We are heartbroken that Montreal voted to enact a pit bull ban. The ban was temporarily suspended so the SPCA can bring a lawsuit against the city, in order to repeal the ban. Please stand with us and FIGHT TO HAVE THIS PIT BULL BAN REPEALED.

Breed Specific Legislation (BSL) means that a dog is killed based solely on their appearance. Thousands of innocent dogs would be given an instant death sentence. Sign our petition and share it right now, for the love of dog. 

Humans have been killed merely because of their race, their hair color, their eye color. This is called genocide. It is called The Holocaust. It is the conflict in Syria and Iraq. No human, no dog, no living being, should lose their life based on their color, the shape of their head, the size of their nose, the build of their body, or the look of their ears. 

                            OUR FIGHT HAS JUST BEGUN.

We must let the world know that we will not stand by and allow this to happen in Montreal or anywhere else. 

Mayor Denis Coderre made a devastating, archaic decision to ban a certain breed of dog - against all of the evidence presented to him and his council members.  This included scientific studies that show BSL does not work, along with veterinarians, the SPCA, shelter directors, Humane Society of the United States, The Center for Disease Control and Prevention, community leaders, celebrities, the American Bar Association, United Kennel Club, American Veterinary Medical Association, other council members, and even The White House.

It is especially arrogant to ignore science, facts, and every organization and leader in our communities and around the globe, and Mayor Coderre has succeeded in doing that - with tragic results. The Mayor has expressed that he loves dogs. No dog lover with any humanity could vote to have innocent dogs killed simply based on the way that they look. Mayor Coderre cannot hide behind his assertion that he is enacting a pit bull ban in order to keep people safe, because every organization has stated that a breed specific ban does not make people safer. 

It also takes a unique lack of empathy to be able to look into the eyes of families - families who adore their dogs, who have stood for months protesting this ban, who don't take vacations without their dogs, whose children read to their dogs, whose dogs help them cope with their depression, or whose dog may be their only companion - and to tell these people - these children, these elderly - that their dogs may be seized because they can't afford the steep new fee requirements. Those with lower incomes may find it impossible to cover these increased costs. And because of Mayor Coddere, their dogs would then be seized and killed.

Families with a happy, smiling, tail-wagging, sociable dog will now be forced to put a muzzle on their dog at all times. If their dog is found without a muzzle, their dog will be seized and killed. Pit bulls in shelters won't even have any chance - they will be killed before they get adopted into a family, before they ever experience the joy of being loved, and with no hope for survival.

In the last two years, major cities in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Kansas, Louisiana, Montana, Georgia, Missouri, etc have repealed their breed specific legislation, and instead focus on restrictions for irresponsible/ abusive dog owners. In these two years, a total of more than 100 cities across the USA have overturned their breed bans.

There are so many millions of people around the world who do not support this Montreal pit bull ban and are fighting with us. **Please help send a message to Montreal - if they ban pit bulls, then we ban them!**

Make a commitment that you will not visit Montreal or contribute any money to their economy, until they repeal this ban.

Instead, we need Montreal to follow so many of the other cities who have repealed their antiquated and useless breed bans based on evidence that breed bans DO NOT WORK. Montreal must put new laws in place that punish irresponsible dog owners, instead of sentencing innocent dogs to death.

It is a crime that one human being, Mayor Denis Coderre, could be given the amount of power he has been given, to cause this massive amount of destruction. 

In the words of Patti Smith (who my first incredibly amazing pit bull was named after), "People have the power to redeem the work of fools." We will continue to gather signatures to oppose this breed ban, and demand repeal of this new law. And we will not give up until we succeed. Together, united, WE have the power. Please join us!

- Amy Calmann, NYC Pit Bull Group

NYC Pit Bull Group   https://www.facebook.com/NYCPitbull/

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Learn which council members in Montreal voted for a pit bull ban, and which council members let rationality and sanity prevail and voted against a pit bull ban. Remember their names. Keep these names in your mind the next time you vote. 

http://www.cbc.ca/beta/news/canada/montreal/pitbull-bylaw-vote-breakdown-1.3781452

Those who voted FOR a pit bull ban: Mayor Denis Coderre, Jim Beis, Richard Bergeron, Michel Bissonette, Christine Black, Karine Boivin-Roy, Richard Celzi, Harout Chitilian, Catherine Clément-Talbot, Suzanne Décarie, Mary Deros, Alan deSousa, Pierre Desrochers, Erika Duchesne, Marc-André Gadoury, Pierre Gagnier, Manon Gauthier, Jean-Marc Gibeau, Richard Guay, Patricia Lattanzio, Francesco Miele, Jean-François Parenteau, Lionel Perez, Dominic Perri, Giovanni Rapana, Chantal Rouleau, Chantal Rossi, Aref Salem, Anie Samson, Monique Vallée, Russell Copeman, Elsie Lefebvre, Réal Ménard, Marie Cinq-Mars, Jean-François Cloutier, Claude Dauphin, Lorraine Pagé

