The City of Barrie is on the prowl for cats, says a resident who’s calling the city’s approach “a witch hunt”.

City employees are sniffing out indoor cats, she said, recalling a day in late May, when a city employee came to her front door to inquire whether there were any cats. With two of her own and two of her mother’s, Mary Potocksa’s home has four cats.

The city employee demanded $10 per cat for a licence, and the family paid. The next day, however, the city phoned to inquire which vet the family uses, to substantiate whether or not the cats have received their rabies shots, a requirement of a city cat licence.

That move prompted Potocksa to bare her claws and fight back. Her vet had recommended one of her cats not receive further immunizations after a severe reaction.

Ever since, Potocksa has been fighting the city’s policy that requires not only the licence fee be paid each year, but also she spend $84, plus GST, to immunize each of her cats, a bill that would total almost $400 when combined with the licence fee.

“My parents were refugees in 1956 and we came to Canada in order to escape the kind of government interference in the lives of individual citizens as the City of Barrie is currently conducting. It is not absurd to label the current door-to-door Clerk’s office campaign of pet licensing as similar to the tactics of past Totalitarian regimes,” she said.
“The clerk’s office is conducting a witch hunt. It is also a money-grabbing scheme that will hurt cat lovers with limited income. I prefer to keep my vet bills for when my cats get ill and not to potentially make them ill with unnecessary rabies inoculations.”

Barrie’s cat bylaw took effect Jan. 1, 2007. The issue had pestered city council for years, especially as disgruntled neighbours complained about cats digging in their gardens or scratching their cars.

Tammy Banting, Barrie’s municipal law enforcement supervisor, said the city isn’t hunting down cats – although each summer, the city does hire summer students, who do a variety of municipal-law enforcement duties.

“Our summer students go door-to-door for all pet licences. The new question asking whether someone owns a cat shouldn’t’, but it is, getting people off-guard,” she said.
“We have summer students … and they will do parking enforcement, special events, sign removal – no, it’s not specifically designed for cats in 2008. They do do animal enforcement.”

Nevertheless, Potocksa still takes issue with the city’s policy, because her family’s indoor cats, which are neutered and declawed, are not bothering neighbours nor at risk of catching rabies; instead, vaccinations could cause adverse reactions, such as tumours at the injection site.

“Our cats don’t defecate or urinate on other people’s property since they are indoor cats. We are very tolerant of neighbours who walk their dogs and use our property for bathroom facilities for their dogs. At our previous home, we were constantly cleaning dog feces off of our front lawn and the grass near the sidewalk was ruined by dog urine. I love animals and have nothing against dogs, a pet should be taken care of by its own and properly trained.”

Barrie, however, said caring for a pet requires licensing and immunization.

The city’s pet brochure said Barrie set this requirement to “address the significantly growing cat population and the resulting cat-related nuisance complaints.”