action to be taken.
I applaud certain sections of the bill: doubling fines to dangerous dog owners up to a maximum of $10,000, jail sentences, the requirement for dog owners to pay restitution to victims, and giving police and municipal bylaw officers the authority to search for dangerous dogs. What I don't agree with is banning specific breeds.
On April 29, 1998, I dropped my beautiful eight-year-old daughter, Courtney, off at a friend's house after picking her up from school. That was the last time I saw my daughter alive. She and her friend went next door, where the owner let out her dog, a non-neutered, 150-pound bull mastiff. The dog immediately ran to Courtney and lunged at her throat. My 68-pound daughter did not stand a chance against this beast. Courtney had never been to this house before and certainly was not familiar with the dog. She was given no opportunity to familiarize herself with the animal while it was under the owner's control.
Courtney died in the ambulance on the way to the hospital of massive blood loss and asphyxiation. In April 1999, there was a coroner's inquest into Courtney's death. The inquest ruled that Courtney's death was an accident. No. Courtney's death was a homicide. Homicide is when a person, directly or indirectly, by any means, causes the death of a human being.
You see, this bull mastiff had attacked before. We have 16 former neighbours willing to testify that the dog was known to be aggressive before the attack on my daughter. The fact that the dog had shown aggressive behaviour is a reasonable basis upon which to believe that criminal negligence charges were warranted, or at least should have been considered. Todd Reybroek, a Toronto lawyer and the owner of this dog, in allowing his dog to be out in his yard, committed a homicide.
Police in York region, we were told, were too busy to investigate. We fought for years in the Ontario justice system and spent $64,000 of our own money in legal fees. The owner, a lawyer, you will remember, was not charged, not fined so much as one cent.
Our experience with the police investigation and the coroner's inquest process proves that these organizations are not carrying out their public responsibilities effectively and that the government places a very low priority on keeping our children safe. I hope, with work, that Bill 132 will ensure that we never have to hear again those terrible words, "A child was killed by a dog."
The coroner's inquest into Courtney's death made 36 recommendations. The last time I checked, nine had been implemented, 10 had alternative measures adopted, seven were rejected, six did not apply to the agencies they were directed at and one did not get a response of any kind.
In my opinion, Bill 132 has its good points and its bad points. A bull mastiff, not a pit bull, killed my daughter. Rottweilers killed a three-year-old boy in Vancouver. Presa canarios killed a woman in San Francisco. Even small dogs such as west highland white terriers and cocker spaniels have been recorded as killer dogs.
Am I against dogs? Not in any way. I love dogs and own a German shepherd. What I am against is irresponsible dog owners. I agree with the Humane Society of Canada that banning only pit bulls will not solve the dog-biting problem. German shepherds, cocker spaniels, Rottweilers and golden retrievers are actually the most common biters. Personally, I would like to see a ban on bull mastiffs. I wish they were extinct.
What we need are stiffer penalties and heavier fines for the owners of dogs that attack. Heavier fines and jail sentences for drunk drivers, along with increased public condemnation, have reduced the number of drunk-driving fatalities. When irresponsible dog owners learn that they will be sent to jail or fined $10,000 if their dog attacks, more people will muzzle their dogs or decide to own a breed less likely to be dangerous.
Currently, the owner of a dog that rips his kid's face apart might face a muzzle order or fine. If a human being did that, he'd get 10 years in jail. We need owners of these dogs to know that they are going to have to pay. Why not adopt a law that will be implemented, a law that has a set fine or a jail term for the owner of a dog that bites or kills a person?
I have a letter from the Honourable Irwin Cotler, the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada, stating that the Criminal Code of Canada already includes a law whereby charges can be laid against the owners of dogs that attack for criminal negligence causing bodily harm, a serious offence that carriers a penalty of 10 years in prison, and for fatal attacks, where the dog kills a person, criminal negligence causing death, with a potential penalty of life in prison. Why are we not charging the owners? Why are these charges not being laid? Mr. Cotler has been able to cite only two cases in which jail sentences were given, in spite of the fact that an estimated half a million dog bites occur in Canada every year.
Please, let's not look at banning specific breeds of dogs. Let's look at banning the irresponsible, dangerous owners who either train their dogs to attack or don't train them in good behaviour. Put them in jail. Fine them as you would a drunk driver. Make our society aware that if their dog attacks, there will be serious consequences, not months and years of lawyers battling in the legal system. That's what happened to us and that's just not right.
Why don't we adopt a law, Courtney's Law, that has a set fine or jail term for the owner of a dog that bites or kills a person? You can't know the endless heartbreak and frustration of being a mother, having your daughter killed by a dog that was known to be dangerous and not one arrest was made and not one fine, not one cent. Make them pay.
The owner of the bull mastiff that killed Courtney should be in jail. If this kind of penalty had been enforced a decade ago, maybe my daughter would be in high school right now. Maybe Courtney would still be alive. Thank you.
Applause.
For the full hearing, please press here.