Dog owners seeks Supreme Court challenge to Ontario's pit-bull ban

Dog owner seeks Supreme Court challenge to Ontario’s pit-bull ban

April 16, 2009
TORONTO — The lawyer for a pit-bull owner fighting Ontario’s ban on the dogs is hoping the Supreme Court of Canada will reverse a decision allowing the law to stand.

Civil rights lawyer Clayton Ruby has filed an application for leave to appeal to the Supreme Court on behalf of Toronto dog owner Catherine Cochrane asking for a review of an Appeal Court decision last October that upholds the province’s ban.

“It’s important to take every step we can against breed-specific legislation which assumes that it’s the nature of the breed that creates danger when in fact it’s the owners who create danger,” Ruby said today.

“There are some people who want dangerous dogs. If you ban one breed, they’ll be quickly on to another.”

The Appeal Court concluded in October that pit bulls are dangerous and unpredictable dogs that have the potential to attack without warning.

Ruby is challenging that ruling, arguing the court failed to focus on whether the law was too broad and was also wrong in upholding a provision that allows veterinarians to determine whether the dog is in fact a pit bull.

He said that provision unfairly reverses the presumption of innocence.

“We’re raising constitutional issues,” Ruby said. “We think the law is too vague.

The whole definition of what’s a pit bull leaves it open to huge doubt, and that’s contrary to our constitutional guarantees.”

The Ontario government enacted the Dog Owners’ Liability Act in 2005 to ban the breeding, sale and ownership of pit bulls after several incidents in which the dogs attacked people.

The law survived a constitutional challenge in March 2007, with some changes ordered. At the time, it was decided that a ban on “pit-bull terriers” was unconstitutionally vague because it didn’t refer to a specific type or breed of dog.

The Appeal Court disagreed, restoring the law to the form in which it was enacted and stating the ban on the breed did not violate any constitutional rights.

After that October ruling, Ruby began considering an appeal to the Supreme Court.

“There is no scientific or statistical basis to conclude that dogs captured by the definition of ‘pit bulls’ are more dangerous than other dogs,” Ruby wrote in his submission to the Supreme Court.
“No studies have been done on the origins or characteristics of the dog population in Ontario in general or on the behavioural trends of dogs captured by the definition of ‘pit bulls’ in the act.”

Crown experts who have testified about dog bites in the U.S. “readily admitted that they were not familiar with the Canadian situation and that there was little or no data, let alone scientific study, done on the Canadian situation,” he added.

Ruby acknowledged it will be difficult to get the Supreme Court to hear the case since it only takes on about 75 cases a year, but he said all legal channels must be explored.

“It will affect an undoing of the ban if we’re right,” Ruby said.

Ontario Attorney General Chris Bentley declined to comment on the matter, saying it is before the courts.