This is so brazen it takes one's breath away. The SPCA has no official Pound Keeping Standards for any pound keeper to follow and to know what is required of them, probably because most of its own facilities would fail atrociously, and its care of animals would land it in court. Just as it has avoided any dog breeding standards because it is easy money to just go around making grandstanding seizures with the media in attendance than to write and use standards to clean up the dog breeding industry. In fact, the SPCA ignored requests from the BC Dog Breeders Association to write standards for its members so that the members would know what the SPCA would approve of and what it would seize for. That is deliberate.

The SPCA is using the PCA Act as a blunt instrument to bludgeon anyone it sets it sights on and to get a lot of positive P.R. which attracts a lot of donations. The SPCA was always sickening, but now it is frightening too. At least when the police behave illegally, there is a process of investigation, but no one in government is overlooking the SPCA. Appeals to the Minister in charge of the SPCA, John Van Dongen, and to the Solicitor General, are ignored. The SPCA feels smugly safe and its flouting of the principles of law becomes more and more egregious. It is especially worrying because the PCA Act was tightened up in 1994 to stop the SPCA from acting like a law unto themselves, but the courts appear not to understand what is going on - so far.

The Act actually says the SPCA can only seize animal named in the warrant and yet it will go in and seize every animal, even the clearly well, and then force the owner to pay huge sums to get them back.

The Act actually says that the SPCA must give the owner an opportunity to make changes before taking the destructive and draconian step of seizing valuable property. Yet the SPCA has ignored the Act over and over.

To those who are glad that the hammer of the law is being brought down so viciously, first you should know that what the SPCA tells the press is often not the truth. Secondly you should know that the SPCA often puts the seized animals into conditions that cause worse distress, even sickness and death, than if it had left the animals where they were, and forced the owner to make improvements. Would any honest, trustworthy, and real animal welfare agency do that?

Thirdly, if you do any animal rescue, you should know that you could be next. The SPCA is going after the competition for donation dollars. The best documented case is the Raid on Forgotten Felines that was directed by Craig Daniell. http://www.animaladvocates.com/Watchdog/ForgottenFelines.htm

It really is time to try again to have the SPCA charged with cruelty. It has been tried in the past, but this time, since the SPCA has been telling the courts that all kinds of things are cruel, it should work.

There are thousands of cases of the SPCA ignoring PCA Act's legal "distress" and even "critical distress" of animals in its "care", but the two best documented cases are the Christmas Terrier, and the dog that was left to die an excruciatingly slow, painful death by the SPCA's chief vet. In both cases, it was Craig Daniell who covered up. The Christmas Terrier story got to the Sun's Barbara Yaffe, but again, Daniell deflected damage by lying. http://www.animaladvocates.com/Watchdog/PrisonCampForAnimals.htm

It's time to call the SPCA to account in the same courts that are being fooled by the SPCA.

AAS web page on illegality of some SPCA seizures...