The city raised its impound fee for animals captured by municipal enforcement to $250 as part of the 2025 budget deliberations, up from $100. Now, there are fears the spike in costs might negatively impact the NWT SPCA, with people unable to pay for their impounded pets.
Nicole Spencer, executive director of the SPCA, told SA国际影视传媒 on Monday she was shocked by the city's decision. At first, she thought the city's hike was a flat fee, but that's not the case. It is $250 a day and Spencer claims there was no consultation beforehand from the city.
With the increase in in fees, she said she's worried it might mean owners won't be able to afford to claim their pets after a matter of days.
"Nobody can afford $1,000 if their dog is impounded for four days," Spencer said.
The city's Municipal Enforcement Division handles dog control duties at first. But, if an owner doesn't claim their pet within five days, it ends up at the SPCA shelter.
Instead of higher costs, Spencer argued the city should be focusing on adding a proper dog pound instead. She noted how overcrowded the SPCA already is with dogs not just from Yellowknife, but from around the entire territory.
And there isn't any operating funding either from the GNWT, according to Spencer.
"We are always over full," she said, noting a particular uptick in puppies at the moment. "Every major city has one or more dog pounds. With the population of Yellowknife being 20,000 people, I can't see why there shouldn't be (a pound)."
The city originally planned for a dog pound as one of its capital projects, but it was scrapped it as it was deemed too costly. The estimated cost to build one was pegged at around $500,000.
Back in November, when the Yellowknife Chamber of Commerce first learned about a proposed dog pound, Adrian Bell, its president, noted that it's a service that could be provided by the business community, rather than just the city.
"What we've found in the past with many sub-services is that the business community not only provides them with a greater degree of expertise - certainly that would be the case in this situation, with animals," he said. "But also, they can do it at a lower cost."
SA国际影视传媒 reached out to the city, along with all council members for comment, asking whether it's true the SPCA was never consulted, their thoughts on the spike in fees, and whether they'd consider adding a dog pound in a future budget.
The city said that since the city offers dog impound services and is written in a by-law, which city council approved to amend, there is no need for outside consultation.
"The city appreciates the hard work and dedication the SPCA continues to offer to assist it while it works to transition these services," wrote spokesperson Sarah Sibley.
Coun. Tom McLennan said he's still in favour of the raise in fees despite Spencer's concerns.
He explained that the goal is to bring the fee closer in line with others when it comes to the cost for taxpayers and the cost for users.
"The philosophical target here for other fees is one-third cost borne by the user and two-thirds borne by all taxpayers," he said, noting this can vary.
McLennan added that with an estimated contracted cost of $60,000 for dog impoundment, plus a yearly average of 55 impounded dogs, the cost to taxpayers for each impounded dog is about $1,090. Using the old fee rate of $100 meant all taxpayers were picking up most of the cost with the user - the person who has their pooch impounded - only covering about 15 per cent, depending when they pick up the dog.
Now, more of that cost weighs exclusively on people who end up having their hound in the pound, he said.
And if council really wanted to meet this goal of users paying a third of the costs, he added, impound fees would be closer to $360, but that number was too high, so council met somewhere in between, hence the $250 amount.
He added that he'll keep an open mind for a potential future city dog pound and fee changes in general.
"If there are effects of this change that we did not foresee or are overwhelming negative, I am open to reevaluating for the 2026 budget," he said.
Coun. Ben Hendriksen agreed with McLennan, saying he's open to reconsidering decisions in the future if necessary.
"At this moment, there is no evidence that this modest fee increase will have a negative impact, and there is no way of knowing any potential impact without a change first happening," he said.
