Why I Oppose at least Part…

Why I Oppose at least Part of Bill 91: I just oppose cruelty.
Schedule 14 of Bill 91, Less Red Tape, Stronger Economy Act, 2023 defines train and trial areas as:

“train and trial area” means an area in which wildlife is enclosed for the purpose of teaching dogs hunting skills or testing their hunting skills;
“trial” means a competition in a train and trial area that tests the skills of dogs to hunt wildlife by scent.
O. Reg. 668/98, s. 28.

Dogfighting – the “sport” of pitting one dog against another to fight to the death – has been illegal in Canada since 1892. But it never entirely went away. The Ontario government under Premier Doug Ford is now poised to enshrine another form of dogfighting by expanding train and trail compounds that pit hunting dogs against coyotes, foxes, hares, and cottontails. In 1997, Ontario Premier Mike Harris chose to phase out the last vestige of this brutal treatment of canines. Current Premier Doug Ford intends to reverse the Harris decision.

The target of Harris’s legislation was not called “dogfighting,” (already illegal) but “train and trial” which was conducted in approximately fifty or sixty facilities in the province at the time. Existing facilities could continue, but with no more to be added or the business licenses of those already operating allowed to be transferred. It would slowly end by attrition.

But now current Ontario Premier Doug Ford seeks to accommodate “hunters” who already violate the law to run dogs after our wildlife on private and public land. But by every measure train and trial activities are analogous to dogfighting.

The Navajo people of the southwestern U.S. were not far off the mark in calling the coyote “God’s dog”, nor were the early colonists who called the coyote the “burrowing dog.” To a naturalist like me, with an interest in evolution, zoological taxonomy and nomenclature, the distinction between the coyote (Canis latrens), the wolf (Canis lupus) and the dog (Canis lupus familiaris, or Canis familiaris) is a matter of degree derived from very ancient times when there was no distinction among the three types. All have a common ancestor.

About two million years ago one group started to “diverge” from that common ancestor, to evolve into two types we now call wolves and coyotes. Much later, about 19,700 to 26,000 years ago, our very distant ancestors in Eurasia selectively bred some of the wolves into what was to become the tail-wagging animal now found in so many homes – the dog.

Arguably these divisions never reached the point where we had three distinct species as the species concept is defined – that is, a group of organisms that interbreed to produce fertile young, and are more alike each other than like other organisms.

All three of these members of the genus, Canis, can interbreed to produce viable (fertile) young, which is why some scientists now consider the dog, at least, to be a subspecies (a definable population within a species who resemble each other more than the rest of the species) of the wolf.

Really they are all “dogs”, in the same way that African elephants and Asian elephants are both elephants, or lions, leopards and lynx are all cats.

But what Mr. Ford is intending to inflict on “wild dogs” most Ontarians would never, ever, want to have done to their family companion at the end of the leash.

I hate cruelty. All species of “dog” are so much more similar than dissimilar, and what abuses dogs also abuses coyotes, or foxes, or rabbits. We are all cognitive beings, with central nervous systems and pain sensors, thus self interests. No one of any species wants to be torn apart however fun it may be for others to watch.

That is why I stand so strongly against this proposal to reverse a worldwide trend toward more compassion for animals, and the repeal of 26 year-old legislation Harris enacted by allowing new “train and trial” compounds to be established in the province.

The compounds are large pens where dogs can be trained to follow the scent of wild foxes, coyotes, or rabbits, either for training or competition. The idea is for the prey, although confined by fencing, to escape capture by finding refuge provided by the proprietor of the facility. No matter how traumatized the “game” may be, they are not expected to be killed upon reaching shelter in time and if the dogs cannot enter that shelter. Otherwise, a fight occurs, a dog fight in the case of the coyote. Foxes can’t put up as much of a defence as coyotes, and bunnies not at all. The foxes are purchased from trappers or from fur farms while rabbits – varying hares or eastern cottontails – are obtained by whatever means are sanctioned by the government. Some may find such barbarity acceptable but most of us do not.

The dogs are themselves at risk of injury when fighting coyotes and possibly even foxes, as well. Just as too many coyote hunters happily let their dogs chase wildlife on private and public land now, permission be damned, so they did when there were more compounds, as rural landowners told me back then. This a version of the old, ritual-burdened English tradition of fox-hunting, tally-ho! now illegal in England, and here, and most places.

While increasing numbers of us enjoy nature-based activities, only about 17 percent of Canadians are involved in consumptive wildlife use, such as hunting, and the trajectory society is following is toward ever-increasing concern for the welfare of others, including other species. As a diminishing demographic, the hunting community seeks common ground with the rest of us, by connecting hunting to conservation, utilization, fair chase, and the minimization of cruelty. Dog training and trialing compounds have nothing to do with any of that. But possibly some (I trust not most) more ethical hunters understandably believe that the enemy of my enemy is my friend, thus the support Premier Ford depends upon from the majority of hunters who hunt legally within ethical boundaries. The hunters fear no greater enemy than the dreaded “antis”, the anti-hunters who, right or wrong, oppose killing for sport. And so, they seek rationalizing the “sport” on the bases of those common interests – conservation, fair chase, quick killing, and utilization, and turn a blind eye to the slob hunters within their ranks to make common cause. For now, everyone who wants to kill wildlife who, technically, belongs to us all, whether we approve or not, and however the wildlife is to be killed, whether consumed or not, fairly chased or not, have an opportunistic champion in a high place, by the name of Doug Ford.

I recommend that Schedule 14 be amended to allow train and trial compounds to be used by dogs for scenting only. No wild animals. No cruelty. No killing.