LETTER

Gatineau courts overloaded 

It has come to my attention that there is a need to authorize some of the Gatineau municipal control officers with the Gatineau municipal animal control with the right to give out summons/tickets after issuing a warning with a bylaw infraction. 

The current municipal animal control practice is to have the plaintiff fill out a form to have the plaintiff and the accused show up at the municipal court so a judge can make a decision on the matter.

This is happening for complaints of dog excrements on the property line and for dogs not being on a leash, which is supposed to be a bylaw infraction and thus having a summons/infraction ticket given to the accused after an inspection of the proof and a warning.

Gatineau’s missing procedure of authorizing some municipal officers with the right to give out summons/tickets after an inspection and a warning is overloading Gatineau’s municipal courts with nonsense complaints and is overloading the court schedules and judges’ decisions when the judges could concentrate on more important court matters.

Richard Larocque, 

Aylmer