Sun gets action! Blair saves puppies!
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The puppies from the pound won’t be put down after all! Turns out, the Sun really does get action.
When Postmedia Executive Chair Paul Godfrey read our front-page story on Tuesday morning he was horrified. Twenty-four dogs that were supposed to be coming to Canada as part of a rescue operation were going to be euthanized because of a dispute between two government agencies.
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Godfrey then got a call from his son Rob, the former chair of the Ontario Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. Rob convinced Paul to reach out to an old Toronto contact, Bill Blair, the former Toronto Police Chief and now Minister for Public Safety.
Blair, a dog lover, read the story and immediately asked his staff for action.
“We are working with the CBSA and Redemption Paws to get these dogs to their forever homes in Canada,” said Blair’s press secretary, Mary-Liz Power. “COVID-19 has had wide-ranging impacts on all of our lives, including in many areas most of us wouldn’t have considered at first.”
Redemption Paws, a Toronto-based rescue operation has been bringing dogs across the border for years. At times they’ve brought in more than 100 dogs a month but had reduced their pace during COVID-19.
After a successful trip to pick up two-dozen dogs in early May, Nicole Simone, the organization’s executive director, was shocked to learn that she could not make a trip at the end of May. Despite the Canada Border Services Agency declaring animal rescue groups as commercial enterprises and allowed to cross the otherwise closed border, a notice from the Public Health Agency of Canada stated otherwise.
Public Health declared animal rescue groups to be non-essential during COVID-19 despite no evidence that dogs transmit the virus. The memo form Public Health stopping rescue groups also said there was no problem moving other animals across the border.
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Under the agreement worked out, Redemption Paws will need to cross at an Ontario based border point on a weekday so that any inspection by a government vet can occur if needed. The drivers and handlers collecting the dogs in the United States must go to their quarantine location and transfer the dogs to new handlers before beginning two weeks in isolation.
Simone is happy that it looks like a solution has been found.
“I’m very pleased that they recognize that there was an oversight,” Simone said. “I’m hoping that it will be a solution for the duration of COVID.”
“These 25 dogs represent thousands of dogs that could be rescued for wonderful homes,” Simone said. “And the shelter and rescue in Texas can’t believe that these dogs that were left behind for trash are on the cover of the Toronto Sun.”
Simone hopes to pick up the dogs early next week with final details being ironed out by the weekend.
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