I see that Susan Hunter and Richard Brisbin have made the results of their research into BSL available. 

Panic Policy Making: Canine Breed Bans in Canada and the United States

Although dogs have bitten humans for millennia, in recent years state, provincial, and local governments have responded to incidents of dog bites with legislation or administrative rules that ban the ownership of dog breeds such as American Staffordshire Terriers, Rottweilers, and American Pit Bulls. In this paper we examine if a framework of “panic policymaking” can explain the passage of breed bans. The paper first develops a framework to explain panic policymaking that builds upon and modifies psychological theories of decision making, the sociological literature on moral panics, the analytical and case study literature about critical junctures in policy paths, behavioral economic studies of responses to risks, and the empirical studies of punctuated policy equilibria. Using data from a survey of the Canadian and U.S. public and interviews with interest group activists and public officials in locales that considered and defeated or passed breed bans, we then assess the predictive value of the concept of panic policymaking. Finally, we consider how breed bans indicate the scope and limits of the concept of animal rights.

Here's a link to the paper (PDF) some of which is still in draft format (minor typos here and there). 

http://www.polsci.wvu.edu/faculty/BRISBIN/Papers/2007.%20Panic%20Policy%20Making.pdf

And here's an excerpt from the section about Ontario to pique your interest:

Ontario

Although the record of events in Ontario is difficult to construct because of behind-closed-doors decisions that respondents would not describe to us, the fate of breed ban legislation in the province evidences a specific version of panic policy making.

Recognition

Although a few publicized violent dog attacks had transpired in Ontario in the decade prior to 2005, including attacks that resulted in the death of a child and assaults on police, these attacks produced no immediate public outcry or media demands for the control of dangerous dogs.

However, in August 2004 the media had covered how Toronto police had to fire more than a dozen bullets to kill two pit bulls who had turned on the man walking them and how a pit bull had attacked a man in London, Ontario who tried to protect a puppy from the pit bull’s attack (CBC News 2004). In late August 2004 the Ontario

Liberal Party’s Attorney General, Michael Bryant, decided to legislate a ban on the ownership of pit bulls. Critics of the Liberals–the majority party in the Legislative Assembly or “the government”--havesuggested that the ban was a tactic manufactured by the Liberals to deflect criticism of the growth of crime and gang activity, especially in Toronto (confidential Interviews). Opposition Progressive Conservative and New Democrat legislators also thought that he proposed the ban to deflect media attention from other issues and unpopular policies bedeviling the Liberal government. In their eyes, the identification of the pit bull problem was “all political.” It was a manufactured intrusive event.

Soon Bryant held news conferences to tout the proposed ban and link it, by inference, to criminals, outlaw bikers, and urban gangs–groups with members often drawn from ethnic minorities.  Although a reporter showed Bryant a photo array of dogs and he was unable to identify a pit bull, his party nonetheless pushed ahead in its promotion of what became a series of amendments to the Dog Owners’ Liability Act. It held a series of “consultations” with police, animal law enforcement officers, humane societies, and what it called a “broad spectrum of stakeholders” that it selected (Ontario 2005: 929). Therefore, the government had engaged in the construction of the intrusive event. However, as supported by our survey data, no evidence exists that the event created a contagion of fear of pit bulls and a moral panic. Also, no emotional assessment of alternatives appears to have generated an unwillingness for the general public to consider other policies, such as the effective dangerous dog law of Calgary (Calgary 2004) supported by national animal interest groups.

Characterization

The Liberal government used press releases and media interviews with Attorney General Bryant in an attempt to orchestrate public support for a pit bull ban. Bryant characterized the dogs as a “menace” and a “loaded weapon.” Press releases cited municipal officials, including the Mayor of Toronto, the Chief of the Toronto Police Service, the Mayor of Kitchener, and the Mayor of Wawa, as supporters of the ban. The government also arranged for press statements from victims of attacks about the extent of their injuries and the Animal Services Agency of Winnipeg about the effectiveness of their ban.   These comments and releases emphasized the danger pit bulls posed for children and conveyed horror stories of their behavior (author’s observations on media reportage).

[snip]