Those who voted AGAINST a pit bull ban (We thank you): Luc Ferrandez, Eric Alan Caldwell, Sterling Downey, Laurence Lavigne Lalonde, Guillaume Lavoie, François Limoges, Louise Mainville, Peter McQueen, Alex Norris, Sylvain Ouellet, Valérie Plante, Magda Popeanu, Richard Ryan, Craig Sauvé, Anne-Marie Sigouin, Emilie Thuillier, Marvin Rotrand, Normand Marinacci, Justine McIntyre, Steve Shanahan, Manon Barbe, Andrée Hénault, Luis Miranda

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The more cities that ban a certain breed of dog, the greater the chance that this kind of ban will one day come to your own town. And maybe it won't be pit bulls. Maybe it will also be German Shepherds, or Labradors, or Rottweilers, or it will be dogs with some kind of characteristic of these breeds.

As a community, as caring citizens, as animal lovers or even just as decent people, we need to speak up. Already, Quebec City announced that they too plan to ban pit bulls, after Montreal made their announcement. 

Montreal city councillor Verdun Sterling Downey called the pit bull ban bylaw “panic policy-making” and called for more inspectors to implement laws that are already on the books, in order to keep both people and dogs safe. That means doing things like ensuring that dogs are well cared for, not used for dogfighting, properly socialized, not being abused by their owners, not being kept in a backyard on a chain all day with no exercise or human interaction. Downey said, “We’re adopting a model from Ontario which has proven over 15 years to be ineffective,” instead of adopting Calgary's ownership laws, which have no breed bans, and have proven to be more effective. 

Even Montreal's own SPCA is staunchly against banning pit bulls - or any breed.  The Montreal SPCA announced that they will no longer provide any animal control services to Montreal because of the city's decision to ban pit bulls.  The Montreal SPCA stated, "I'd say about a third of those dogs [a third of dogs that come into the shelter] [will] probably fall under the type of animal that [will] be considered prohibited,", "and those animals can't be adopted out, which means adoptable, behaviourally sound dogs and puppies [will] have to be put to death."

How did this proposal to ban pit bulls even begin?  From Huffington Post - "A dog registered as a boxer killed a woman in Montreal, so the Montreal mayor called for a ban on pit bulls. This would be amusing, if it weren’t so predictable and depressing: in few areas of public policy do you encounter thinking this routinely deranged.

Alanna Devine, SPCA Montreal’s director of animal advocacy, has the right approach: “The information that I think is pertinent here is that the dog was unsterilized, the dog was named Lucifer, and the dog had previously been involved in an attack against a human.”"

Let's learn from what happened when they enacted BSL (Breed Specific Legislation) in Ontario in 2005. "A total of 486 bites were recorded in 2005. That number fell generally in the six years following, to 379 in 2010. And then — when pit bulls were finally getting thin on the ground — the numbers began to rise: “Toronto’s reported dog bites have been rising since 2012, and in 2013 and 2014 reached their highest levels this century.” 

How could this be? Simple: other dogs stepped in to fill the gap. Irresponsible owners remained irresponsible — since the laws did not apply to them, simply to maligned breeds — and their dogs continued to bite."

"Montreal's new rules run counter to an early August [2016] report by a provincially appointed advisory panel, which DID NOT recommend banning pit bulls. Instead of targeting certain breeds, the panel suggested a law that would set conditions to owning dangerous or potentially dangerous dogs. The panel's report referred to Ontario, which has had a pit bull ban since 2005 but doesn't know whether the number of dog bites has been reduced because that data isn't collected at the provincial level."

Read more of these articles here... http://www.huffingtonpost.com/douglas-anthony-cooper/montreal-is-about-to-kill-a-lot-of-dogs_b_11888296.html

http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2016/08/17/montreal-pit-bull-ban_n_11576228.html

This petition will be delivered to:
Maire, Ville de Montréal / Mayor, City of Montreal
Denis Coderre

Minister of Municipal Affairs, Minister of Public Safety
Martin Coiteux

Premier of Quebec
Philippe Couillard

**Thank you to Barbara Boragine Telesmanic who supplied the fabulous photo for our petition. Those 3 super cool pit bull models in shades are Barbara's boys - Vinny, Rocco, and Buddy!