Of course we are not. We have dedicated ourselves to stopping cruelty the only way it will be stopped - by making the SPCA enforce the PCA Act.

We investigated and published puppymills in BC. We investigated and published chained dogs.

But no one is safe when the law is above the law; when the law cannot be trusted. This is borne out in fact. In 2003 the SPCA raided Forgotten Felines cat shelter, and now everyone who rescues animals is afraid the SPCA will be coming for them next.

The PCA Act was written to make a distinction between animal abusers and child abusers, murderers, terrorists, thieves, and rapists. One may argue that there should be no distinction, but that would be false. Most animal abusers do not directly abuse - they neglect, sometimes severely, but the PCA Act acknowledges that the intent is seldom to be cruel. Most animal neglecters are poor, uneducated, and of low intelligence, or they come from countries where neglect is the norm.

But the SPCA is punishing animal neglecters far more harshly than many real criminals are punished. Street racers who kill innocent pedestrians or their passengers may not even be jailed, much less lose their homes. The SPCA demands huge "seizure costs" and when they cannot be paid, the convicted owner's home is seized and they are put on the street.

This just happened in Port Alberni, where puppymillers named Elliott pleaded guilty to causing distress and when they couldn't pay the SPCA's seizure costs, the SPCA seized their house. The SPCA is demanding over $100,000 in "seizure costs" from another Port Alberni breeder that it seized dogs from even though the dogs were kept in free foster homes, required no vet care as they were all healthy, and some of which died of parvo contracted at the Port Alberni SPCA. The breeders in that case are appealing their conviction.

Civil, safe societies are governed by the rule of law - even when we wish the law to "get" who we don't like. The SPCA must be made to obey the law or it can never be trusted to be honest and to do what is morally, ethically, and legally right.