Animal
Advocates Society of BC
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AAS obtained
legal Opinion on the requirement for the
SPCA to issue an Offence Warning Notice and permit the owner to take
steps to relieve the alleged distressful conditions, before the SPCA is
permitted to seize:
Alexander Holburn
Beaudin and Lang,
Vancouver, BC
August 13, 2003
Our plain
reading of section 11 of the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act,
R.S.B.C. 1996, c.372 is that if an authorized agent is of the opinion
that an animal is in distress AND the owner does not take steps to
relieve the animal's distress or the owner cannot be found and informed
of the animal's distress, then the authorized agent may take any action
it considers necessary to relieve the animal's distress. So assuming
that there is no issue as to being unable to locate the owner, it is
only after the owner does not promptly take steps to relieve the
animal's distress, that the authorized agent can take any action to
relieve the animal's distress.
This necessarily
implies that the SPCA must give the owner an opportunity to take steps
to relieve the animal's distress
before
the SPCA can take any action of its own to relieve the animal's
distress, including taking custody of the animal.
AAS obtained legal opinion on the SPCA
"having to" return animals to abusers if it is paid its "costs":
Alexander Holburn Beaudin and Lang,
Vancouver, BC
July 25, 2003:
"There is no express provision in the Act which
specifically states that the SPCA must return the seized animal to its
owner if the owner has paid all costs of the seizure and made attempts
to improve the conditions that the animal was living under. However, it
can be inferred that, in including subsection 25(1), the legislature
intended that in order for the SPCA to keep an animal in its custody
permanently, the SPCA should apply to the Supreme Court for such an
order. "
AAS comment: Applying for an order of custody costs
the SPCA money and keeping abused animals in custody costs money. We
are not privy to the reasons that the SPCA chooses to return some
animals and not others, but in the two cases where seized animals were
returned to their owners, the Silvia Rutledge case in Maple Ridge where
the SPCA seized 130 animals from her petting zoo, and the case of the
puppy mill dogs seized from Chilliwack puppymiller Karen Raffle, the
SPCA was paid its seizure costs which may have totaled over $12,000
before it returned what it had called the "severely sick and neglected"
animals to Rutledge and Raffle.
Regina vs Ann Brown:
Provincial Court of British Columbia, Surrey, BC, May 25, 2000, file
number 104289: Precedent ruling that the SPCA MUST give the owner an
opportunity to correct the alleged deficiencies before obtaining a
warrant to seize
Judge N.G. MacDonald, after excluding the
evidence, acquitted Ms Brown
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."
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