Walsh wants more details on cat licensing

One councillor doesn't think there's been enough thought put into cat licensing under the draft community standards bylaw.

Coun. Harvey Walsh says he isn't for or against licensing, but without further details on the costs and how it would be administered, considers it a "tax" on cats.

"We've said, yeah, we're going to license cats. We don't know how much, we don't know the regulations behind it, we don't know the costs. We also have that clause where ... we're not going around chasing cats. So that just means it's a tax on cats, period," Walsh said.

"If that came as a bylaw separate by itself, that discussion would happen but because this is an omnibus-type bylaw, it kind of gets glossed over."

Council was reviewing final community comments on the community standards bylaw on Feb. 8. First reading is expected to come before council soon.

Chief administrative officer Norm McInnis said administration was not asked to provide a business case for each section in the bylaw.

"What we had been asked to provide was public engagement, set service levels and standards in our community," McInnis said.

Coun. Mary Jane Harper added that revenues from fines don't cover the costs of enforcement.

Council's rationale behind cat licensing has been to provide a way to return lost pets to their owners.

"The other part of the cat bylaw is we really want to emphasize the fact that cats are not supposed to be out at large. And we do have a lot of complaints from people, especially gardeners that complain about cats wandering in other people's yards," Harper said.

Walsh however, isn't convinced licensing will eliminate all those problems.

"When I look at stats from Report a Problem, one cat complaint to 25 dog complaints. Licensing dogs doesn't seem to stop complaints. I'm just saying I need something more to allow me to suggest that we should be licensing cats. Because unless we have a program attached to it, it doesn't make a lot of sense to me."

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