SCREWED

Dog owners lose, dogs lose, democracy loses, due process loses, we never had a chance, they never intended to give the off leash dog park users any input into the process at all, as Al Hogarth would say the "fix was in”. It was supposed to be a slam dunk and the only glitch was MR council recognizing the total lack of democracy and due process and kicking it back to the Parks and recreation, in affect giving us a two day reprieve from June tenth to the twelfth, the next Parks and recreation meeting where the users were supposed to get to finally tell the users side of this issue, the schedule appeared to give us the opportunity to speak to the issue but when it came to the meeting the parks commission voted on the issue before the dog park users were allowed to speak, history sadly repeating itself. We heard Al Hogarth and others tell the heart wrenching story of the horror and stress of living beside an off leash dog park, stories of unsubstantiated complaints of noise, easily fixed problems of dust, lies about bio-hazard a strain of e-coli allegedly taken in the adjacent school yard, only one problem the e-coli comes from cattle, sheep and goats definitely not dogs, if in fact this is true it is undoubtedly coming from the farm on the North side of the playground and the dog park was originally farm land. The Parks board just took all this BS and without substantiating these claims they swallowed these sad anguished tales hook line and sinker. In the 5-8 months this small group secretly lobbied the commission I guess it never occurred to the parks board to actually do some decibel testing or put a hedge where there was an actual sound problem or change the park hours or how about put in some turf to stop the dust problem, I suppose for some unknown reason they just accepted all these lies and exaggerations as fact. One of the main reasons Hogarth, Morden used to shut the park down was the danger of violence and the safety of the dogs, I would have to ask Al Hogarth and Michael Morden if that is the case why they didn’t get the RCMP who apparently were never tasked to find the monster that has been poisoning and trying to maim our dogs ongoing for over a year, and I have been informed that the SPCA was never contacted about these crimes, I guess they weren’t all that worried after all. Then after all that they for some unknown reason chose to totally disregard the parks and recreation staff recomendations about the park. I guess they forgot to ask Sam the main spokes person for the 27 name secret petition how long he has lived in that home as the dog park was there when he bought the house and would totally make their argument about doing it right and to not make the same mistakes the next time, and make sure all the home owners adjacent to the next location for a dog park are happy with the decision a joke at best. 

In the end it was a done deal conducted in secret with the secret 27 with only one side of the issue of the park considered, users only finding out about the closure after the deed was done the 1300 names on a petition a waste of time and of of absolutly no consequence to these dictators, absolutely no democracy, no due process of any kind. 

You may have won the battle but it is very likely Al Hogarth and Michael Morden could lose the war, I know that there are 27 people that are very happy that your heavy-handed undemocratic un-inclusive good old boy political style got  them what they wanted, but even they might have second thoughts after seeing first hand how you operate when it comes to things that do not affect them personally, and make no mistake this is how these people operate doing all Maple Ridges business and I know 1300 people that will not be giving them another mandate and probably 10,000 other dog owners that have had a severe reality check watching this travesty unfold.

 

P.S. It would seem that Pitt Meadows has a few like minded politicians who are quite comfortable with a total lack of democracy or due process also, but that is for the most part Pitt Meadows voters responsibility to fix.

Animal Cruelty Laws

It seems every time I pick up a paper, turn on TV, go on the internet there it is again a horror story about animal cruelty, man shoot’s and stabs and ultimatly slaughters a hundred Husky’s, man beats ex police dog to death, 6 men duct-tape a foxes jaws shut and make sport of kicking him to death, 8 men fired from dairy farm in Chilliwack for beating probably natures most docile creature cows with chains and boards, or how about because of a total failure of our government and the existing animal cruelty laws to provide even minimal safety in a public dog park and then government uses this personal failure as an excuse for closing down an off leash dog park, all because of Canada's laws inability to catch and prosecute a serial dog poisoner that places poisons, glass, tacks, fishhooks around park in an attempt to maim and kill dogs and this outrage goes on continuously unabated for over a whole year. 

Probably when most people see these atrocitys they think what the hell is wrong with these people and secondly they think why doesn’t someone do something about it. You might well blame the police or the SPCA or if they are by chance caught Judges, but actually none of these people can do a whole lot about this situation because Judges don’t make laws they just enforce the laws that politicians make and the fact is animal cruelty laws are a misdemeanour and that in itself pretty well insures any penalty will be minimal to non-existent, we are talking 6 months in jail and $300 dollar fines which rarely ever happens. 

The real problem is that these laws were brought enacted in 1892 and were never intended to be laws to prevent cruelty to animals that was a different time when you could be shooting bears, wolves, wild dogs in your back yard they were laws to protect commercially viable species such as cattle, horses and you would likely be hanged if you stole or killed someone else’s livestock, they would have probably thought you were crazy if you actually thought people should protect dogs for instance, they were animals that lived outside and killed rat’s and guarded the livestock for their keep, they weren’t seen as family pets as now, anyway this is only a part of the problem.  

Any law no matter how good or up to date a law is it is open to interpretation and more importantly affected by past precedents, no law says "if this crime happens this shall happen", it says or this, or this, etc etc depending on past precedents, and in this case you have 122 years of past precedents, particularly when that law didn’t even have the same intent as what we want it to mean in this day and age. 

In other words these animal cruelty laws are nothing more than unenforceable misdemeanours at best and possibly the worst assembly of words to ever sully a Canadian law book at worst, at least looking at it 122 years after the fact. Over the years they have tried to tweak these laws but have only managed to make them even more bizarre, here’s a beauty the criminal code penalty for uttering a threat to kill poison, or injure an animal or bird comes with maximum imprisonment of 24 months as opposed to 6 months for actually killing the animal.

The government has to first extinguish this archaic relic from the past and all it’s precedents along with the many loopholes that guarantee any lawyer could ensure no one is ever convicted under this law, and come up with a new humane law more in tune with the realties of today’s society and it’s attitudes about animals and in particular the humaine treatment of animals, and this new modern law shall make animal cruelty a felony that gives the police the power to apprehend these monsters and gives judges the tools to punish and fine the perpetrators of these atrocity's appropriately putting the worst offenders behind bars or mental institutions whatever the case may be.