Pit Bull Bans in Ontario and Winnipeg Explained

Most owners meet this question the same way. A job offer lands in Toronto or Winnipeg, the family starts pricing the move, and somebody types “banned dog breeds Canada” into Google. What comes back is a list of breed names, and the list looks the same wherever you read it.

The list is the least useful part. What decides whether your dog can go is not the breed name — it is which law applies at which point of the journey, and whether that law has an exception you can use. Ontario and Winnipeg answer that differently, and Canada’s federal import rules do not answer it at all. Our Malaysia to Canada pet transport service runs this corridor regularly, so the sequence below is the one we actually work through with owners. The clip that follows shows why the Ontario rule keeps returning to the news.

Ontario is the province that gets quoted, but the two rules are not equivalent in law. One is an Act of a provincial legislature; the other is a by-law of a single city. That difference decides everything downstream — the wording, the exceptions, the penalties, and whether a stopover counts.

Canada itself has no federal breed ban. The Canadian Food Inspection Agency screens for animal health, not breed, and its own guidance tells importers to comply with all federal, provincial or territorial, and municipal requirements before travelling. That single sentence is where breed rules enter a Canadian pet move. If you want the health side of the file first, our guide to whether Canada quarantines dogs arriving from Malaysia covers it.

The transit row is the one owners misread most often. A permit existing in Winnipeg does not imply a matching permit in Ontario, and the two cities sit on completely separate legal tracks. If your dog is a restricted breed rather than a banned one, our note on banned and restricted dog breeds in Malaysia shows how the same distinction plays out at the Malaysian end.

The prohibitions in section 6, as enacted in 2005, cover:

• Owning a pit bull. The base prohibition, subject only to the grandfathering exception in section 7.
• Breeding a pit bull. No exception for dogs that were legal before the Act.
• Transferring a pit bull. Sale, gift or otherwise, with narrow carve-outs for gift and bequest between restricted owners.
• Abandoning a pit bull anywhere other than to a pound run by or for a municipality, the province or a designated body.
• Allowing a pit bull in your possession to stray.
• Importing a pit bull into Ontario. A standalone offence, separate from owning one.
• Training a pit bull for fighting.

Section 11 then settles the overlap question. Where a provincial rule and a municipal by-law about pit bulls conflict, the more restrictive of the two prevails. So an Ontario municipality can be stricter than the province, but never looser.

This is the point where a lot of hopeful reading goes wrong. Owners find the word “grandfathered”, assume it describes a category their dog might join, and start looking for the application form. There is no form. The two limbs in section 7 are fixed historical facts about August and November 2005, and nothing that happens later can satisfy them.

Section 10 adds a narrow travel allowance, and only for dogs already inside the category. An individual who leaves Ontario with a restricted pit bull and comes back within three months is not treated as importing it. That protects an existing Ontario owner going on holiday. It does nothing for a dog that has never lived in the province.

Transfers are equally closed. Section 9 lets a restricted pit bull move by gift or bequest between people already inside the system, with caps on how many dogs anyone can end up holding. It is a wind-down mechanism, not a door. The same reading discipline applies to the paperwork at the other end of the move, which our piece on the CFIA endorsement before a dog leaves Canada sets out.

Read down the last two columns and the point lands. Ontario and Winnipeg are narrow lists aimed at one family of dogs. Malaysia’s list is wider and includes breeds no Canadian rule mentions, which our piece on Japanese breeds banned in Malaysia covers in detail.

Ontario’s definition includes a pit bull terrier, a Staffordshire bull terrier, an American Staffordshire terrier, an American pit bull terrier, and any dog whose appearance and physical characteristics are substantially similar to those. A court may look at the published breed standards when deciding. The Act also makes a signed statement from a member of the College of Veterinarians of Ontario receivable as proof that a dog is a pit bull, unless there is evidence to the contrary.

Put those two together and the practical position is stark. A vet’s opinion on appearance can start the case, and the owner then has to displace it. A DNA panel is not the deciding document, because the law was written around how a dog looks rather than what it carries. This is why we ask owners on this route for clear side-on and head-on photographs before quoting anything, in the same way we ask for measurements before sizing an IATA crate.

The three named breeds are the American Pit Bull Terrier, the Staffordshire Bull Terrier and the American Staffordshire Terrier. The city states plainly that most American Bully dogs are prohibited too, because they share the appearance and physical characteristics of those breeds. Its own guidance answers the visitor question in one line: pit bulls may not be brought into the city of Winnipeg.

The permit is the part worth knowing. Winnipeg publishes a Temporary Prohibited Animal Special Permit application and says these are typically issued for prohibited animals transiting the Winnipeg area. That is a real, documented route for a dog that has to pass through, and it has no counterpart in Ontario’s Act. Whether it fits your itinerary depends on the routing, which is its own problem on this corridor — see our piece on routing a pet between Canada and Kuala Lumpur.

