"There are just over 200 cats at the [Penticton] SPCA right now, nearly double the number the Society cares for through most of the year...To deal with the high number of cats it receives, the SPCA sets up communal outdoor kennels that can hold up to 20 cats each during good weather."

Many small volunteer-run rescue groups such as Forgotten Felines deal year round with the same number of cats, only they manage to house them humanely and cleanly indoors year round, and not in cages. The BC SPCA uses donor's money to harass other rescue organizations like Forgotten Felines instead of using the money to improve its own facilities. Then it crowds animals in outdoor pens at its "shelters" and cries poor to the public.

"The shelter is not able to spay or neuter the animals it receives before they adopt them out"

All responsible rescue organizations spay and neuter ALL animals before adoption. And they do this on tiny shoestring budgets that are less than a fraction of the SPCA's multi-million dollar annual bank account. And the SPCA is using some of its donor's money to harass and intimidate some of these very animal groups that are doing all the real work and spending all the money where it should be spent. The SPCA spends money trying to stomp on the groups that are doing all the true animal welfare work, then it cries poor to the public while it continues to sell unaltered animals.

The SPCA gets upset when people like me point this out on a public messageboard and then it spends even more money on lawyers to make me shut up, and on mediation to discuss the bleeding obvious. Well, the animals crowded and unsterilized at the Penticton SPCA could use that money, don't you think?

I still am not sure just what there is to mediate, but I'll be there. We must keep trying, any way we can, to make the SPCA really "speak for those who cannot speak for themselves".