What is the new vision of the BC SPCA?

The new shelter Society in Chilliwack, Safe Haven, is a harbinger of worse to come for the SPCA. More Societies will form and drain away more millions in donations.

Under recently fired or quit BC SPCA CEO Douglas Brimacombe, the SPCA "new vision", whatever its intent, appeared to be a reform of the BC SPCA's image rather than a reform of its practices.

Mr Brimacombe utilized, rather heavily, image doctoring techniques: expensive consultants, reports, retreats, tripling or quadrupling head office staff, flashy announcements like the 2002 "Moratorium", pseudo-science like the Companion Animal Management Program (CAMP) and flashy puppy mill seizures.

Without access to the audited statements that the SPCA is required by Provincial law to file, and which it never has as far as we can tell, it appears Mr Brimacombe may have spent millions on reimaging and little or nothing on animals.

The moratorium announcement in March 2002 was in reaction to the exposure on TV of the killing of six nice dogs for space by the Vancouver SPCA which the SPCA then claimed were killed for aggression. Instead of reforming the reason SPCAs are crowded and kill so many animals - its unlimited surrender policy - the BC SPCA, under Mr Brimacombe, created CAMP, the scientific sounding and media-impressing excuse for all the killing the BC SPCA does.

Puppy mill seizures which result in the killing of some of the seized, which result in keeping the "rescued" in the psychologically abusive and physically sickening conditions of SPCA "shelters", which provide little medical attention or psychological or behavioural remediation, which in fact cause such extreme "distress" (as defined by the PCA Act which the SPCA is legally required to enforce) that some sheltered animals die of "shelter caused deaths", give the appearance of not so much reform of the past SPCA practice of ignoring cruelty, as of grandstanding.

SPCA announcements that it now works with alternative rescue groups have also proven more style than substance, the most conclusive proof of this being a CAMP assessor who ordered the death of puppy mill dogs while refusing to use offers of foster homes.

Real reform of the BC SPCA should have started with the animals in its trust. Every "shelter" should have been upgraded so that the SPCA itself was not guilty of cruelty to animals. That is what a real animal-lover or true animal-welfarist would have done. Instead, marketing was the byword of the "new" BC SPCA.

If the BC SPCA had chosen to reform its deadly "shelters" and it's policies that require it to kill so many animals, it would have had to do little to improve its image - its image would have been cleaned in the process.

Nothing illustrates more clearly than this case, of Chilliwack animal-lovers being so angry that the SPCA was unable to placate them with promises to reverse its decision to close the Chilliwack SPCA, what a state of chaos the BC SPCA is in.

What is the new CEO's vision? Craig Daniell has made some much-needed seizures for cruelty, at last using the Prevention of Cruelty to Animal Act to prevent much cruelty, but he did not use his position to insist that no animals be killed that are in an SPCA branch as the result of his investigations.

Nor has he ordered his branch staff to stop making untruthful statements to the media and on websites or instructed his staff to be "open, accountable, and transparent" with rescuers who are being kept in the dark about the disposition (which with the SPCA can be death) of an animal they have been instrumental in having the SPCA seize for cruelty.

Also telling is that Mr Brimacombe's choice of p.r. person, who disseminated untrue information, still has her job.

AAS has not ever wanted the ruin of the BC SPCA, it has wanted it to honestly prevent cruelty and to honestly "shelter" animals.

How can the BC SPCA stop this fatal drift of donators to other Societies? The market abhors a vacuum and there is a serious vacuum at all levels of the BC SPCA, both in its treatment of animals and in its ethics.

The BC SPCA is facing ruin if it does not understand that AAS, and now others, are not going to accept style over substance, spin doctoring over the truth. The only hope for the SPCA is to admit its faults, correct them, and get honest. Only honesty will result in real animal welfare policies and the public will recognize that.