During the course of our request, the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Fisheries breached the Freedom of Information and Privacy Act by copying its response thereby revealing a complainant’s personal information to the BC SPCA. This situation was referred to in our April 30th 2003 submission to the Commissioner’s Office; that referral is noted below in italics:

Re: Tim Wittenberg Complaint; OIPC File No. 17371
Your office has the above complaint in process. This is another example in a range of concerns about the relationship between the MAFF and the BC SPCA. Celia Francis of your office is handling that file.

Our conclusion in the April 30th 2003 submission to the Commissioner’s Office is included below in italics:

Conclusion: According to the MAFF, the BC SPCA is a “private society.” BUT it does public business. The government has chosen through legislation to give the SPCA enforcement powers but has not subjected it to FOI search. If the Province handled cruelty enforcement its department, employees or agents would fall under the FOI Act. If municipal staff handled it the same would apply. Police are subject to the FOI Act. We are entitled to know exactly how they make decisions, operate, and budget and spend our money.

The provincial government has on one hand, by giving the SPCA its own legislation, made it special compared to other societies and exempted it from the more democratic and stringent conditions of the Society Act. On the other hand, it gave the SPCA policing power but exempted it from a suitable public process where one can scrutinize and review its intentions, operations and inner workings. The result is a hyper-organization, an “empire,” that does public work in two capacities – provincial cruelty investigations and municipal animal control contracts. In practical reality it is accountable to no authority that ensures the entire operation, with three competing functions, is inclusive, transparent and accountable to a public that fully supports it. These exemptions mean the SPCA can maintain secrecy and/or switch hats to serve a particular purpose or self-interest. The SPCA and the Province continue to confuse large portions of the public by claiming the SPCA is only a private society, which by evasion means much of the public mistakenly believes it is just a humane charity and not a special government agent that moonlights as a municipal contractor as well. Practically speaking, people cannot protect their tax dollars or donations through accessible and normal processes. This appears to be the exact legislative sleight-of-hand, the shell game of which Mike de Jong warned and worried.

This, on the face of it at least, is unacceptable. BUT the public can only judge for itself when it has access to ALL of the relevant information that can reveal the nature and details of the relationship between the two parties and what stakeholders, such as the BC Veterinary Medical Association and individuals in the public, report to government. And, that is a primary reason why the MAFF should be ordered to waive ALL of the fees for the FOI request made by the Bill Good Show.

Waiving all fees, at this very late date in the controversy and well into its mandate, is the very least that government can and should do for people’s protection, particularly since it has done so much to protect itself and the BC SPCA. We sincerely hope you see things likewise and order the MAFF to waive all fees in this case.

We remain convinced that the fees should be entirely waived in this case. The Bill Good Show appeals to you for a review of the above file. We have enclosed the seven-page argument we submitted to the MAFF on March 11th.

The Outcome of the Processes: The Bill Good Show narrowed its request by dropping complainants’ letters and the ministry’s responses to them, which the Ministry said was the most time-consuming and costly aspect of the retrieving the documents. We reluctantly agreed to do this because several sources provided their complaints and the ministry’s replies to us, because of the unreasonable cost for those records, and because the condensed version the Ministry offered would provide only what our clerk called “barebones” information, such as complainant “has concerns about the BC SPCA.” This resulted in a new estimate of about $108, which CKNW submitted to Peter Smith’s office.

All processes – the request for records, fee waiver request and request for review -- were concluded on January 14, 2004, more than 11 months after it began on February 6, 2003. At that time, Mr. Smith notified CKNW that “there will be no fees payable for the enclosed records and a refund of your $108.75 deposit has been initiated.”

Seven pages of records were delivered to CKNW shortly after. They included: a one-page 1997/98 BC SPCA grant request for about $72,000 to the MAFF, a two-page MAFF briefing note prepared for the BC Cattleman’s Association’s 2002 AGM who were worried about a philosophical shift in the SPCA’s animal welfare approach, a one-page briefing note for the Minister about the SPCA wanting research protocols to apply to the Canadian Council of Animal Care Products in 2000, a one-page briefing note for the Minister regarding the Cloverdale Rodeo, the Canadian Rodeo Association and the SPCA’s attempt to prevent two rodeo activities not sanctioned by the Association in 2000, and finally a 2-page briefing note prepared for the Minister’s February 2002 meeting with the BC SPCA.

What to say after all of that?

Perhaps the last insult is the worst – there was no information delivered about the outcome of the Minister’s meeting with the BC SPCA in February 2002. The CKNW request for information, when it was submitted in February 2003, included the years of 1997 through to present. If one considers that the actual search and retrieval of those documents did not begin until the Ministry received CKNW’s cheque in December 2003, one recognizes that such documents, correspondence, notes, and/or minutes etc. should have been caught in the request either way. In addition, it defies imagination, not just logic, that the SPCA and the ministry did not correspond or communicate and subsequently record those communications other than to meet face-to-face once in 2002 during the six or seven year period included in our request.

To say the results of our request and the ensuing process was under-whelming is an under-statement of epic proportions.