Peter F. Trent: The furry and the feathered are at odds in a Westmount sanctuary

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At the risk of being labelled parochial, I would like to share with you a debate going on in my funny little bailiwick of Westmount. The debate turns on the difficulty in rationing the use of a unique nature preserve.

As well as maintaining three fenced-in dog runs, Westmount allows off-leash dogs mornings and evenings from June 16 to Oct. 31 in an unfenced urban forest called Summit Woods.   

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In 2017, we consolidated Summit Woods: it went from 37 to 57 acres with the demolition of one-third of the Summit Circle road. Summit Woods now occupies six per cent of Westmount’s entire territory of 1,000 acres. No nearby municipality owns a dog run even close to that size; it naturally draws many dog owners from outside Westmount. 

But here’s the rub: In 1940 the City of Westmount bought Summit Woods — mostly from McGill University — with the stated intention of keeping it a “wildflower and bird sanctuary.” In 1991, my motion to define Summit Woods as “an urban forest and bird and wildflower sanctuary” became part of Westmount’s zoning law — although we did continue to tolerate dogs off-leash. Still, many citizens felt that permitting capering canines in a bird and wildflower sanctuary was nonsensical.  

By 1994, an increasing number of free-range dogs — and owners unable to pick up after them — caused me to call Summit Woods the Greater Montreal Dog Toilet and suggest access be restricted to Westmount dogs only. Finally, a raucous city council meeting in 1995 let slip the dogs of war when dog-lovers clashed with bird-lovers and we Solomonically decided that dogs must be leashed during the two-month spring season for ground-nesting birds.  

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A public park is considered a public good. But off-leash dog-walking in an urban nature park has to be severely rationed as a very scarce public good. Quotas could be established to ensure dogs do not degrade Summit Woods’ primary and legal function as a protected habitat for birds and plants all year round. 

McGill’s Morgan Arboretum uses quotas. Around 10 times further from downtown and 10 times bigger than Summit Woods, it limits the number of users with dog privileges to 500 — and no more than two dogs per user. The arboretum also restricts where dogs can run off-leash. Had Westmount proportionally copied that level of protection, it would have meant rationing access even for Westmount dog-walkers. 

As an alternative to quotas, would it be so unfair to restrict off-leash dogs in Summit Woods to those with Westmount owners if it were independently proved that too many free-range dogs were in fact compromising the natural state of the woods? After all, Westmount does restrict access to tennis courts, indoor ice rinks, residential parking and Victoria Hall use to Westmounters. Just as Montreal does with many of its own facilities. 

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At least Westmount city council is now rigorously enforcing the dog rules in Summit Woods and closing off smaller trails for reforestation. Fearing an image problem and abuse from non-Westmounters with a bone to pick, Westmount council might be too squeamish to restrict off-leash use of Summit Woods to dogs owned by Westmounters. But the proper conservationist alternative of requiring dogs to be leashed at all times — just like in other unfenced parks in Montreal, such as Mount Royal Park — is politically even more fraught. 

Still, Westmount can’t claim to be a steward committed to preserving such a unique yet vulnerable urban wild if too many dogs are cavorting through the underbrush. Limiting dog use in Summit Woods is, in fact, in the interest of all Montrealers, most of whom, I am sure, would appreciate birdwatching or tiptoeing through the trillia in a rare, protected and natural environment. 

Peter F. Trent, a former inventor and businessman, served five terms as mayor of Westmount and led the Montreal demerger movement. His Merger Delusion was a finalist for the best Canadian political book of 2012. 

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