Any reform of the SPCA is a good thing, but if the motive is still self-serving, reform is not a sure thing. The SPCA has been market driven, not compassion driven, for at least fifty years and that does not appear to have changed. In the almost three years since it announced it would reform, it has ramped up its p.r. machinery, spending millions on itself while still spending little on the animals it is mandated to protect. Its frequently boasted spay/neuter program, SNAP, is so small that it is barely detectable.

The SPCA frequently reacts to bad publicity with a slew of publicity stunts. Like milking one sick dog for all the media moments it can at the same time it secretly kills many other sick dogs. Like selling dogs as lifestyle accessories instead of reducing the supply of dogs it sells. Like being caught killing nice dogs for space and then denying it by saying the dogs were aggressive. Like announcing a moratorium on killing for space to counteract the media disaster of killing and lying. Like going on killing for space but hiding it under layers of junk science temperament tests. Like grandstanding cruelty seizures and then quietly cutting money deals and returning the animals back to the alleged abusers. Like making grandstanding cruelty seizures and then killing some of the seized using the spurious science tests. Like making grandstanding cruelty seizures and then killing some of the seized with the diseases that SPCAs are full of because of overcrowding. Like refusing to choke off its supply of free animals to sell by changing its unlimited surrender policy - the policy that means it kills for space and makes animals sick from overcrowding - the policy that enables the culture of animal abandonment that is so profitable for the SPCA.

There is a long list of policies and actions and attitudes that show that the so-called reform of the BC SPCA is more about itself than about the animals it purports to shelter.

The current board of the BC SPCA has had more than enough time to show that its intentions are honest and that it rejects self-promotion in favour of real animal welfare. The rot starts at the top and it is now clear that real change will not happen with this board. As long as the BC SPCA is not honest, any reform is only surface and cannot be counted on.