Dear Editor:
Unfortunately both the PC and NDP parties wants to villainize people with dog allergies.
Why do they want to make poaching profitable again? While I understand many people don’t understand alternative pets to cats and dogs, not everyone has this luxury. Not everyone has the room or schedules to keep a cat or dog.
A total ban on exotic animals means all these people can no longer have pets as their family members. It means for the past 20 years all the ground that we have made driving poachers out of business with captive breeding of harmless animals in Canada in the U.S. will quickly be undone.
It means all the small businesses that breed these animals, or sell their food, toys and equipment to care for them properly will all be put out of business.
I can understand regulations to allow only captive-bred animals – this makes sense for animal welfare and the protection of the Canadian public, wildlife and livestock. We already require CITES paperwork for most exotic animals to prove their origins. Smuggled-in animals will never go through any health checks and will make any contact tracing origins next to impossible to do, so why would we suddenly want to make this the only option for these pets in Canada?
People with pet birds, hamsters, or frogs should not be made criminals.
Lance Henderson,
Centre Wellington