An overwhelming majority of cat owners in Quebec still haven’t registered their animals with the city and paid their annual $12 fee, even though they’ve been required to do so for five months.
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The City of Quebec confirms that as of August 5, 8,043 cats were registered.
This therefore means that the owners of just under 6% of the cats have fulfilled their obligation, when you take into account that the number of felines in the municipal area is estimated at 130,200, according to an estimate based on a Léger survey carried out in March 2023.
In comparison, 2,704 animals were registered in March, a few days before the measure came into force.
Despite everything, these data do not alarm the municipal administration, which, it seems, had foreseen that it would take time to become entrenched in habits, for the citizens to adopt this new behavior.
10% target
According to Jean-Pascal Lavoie, spokesman for the city, the target has actually been set at 10% membership for the first year, which would mean around 13,000 cats would be registered by the end of 2024.
“It is therefore estimated that by the end of the year 4957 registrations will have been added to reach the target. Until now, the course of registrations is in line with the objective,” he explains.
A quick calculation allows us to conclude that the new policy has made it possible to raise an amount of $96,516 to date.
Since March 20, residents must register their cat with the city online or at a district office and pay an annual fee of $12 per cat. animal.
This measure, announced during the presentation of the budget in December 2023, aims, according to the municipality, to cover the growing costs associated with the cat population in the territory, such as the financing of the SPA in Quebec and the treatment of the waste found in waste.
The same principle has already applied to dogs for several years.
Still not “the cat Gestapo”
At this point, the council has given no reason to believe it may start cracking down on non-compliant property owners.
According to Mr. Lavoie, this “always focuses on raising awareness to make cat owners aware of this new obligation.”
Last December, Mayor Bruno Marchand hinted that the intention was not to establish “the cat’s Gestapo”.
He still added that “if at some point we see that we have to go to the stick, we will go” but that “at the moment we are working with the citizens”.
Mr. Marchand had argued that “when you have a cat and you think there’s no cost to society, it’s not true.”
In 2023-2024, the City of Quebec provided additional financial assistance of $682,000 to SPA in Quebec, where cats represented approximately 70% of admissions in 2023.
In Quebec, it is estimated that 3 out of 10 households have at least one cat at home.
