Since the creation of the AAS website in 2000 and the BC SPCA's first threat to sue us in January 2001; our refusal to remove the material the SPCA said is not true and therefore defamatory; and the SPCA's subsequent statement that it would reform, a great deal of time has been wasted by the SPCA trying every which way to carry on business as usual but with new marketing.

The two policies that prevent any animal welfare society from doing real animal welfare - unlimited intake and dog-catching contracting - are still in place five years later. Surface improvements have been made, but they are too shallow. Transporting animals from areas of the province where there is a high surrender rate and a low adopting population to the Lower Mainland and to Vancouver Island where many SPCAs have lost pound contracts and there are many better alternative groups who will rehome pets and so SPCAs have fewer animals and more room, is a way to keep an unlimited surrender policy (attracts donations) while doing less killing (killing drives away donations), but the result is a good thing for some dogs and cats. But there is still no guarantee that the transported pet won't be killed by the SPCA if it has any problems and takes up space for too long. In fact, SPCA policy is that dogs with problems can or must be killed to make room for dogs without problems. Not by any stretch can this be called animal welfare. It is what it clearly indicates it is - pet disposal.

Dog-catching contracting is the most easily exposed as a business. Contracts are signed and paid for. The contractor is paid to keep the public safe from dogs. The contractor catches and impounds stray dogs which it kills if no one claims or buys the dog. The contractor kills dogs that are deemed dangerous. Protection of people from animals is the opposite of protecting animals from people. Not by any stretch can this be called animal welfare. It is what it clearly indicates it is - dog disposal. The SPCA should be the inspector of pounds in BC, not the paid dog-catcher. The SPCA's own pounds are less humane than most of the pounds that have replaced the SPCA as the dog-catcher. Pounds are starting to do more animal welfare, something they don't even have to do, than the SPCA does, something it claims to do.

Animal protection is one of the SPCA's two mandates. The other is animal welfare. The SPCA claims that it combines the two, but since the SPCA began using the PCA Act to make seizures in December 2002, it has killed many of the animals it has seized, even though the animals are not sick or have a treatable condition. Not by any stretch can that be called either animal protection or animal welfare.

We're still essentially where we were in 2000 when AAS began publishing its documented evidence about the SPCA. It's true that some improvements have been made but can even one of them be shown to be only because of internal soul-searching and a resolve to do real animal welfare? It does not seem so because every improvement or change at the SPCA has a direct link to pressure from other groups or because of bad P.R. or because of a loss of income. This is very discouraging.

All AAS ever wanted was an honest SPCA that could be trusted to put animals first. We still believe that animal welfare in BC must be led by one primary organization and that organization ought to be the BC SPCA. The hundreds of alternative hands-on rescue groups do good work, but few, if any, of them will be around in a hundred years.

As for animal protection in BC - the enforcement of the PCA Act - the Act's statutory power will be used abusively no matter what body is appointed to do it as long as the Act permits it. It is the Act's built-in abuse of power and lack of accountability and oversight that is the problem that must be fixed. If the BC SPCA can combine animal protection with animal welfare, that is what we want. Replacing it with a different enforcement body, that does not have an animal welfare image to protect, might make things worse for seized animals.

On the other hand, if another body was created to enforce the Act, and it was found to be seizing healthy animals and killing seized animals on the scale the SPCA has, there would be public outrage that could not be confused and deflected by a hundred-year P.R. image of "caring".

There is no reason why the two can't be combined by an organization that is driven by honest animal welfare principles. We are still waiting for the SPCA to be honest and stop killing healthy, recoverable animals, whether the SPCA has the animals because it has seized them or because it has accepted them from an owner or because it has collected them for its dog-catching business.

Since demanding self-reform has made so little improvement in five years, it is clearly time for AAS to urge the government to force accountability and oversight on the BC SPCA or create another body to enforce the Act.