Perhaps this is one of the "miracles in the branches" that Mr Daniell boasts of to the media.
Many people at the SPCA's head office were given all the information about the Christmas Terrier by the staff person and the volunteer with a request to charge the branch manager with the offence of causing or permitting critical distress in an animal under the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act, They were given specious reasons that contradicted the Act - the Act the SPCA was created to enforce. AAS has said for years that the SPCA itself needs to be charged for causing cruelty under the Act. These brave women tried to and were deceived and given the run-around.
This incident is not isolated. Incidents like it have happened many times before and are still happening. One of the reasons AAS was the first to speak out about the SPCA (and has been vilified and threatened ever since), is in memory of another dog that we call the "little hit-by-car-dog". We were told that a small, female mutt, brought to an SPCA after being hit by a car, was left with no medical attention because the SPCA was waiting the 72 hours that it is allowed to wait under its agreement with the municipality it was contracting dog control/disposal in before a stray legally becomes its dog. It was waiting for the owner to claim the dog and pay the bills. But any dog in critical distress can immediately be the SPCA's property under the Act. The SPCA could have legally immediately taken the dog to a vet. But that would have cost money.
The 72 hours ended in the middle of a long weekend, and when staff and volunteers returned the dog was lying on the cement floor in her own feces and blood, gangrene in her smashed leg. Then she was killed. The manager of that branch was promoted recently by Mr Daniell.
In memory of her and so many other horses and cattle, and dogs and cats and rabbits and other helpless creatures that the SPCA has neglected to death, and has killed for space to make room for fresh "product", and has itself made sick and then killed, AAS is going to go on defying the SPCA's deep pockets. The SPCA may not have enough money to improve its Alcatrazes for animals, or to take sick animals to the vet, but it always has enough money to try to silence its critics.
AAS was the first and for a long time we were alone. But now more and more women are defying the SPCA's ever-ready lawyers and blandishments and bravely telling the truth. Promises to do special favours from the CEO won't wash with intelligent women. For fifty years the SPCA counted on all their "little women" volunteers to keep their little mouths shut - and they did.
No more. The SPCA can't count on all women to aid and assist their cruelty anymore. This is what is going to reform the BC SPCA.
(Read more: The SPCA's expensive lawyers cannot silence AAS: http://animaladvocates.com/libelthreat.htm)