Letter to Toronto Public Health RE: Required Comfort Stations at Veterinary Clinics

TO: Toronto Public Health

FROM: Connie Zboch, President, Toronto and Area Council of Women

 November 5, 2025 

RE: Required Comfort Stations at Veterinary Clinics

We, at the Toronto and Area Council of Women, remember that Dr Sheela Basrur, the Toronto Medical Officer of Health from 1997 to 2004 (the year she became the Ontario Chief Medical Officer of Health), was working on a recommendation: All veterinary clinics must provide comfort stations for their animal patients. 

Today, without any regulating By-Law, staff members from these clinics are seen taking their mobile animal patients outside to relieve themselves on public and sometimes private land. 

We, at the Toronto and Area Council of Women, believe that it is time for the City of Toronto to require all existing and proposed new veterinary clinics to provide comfort stations for their mobile animal patients for the following reasons:

Allowing animals to make a deposit, liquid and/or solid, on public or private land is unsanitary and dangerous to public health, particularly if these animals are ill.

These deposits go beyond health issues to the aesthetic: Urine scorches and destroys the grass, and feces, even if scooped up by clinic staff (or members of the public), leave a residue that contains dangerous bacteria and is unsanitary and offensive.

Existing veterinary clinics: For those with outdoor space, we suggest that they be required to provide comfort stations for all their mobile animals.

For those without adequate outdoor space, we suggest that they be required to pay an annual fee to the City to compensate for the use and damage of public space caused by these mobile animals.

Proposed new veterinary clinics: These must provide adequate outdoor space for a comfort station. 

Therefore, the Toronto and Area Council of Women ask Toronto Public Health to recommend to Toronto City Council that all veterinary clinics in Toronto be required to provide their own outdoor comfort stations for their mobile animal patients, where possible, and those without adequate space be required to compensate the City annually for their use and damage of public space which is costly to maintain.