I hope that someday Animal Advocates will consider working with the BCSPCA and take a more proactive role in improving animal welfare in the province as opposed to the prevalent levying of criticism and blame they have become well known for. I truly believe if we can get past our differences and work together the animals would benefit significantly, which is the ultimate goal.
Joanne Halligan
BCSPCA Branch Manager
Chilliwack/Abbotsford
(The article in the Chilliwack Times, Ms Halligan's full letter and reaction from AAS readers can be seen at
http://www.animaladvocates.com/cgi-bin/admin.pl/read/4754 )
Work with a career animal disposer? AAS wouldn't be found dead in a ditch with the BC SPCA. Ms Halligan has been a pet disposer for the BC SPCA for ten years or more. When did she ever say to her paymasters, "I'm quitting if you don't stop pound contracting, stop taking every single cast-off pet and killing the unsellable, and start enforcing the cruelty prevention laws that we are mandated to do first and foremost. I'm not killing one more animal until there are profound policy changes at the BC SPCA"? The Abbotsford SPCA's reputation among rescuers and a large number of the public was almost as bad as the Surrey SPCA's reputation, and that is saying something. Ms Halligan kept her job and her paycheque by never saying any of that. If the SPCA has improved recently, that is precisely because of AAS's public and provable "criticism and blame", not because we kept silent - as she did.
It is AAS that took a "proactive role in improving animal welfare", not those who slip along behind in the shadows of their dark work and only come out to slip one over the media. Tell the media how many animal's deaths you are responsible for Ms Halligan and how much money you earned doing it all those years.
AAS has taken many proactive roles in improving animal welfare: urging the Provincial Government to improve the PCA Act (stopped by the BC SPCA); urging the City of Vancouver to ban yard dogs (stopped by the BC SPCA); urging municipalities to improve the conditions of puppies in pet stores (stopped by the BC SPCA); urging the BC SPCA to insist on breeding regulations (no interest from the BC SPCA); offering the BC SPCA our database of backyard breeders and home retailers (no interest from the BC SPCA), to name some. How much "proactive animal welfare" has Ms Halligan done?
A long, sordid history of the BC SPCA sanctioning animal cruelty was participated in by Ms Halligan. Her "shelter" kept it's "sheltered" in tiny, dark cages and killed them, almost daily, for many years.
It is thanks to AAS truly speaking for animals that any change has happened at the BC SPCA at all. We defied the SPCA's legal attempts to silence our voice as it silenced the voices of a hundred thousand innocent animals for so long. It had no choice but to change.
Ms Halligan urges Animal Advocates to work with the BC SPCA. We won't work in the pet disposal industry. Ms Halligan ought to be grateful to AAS though, as she has benefited from the reforms we caused by being made the manager of two SPCA branches. The new CEO approves of her and the Board of Directors approves of the CEO.
No, Ms Halligan, you won't soon see AAS in bed with the BC SPCA.