The morning after a judge indefinitely suspended parts of the Coderre administration's contentious pit bull bylaw, the mayor took to the airwaves and to social media to respond to his critics.
"Clearly you have some people who are going wacko and are calling [people] names, and get overboard, but frankly, do we have to wait until somebody gets bitten again?" Denis Coderre told CJAD's Andrew Carter on Thursday morning.
Coderre also signalled the city's intention to appeal the suspension, which came down Wednesday afternoon in response to the Montreal SPCA's legal challenge of the bylaw. Coderre also took issue with one of the SPCA's main assertions — that the bylaw, which was to have taken effect on Monday, doesn't clearly define what a "pit bull type dog" is.
"It went up to the Supreme Court. Ontario did it. We already have three boroughs who banned pit bulls," Coderre said, "and even from the Canadian Canine Association, we have the benchmark for the definition of a pit bull."
Meanwhile, Coderre also issued an open letter to Montrealers Thursday morning, insisting that despite the passionate opposition to the bylaw, his number one goal is to protect people.
"Humans first and foremost," the letter reads. "We will not yield to threats nor interest groups. We reconfirm our intention to ban pit bull type dogs from Montréal, as has already been done by some of our boroughs and as in Ontario, in France and in hundreds of cities around the world. We will not compromise when it comes to the safety of our fellow Montrealers."