Stage two catches more dogs on this corridor than stage five does, because carriers apply their own breed and crate policies before any government sees the file. Our list of airlines that carry pets to and from Malaysia is the place to start that check.

That changes who is actually asking this question. In our experience the dog is usually a local rescue of uncertain parentage, or a mixed-breed adopted here, and the owner is worried about resemblance rather than pedigree. Very occasionally it is a dog that arrived before the current lists, or one that came in as a permitted breed and grew into a blocky adult.

Either way, the Malaysian export file is normally the easy half. The paperwork is health-driven and follows the same shape as any other departure, which we set out alongside the rabies-risk position in our piece on whether Malaysia counts as high risk for dog rabies in Canada. The hard half is the destination, and it is a question about appearance rather than about origin.

The second row is the costly one. It sends owners into a move believing a registration route exists at the far end, and the discovery usually arrives after the flights are booked.

The practical sequence we use on this corridor is short:

1. Get a written description. Ask your vet in Malaysia to describe the dog on the health record in plain terms, including breed as recorded and the dog’s build. Do this before any photograph is sent anywhere.
2. Ask the destination authority in writing. For Winnipeg that means 311 and Animal Services. For an Ontario municipality it means the municipal by-law office, remembering that the province sets the floor and a city may be stricter.
3. Decide the landing city on the answer. Provinces without a breed ban exist, and moving the landing point is far cheaper than fighting a seizure.
4. Confirm the carrier separately. Airline policy is not government policy and has to be cleared on its own, alongside the standard fit-to-fly vet check.

None of this is legal advice, and a breed dispute in Ontario is a matter for a Canadian lawyer. What we can do is stop the file being built on a wrong assumption, the same way we do when a cat’s rabies paperwork for Canada turns out simpler than the owner expected.

Owners come to this topic looking for a breed list and leave, if the reading goes well, with a map instead. The rules that matter are local, they are written around appearance, and the federal clearance that everyone plans for does not touch them. Ontario’s Act has been in place since August 2005 and has survived repeated repeal attempts, including a private member’s bill in 2019. Winnipeg’s by-law is stricter still inside the city, but at least publishes a permit for animals passing through.

Handle the destination question first and the rest of the file behaves. That is the same discipline that makes the tightly-scheduled corridors work, such as the one we describe in our guide to Singapore’s 30-day pet quarantine for Malaysian pets. Start at My Pet Mover if you want the whole picture before committing to a city.

1. Is the pit bull ban in Ontario and Winnipeg still in force in 2026?

Yes. Ontario’s provisions came into force on 29 August 2005 through the Dog Owners’ Liability Act and have not been repealed. A private member’s bill in 2019 proposed removing them and did not become law. Winnipeg’s prohibited-breed rule sits in the city’s Responsible Pet Ownership By-law and remains published by the city.

2. Does Canada ban pit bulls nationally?

No. Canada’s federal pet import requirements are about animal health, chiefly rabies. The Canadian Food Inspection Agency directs importers to meet all federal, provincial or territorial, and municipal requirements before travelling. Breed rules live at the provincial and municipal level, not the federal one.

3. Can I bring a pit bull into Ontario if it was legally owned in Malaysia?

No. Importing a pit bull into Ontario is prohibited in its own right under section 6 of the Act. The only exception covers restricted pit bulls, meaning dogs owned by an Ontario resident on 29 August 2005 or born in Ontario within the following 90 days. A dog arriving from Malaysia cannot qualify.

4. What if my dog is a mixed breed that just looks like a pit bull?

That is the common case from Malaysia, and it is the harder one. Ontario’s definition captures any dog whose appearance and physical characteristics are substantially similar to the four named breeds, and if breed is disputed the onus of proving the dog is not a pit bull falls on the owner. Settle it with the destination authority in writing before you travel.

5. Can a pit bull pass through Winnipeg on the way somewhere else?

Possibly. The City of Winnipeg publishes a Temporary Prohibited Animal Special Permit application and states these are typically issued for prohibited animals transiting the Winnipeg area. It is a city permit, so it has no effect elsewhere in Canada, and you should confirm your specific case with the city through 311.

6. Which breeds does Malaysia itself ban from import?

The DVS import regulations name seven banned breeds: Akita, American Bulldog, Dogo Argentino, Fila Braziliero, Japanese Tosa, Neapolitan Mastiff, and Pit Bull Terrier, which is listed together with American Pit Bull, American Pit Bull Terrier, American Staffordshire Terrier and Staffordshire Bull Terrier. A separate restricted list, including Rottweiler and German Shepherd, needs written approval.