Quebec is ignoring hundreds of puppy mills where dogs live in filth and eat their young while locked in cages for days on end, charges a lawsuit filed by the founder of an Ontario animal shelter.
A Quebec Superior Court judge recently granted Nicole Joncas permission to sue the province's attorney general, the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, and Anima-Quebec, the government-funded group responsible for enforcing animal-rights laws.
Joncas, who runs Teja's Animal Refuge in Ontario, said she decided to take legal action after government inaction over a suspected puppy mill just west of Montreal.
"You cannot see something like that and just walk away," said Joncas, who toured the operation along with a former employee in 2005.
Along with the former employee, Joncas took pictures and video to document what she called a "canine hell."
The former employee, Gilles Potvin, swore in a statement filed in court that some 400 dogs were housed in an old factory in Ste-Justine-de-Newton, Que.
He said there was no central heating, dogs were living in excrement and many had taken to eating their young.
Joncas said the animals devoured their pups out of mercy.
"The building reeked of dog feces and urine at all times," Potvin said in the affidavit. "They [the dogs] are left in these cages from birth to death."
None of the allegations contained in the lawsuit has been proven in court.
A representative of the company said no one was available to comment on Thursday.
Joncas's bone of contention lies more with Quebec government officials, who she said repeatedly ignored evidence of abuse at Ste-Justine-de-Newton.
"They were obliged, by their own laws, to close down this place," Joncas said in an interview.
"Quebec has the notorious reputation of being the puppy-mill capital of Canada."
Joncas estimates Quebec has some 2,000 abusive underground breeding operations.
Animal rights activists with the Global Action Network said it is difficult to pinpoint the number of puppy mills in the province, but agreed with Joncas's description of Quebec.
"The laws are very lax to non-existent and that's why it's a mecca for puppy-mill operators," said the group's director, Andrew Plumbly, who also visited the Lamarche and Pinard operation.
Plumbly partly blamed a lack of resources at Anima-Quebec, which has only four inspectors compared with Ontario's 300.
"It's a far from perfect entity when it comes to dealing with such an extensive problem as we are dealing with here in Quebec," Plumbly said.
There is no dollar amount attached to Joncas' lawsuit. She said she just wants government officials to step up and do their job.
But the agency's chief inspector acknowledged that Quebec faced a serious problem in the past.
"In 2005, it was said that Quebec welcomed puppy mills," Suzanne Lecomte said. "Quebec was the only province in Canada without laws protecting the well-being of animals.... But I think now the situation is changing."
Anima-Quebec's shoestring budget makes it clear to Plumbly that animal protection simply doesn't register on the government's radar.
"The reason why Anima-Quebec has so little capacity is because government doesn't give them enough money to do their job," Plumbly said. "This just isn't a priority for the government."
In the meantime, Joncas will struggle to forget the gruesome scenes she witnessed inside Lamarche and Pinard's breeding centre.
"My life will never be the same," she said. "I've seen suffering at its worst."
© The Canadian Press, 2008