Rat infestations are increasing in cities throughout Canada

In a statement to The Epoch Times, Bravo said the creation of a Rat Reduction Plan would help the city be proactive and “get ahead of the problem.” She noted that North American cities like New York, Chicago, Washington D.C., and Ottawa have recently taken action.

“I believe it’s time for Toronto to take similar steps. People in my community, and people across Toronto, have told me they agree we need to see action,” she said.

Ottawa an Outlier in Tracking Rat Numbers

Since Ottawa City Councillor Riley Brockington was first elected in 2014, he has “wrestled with rat issues” in his ward. Yet beginning in 2022, he saw the issue get much worse.

“There was one neighbourhood in particular that had rats for the first time, and when I went door knocking in that election, it was just a constant, and I wasn’t seeing any improvement,” Brockington told The Epoch Times.

Brockington, who represents the city’s Ward 16, said the issue became so severe that he led the charge to bring back the city’s dormant Rat Mitigation Working Group, in which eight to 10 departments share information on pinpointing rats’ locations and getting rid of them.

“It’s not reinventing the wheel, there’s no silver bullet here, but where the city can have a positive impact, they are doing more,” he said.

In an email response, the City of Ottawa said while it does not track the size of its rat population, it investigates and keeps track of bylaw service requests involving rodents on private property. The city saw 206 service requests in 2017, 161 in 2018, and 510 in 2019.

The number of calls involving rodents shot up to 842 in 2020 and 1,197 in 2021, before declining to 840 in 2022, and 747 in 2023.

While the number of requests so far this year is 446, that’s still 200 percent higher than in 2017.

An Ottawa spokesperson said that prior to 2019, only service requests related to neighbouring or rented properties were logged. In 2019, the process was changed to include callers reporting issues about their own properties, resulting in an uptick in numbers in 2019, 2020, and 2021.

Several cities had less data on their rat populations. Health unit spokespersons in Mississauga, London, and Kingston either didn’t collect data or were unable to confirm increasing infestations.

A City of Vancouver spokesperson said the city doesn’t monitor or collect data on its rat populations, although there were 271 rat sightings reported to its phone and online reporting systems in 2023, and 371 so far this year.

Potential Solutions

Ahmed believes municipalities should put more emphasis on integrated pest management, which involves removing rats’ food sources and modifying their habitat. Municipalities can make garbage removal a priority and require construction sites to put more effort into pest control measures.

Dowd says people should take more responsibility for rat control. People must “animal-proof” their homes by properly sealing any ventilation or entry points, and ensure their garbage is disposed of properly and not left out overnight, he said.

“We get over 1,000 calls a day,” he said. “Everybody, the first thing they think is, ‘Shouldn’t the city be helping me?’ Well, if your toilet leaks, you’re not going to call the city.”

Due to Alberta’s isolated geography and harsh climate, rats did not enter the province until the 1940s. The minister of agriculture authorized legislation mandating the control of pests by every person.

Through measures such as a Rat Control Zone along the eastern border with Saskatchewan, widespread public education, an arsenic rat-poisoning campaign, and fines for property holders who failed to control rats, the province was able to reduce rat infestations to fewer than five per year by the 1960s.

A City of Calgary spokesperson said despite Alberta’s “no-rats” policy, the rodents do enter the province by truck, and there are periodic infestations at facilities. Businesses are expected to address the problem and “considerable improvements are being made,” the spokesperson said.

Lindsay Harvey, assistant communications director for Alberta Agriculture and Irrigation, said the campaign’s goal is to remind people coming to Alberta that it “takes constant vigilance to keep rats out of our province.”