The PCA Act  says healthy animals must not be seized and even sick animals can be left onsite and improvements made to the care and site.  Leaving animals onsite is sometimes far more humane than moving them.
If animals are seized, "seizure costs" can be demanded by the SPCA.

Return to SPCA Seizures lead page


Regina vs Ann Brown: Provincial Court of British Columbia, Surrey, BC, May 25, 2000, file number 104289    Memorandum of Decision

Judge N.G. MacDonald, after excluding the evidence, acquitted Ms Brown and her horses were returned to her.

 
From court transcript lines 34 to 41: Judge MacDonald says, "...instead of contacting the owner to give the owner an opportunity to relieve the distress in the animals, the officers went to the Justice of the Peace under Section 13 of the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act and sought and obtained a warrant based on the Information to Obtain the Warrant."

This is precisely what the SPCA has done in many more recent cases.  It has obtained the warrant without first giving the owner an "Offence Warning Notice and without permitting the owner to take steps to relieve the alleged distress.

Cover page:  Regina-vs-Ann-Brown-cover.pdf Page 1. Regina-vs-Ann-Brown-1.pdf
Regina-vs-Ann-Brown-2.pdf
Page 2. Lines 34 - 41: "...instead of contacting the owner to give the owner an opportunity to relieve the distress in the animals, the officers went to a Justice of the Peace under Section 13 of the PCA act and sought and obtained a warrant based on the Information to Obtain a Warrant based on the information which has been marked as Exhibit 4 in these proceedings."
Regina-vs-Ann-Brown-3.pdf
Page 3. Lines 2 - 9: "They then use the search warrant to seize, I believe, nine horses, a number of horses in any event.  They take them into their custody, and over the course of time, they feed them and take care of them. Some later die*(a), but the issue is, with respect to the search warrant, did they comply with the prerequisites for obtaining a search warrant?"

Lines 43 - 47: The issue, as I see it, is whether or not they were required under the Act to make some attempt to contact the owner.  I believe they were.  Under Section 11(b), that is the alternate situation, it says that basically where you ..."(cont'd on page 4)
 

Regina-vs-Ann-Brown-4.pdf
Page 4. Lines 1 - 20: "...cannot find the owner immediately, and inform them of the distress, then you can go ahead and apply for your warrant. It is implied in that, in my view, that under sub-section (a), you must make an attempt to contact the owner and advise them of the animal's distress and it is only then, that if they do not; that is , the owner person responsible for the animal, does not properly take steps that will relieve its distress, that you could then go and apply for a warrant.*(b)  The officers did not do that. The Act clearly does not give the officers the right to go out and apply for warrants to seize any animals they happen to find in distress, wherever they may be. Their first obligation is to try to find the owners, to try to relieve the distress of the animal through the owner, and only if that does not work or if they cannot find the owner do they then have the right to go and apply for a search warrant. "
Regina-vs-Ann-Brown-5.pdf
Page 5. Lines 1 - 8: "Now, having found that the warrant was improperly issued, the search therefore, without an authorized search warrant, was, in my view, unreasonable as defined by the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.  A person has a right to be free from unreasonable search and seizure.  The remedies are set out in Section 24(2) of the Charter." 24 (2) Where, in proceedings under subsection (1), a court concludes that evidence was obtained in a manner that infringed or denied any rights or freedoms guaranteed by this Charter, the evidence shall be excluded if it is established that, having regard to all the circumstances, the admission of it in the proceedings would bring the administration of justice into disrepute. http://laws.justice.gc.ca/en/charter/

 

 

Page 6. Regina-vs-Ann-Brown-6.pdf Regina-vs-Ann-Brown-7.pdf
Page 7. Lines 3 - 6:
"Again, while it is highly suspicious as to how those TV crews happened to arrive there, the S.P.C.A. officers denied that they tipped them off." *(c)
Page 8. Regina-vs-Ann-Brown-8.pdf
* (a) This is the evidence that backs the rumours that the SPCA neglected some of Brown's horses to death. That may shock or surprise some, but not anyone who has investigated the SPCA or does real animal welfare against all the obstacles the SPCA puts in the way. For decades the SPCA has hired animal disposers for its pet recycling business who are so ignorant of simple animal husbandry knowledge that they can't tell dog breeds apart, misinterpret dog behaviour (for which it now has a test to back its ignorance), can't recognize or treat common diseases, have no idea of animals social needs - even recommending to potential purchasers of dogs with separation anxiety that the dog be kept outside, thereby inflicting gross cruelty on the dog, making it miserable because of social isolation and possibly turning it into a dangerous dog (which it will then kill if it gets the dog back). For just one example see Willy's Happy Ending (soon).

*(b) The SPCA is still first getting the warrant and then going and seizing...without giving the owner, even if available, a chance to make the improvements the SPCA says are necessary.  Worse...it even prevents owners from taking any steps to try to comply with the SPCA, which often does not even tell the owner why their animals are being seized. And it breaks the PCA Act when it seizes healthy animals.  See our proof at SPCA Seizures.

*(c) The SPCA, with a gang of police and chosen vets, has many times barged into people's homes, TV camera's rolling and reporters in tow.  Then it denies - even in sworn testimony -  that it has tipped off the media. The media obligingly helps the SPCA to make monsters out of innocent people who are actually being bullied and abused by the SPCA. In one instance, video supplied by the SPCA to television stations, showed severely neglected dogs from one seizure while airing a newscast of a second seizure made of healthy dogs.  This footage was shown many times for over a year. The SPCA also, for a year on its website, juxtaposed photos of the severely neglected dogs from the first seizure with references to the second breeder's healthy dogs.
See the Graham Seizure