In the fall of 2000, I attended a five day training session given by the SPCA. (I was a new employee, other employees had been with the SPCA for years, and this was the first training they had received.) John Van der Hoeven was the main instructor over the 5 day period.
I still remember his initial talk to us. He informed us that, as employees of the BCSPCA we were NOT animal activists, and were not to associate with animal activists. We were animal welfarists, he stated.
He went on to say that some of us in the room might be vegetarians, and that is fine, but that was not something we would discuss as employees of the SPCA.
Mr. van der Hoeven was asked what we, as employees of the SPCA should do about feral cats.
Could we bring them in and have them spayed and neutered, or, as some suggested, should they be euthanized?
His response was that we should entirely ignore feral cats, regardless of the conditions we found them in.
When asked what we should do if they were trapped and brought into the SPCA, he seemed irritated, and said he didn't wish to discuss the feral cat issue at all.
The next time I had anything to do with Mr. van der Hoeven was at the end of 2000, when I was no longer with the SPCA. I was disgusted with the SPCA, and with a few other people, had formed a small feral cat rescue group.
We (the people forming the cat rescue group) sent a large package of complaints and concerns about the Saltspring Island SPCA by Registered Mail to Mr. van der Hoeven. This package contained signed statements by me, an ex SPCA volunteer, a former SPCA Board member, and a member of the public.
Mr. van der Hoeven acknowledged receipt of the package and said that he would be in touch with us to discuss it. It is four years later, and I am still waiting.
In the summer of 2003, I received a phone call from Mr. van der Hoeven regarding a Head Office investigation into allegations of financial impropriety at the Saltspring SPCA. I had been made aware of this investigation by one of the CAC members who had reported the allegations to Head Office. Craig Daniell admitted to me that the Saltspring branch was under investigation.
But it was Mr. van der Hoeven who returned my call wanting to know what had happened with the investigation.
Mr. van der Hoeven told me that he had been put in charge of the Saltspring branch, and that there would be no further problems here.
I asked him what had been done to correct the problems, and he stated several times to me that he "did not care what had gone on on Saltspring."
He told me that the investigation had been called off because a wealthy Saltspring resident had offered the Saltspring branch a "large" sum of money if it could be shown that the branch had public support.