Nicole Joncas of Teja's needs support and donations to follow through on her courageous lawsuit.

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Activist battles on in anti-puppy mill war
Seeking court's permission to Sue the government. Hoping to send a strong message to provincial election winner

CATHERINE SOLYOM
The Gazette
Sunday, March 25, 2007

Next to tax cuts and health care, animal welfare rates low on politicians' list of priorities heading into tomorrow's provincial election.

But one tireless activist plans to make whoever wins the election answer in court for allowing an alleged puppy mill to remain in business despite what she calls overwhelming - and enduring - evidence of animal cruelty.

Nicole Joncas, founder of Teja's Animal Refuge in Ontario, is asking permission in Quebec Superior Court to sue the attorney-general of Quebec and the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food for failing to enforce Quebec laws on animal welfare when it comes to the Centre d'elevage Lamarche & Pinard in Ste. Justine de Newton, about 65 kilometres west of Montreal.

For the last 21/2 years, Joncas alleges, the breeder has kept animals in overcrowded, unheated and unsanitary facilities.

Dogs are routinely left in cages with other sick, dead or dying animals, in temperatures as low as minus 30 degrees Celsius and are mistreated or beaten by employees, in blatant contravention of the Animal Health Protection Act, the lawsuit alleges.

Also named in the lawsuit is Anima-Quebec, a non-profit organization responsible for carrying out the inspection and enforcement provisions of the legislation.

Despite complaints by both Joncas and a former company employee armed with video footage of the dogs' deplorable living conditions, Anima-Quebec has failed to either shut the business or rescue the animals, the lawsuit alleges.

Joncas hopes the lawsuit will send a strong message to whichever party wins the election that the government needs to honour its obligations.

"Mahatma Gandhi once said,

'The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the ways its animals are treated,' " said Joncas, whose animal refuge is just over the border in Ontario, about 18 kilometres from the Lamarche & Pinard facility.

"With this lawsuit, we're asking the Quebec government, what kind of nation are we?"

The lawsuit is the latest in a string of attempts to redress alleged mistreatment at the facility.

Even before Joncas became involved, former Lamarche & Pinard employee Gilles Potvin first complained of conditions at the breeding facility to Anima-Quebec in May 2004, then to the Surete du Quebec in March 2005.

Since then there have been protests outside the breeding facility and in front of the company's headquarters in Montreal East, and more groups have come on board to denounce the inaction of the Quebec government with regards to puppy mills in general.

Professor Wendy Adams, who teaches a course on animal law at the Faculty of Law at McGill University, says the problem in Quebec is not the law itself, but that the law is not enforced. Anima-Quebec has only four inspectors for the entire province, which has an estimated 1,500 to 2,000 large-scale breeding facilities.

"Quebec has arguably the strongest animal welfare legislation in Canada, but its record of enforcement is one of the worst," Adams said. "Whether it's the Liberals or the Parti Quebecois in power, no one seems interested in having this legislation enforced."

Adams nevertheless believes the lawsuit could force the government's hand.

"Governments need flexibility in making enforcement decisions, but at a certain point you have to ask, when is a law not a law? I think Teja's Animal Refuge has a strong case here, and people are going to be shocked when they see the condition in which these animals are forced to live and allowed to die."

Among the evidence to be presented in court, if the lawsuit moves forward, is a videotape showing dogs living in cramped and filthy conditions, dead puppies from a new litter left to decompose in a cage, the incinerated remains of several dogs in a furnace, and a decapitated German shepherd puppy.

Reached yesterday in Montreal, the owner of Lamarche & Pinard, Pietro Ruscito, said the video footage, as well as all the allegations made against the company, are false.

The SPCA and Anima-Quebec have inspected the facility and any recommendations they made on how to improve it have been followed, Ruscito said.

The company has never been fined for violating Quebec law, he added, calling Potvin a disgruntled tenant who still lives on the grounds of the facility in Ste. Justine de Newton.

"Yes, I breed dogs - that's how I make my living," Ruscito said. "But everything's legal ... I don't understand any of this."

No one from the attorney- general's office or Anima-Quebec could be reached for comment yesterday.

csolyom@thegazette.canwest.com
The Gazette (Montreal) 2007