Quebec City will ban cat declining and other non-medical procedures on companion animals.
Quebec Agriculture Minister André Lamontagne made the announcement following the conclusion of a petition presented at the National Assembly launched by NDG resident Alexandra Yaksich as reported in Suburban last November.
Filed by NDG MNA Kathleen Weil who called for a ban on all cosmetic surgery, the petition collected more than 21,000 signatures and was supported by a legion of advocacy groups, including the Montreal SPCA.
Working in a veterinary clinic she was alarmed by the number of declawed cats coming in and how many complications she suffered, which, she told Suburban “is actually an amputation of the last bone.” Yaksich says that cats suffer long-term pain due to amputation and learn to lose their weight on other spots, which can often cause terrible arthritis, back pain, calcification in the bones of their paws and pain when they walk. When the pandemic was picked up and people crucified to get companion animals, she was more concerned. “I was really worried we’d see more of it.”
The dogs’ ears and tails were cut to remove aesthetics and the figures of companion animals to preserve furniture should be removed, she told The Suburban. “I think we’re advanced as a culture, and I do not want to live in a society that does this with animals.”
The bill will be tabled this summer and has already been presented to Québec’s Ordre des médecins vétérinaires, the Association des médecins vétérinaires du Québec (AMVQ), the Association québécoise des SPA et SPCA (AQSS) and other groups.
The minister’s response to the petition was that the new statute would prohibit, except in the case of a veterinarian-recommended medical indication, devocalization, tail docking, declawing and ear cropping.
“I am so proud of this and that the government has heard our voices and worked with us to create a better society,” Yaksich wrote in a social media post. “This speaks to our cultural progress towards a better world including animals.”
“I have never been more proud to have started such a grassroots movement, and so proud to see the massive support of such a wide variety of professions and people. We have challenged the status quo, and we have done so with the total conviction that can only arise when it comes from the heart. “That” is power. There are no words I can find now to express the total relief and gratitude I feel.
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