Please, please review your by-laws, some four years after the Cooper decision making a by-law containing an absolute prohibition against animals invalid on the basis it was harsh, unconscionable and oppressive, I have seen yet again a registered by-law purporting to do exactly that.

While there is no enshrined right to keep an animal on the scheme there is are obligations not to unreasonably refuse the keeping of an animal and for bylaws not to be harsh, unconscionable and oppressive.

For more on this please see my most recent article in the July 2024 Law Society Journal.