The reason given for refusing the grant by the mayor of Nanaimo was, "scandalous misuse of funds at the provincial level."

Scepticism about the once-admired SPCA is wide-spread and spreading wider, and not just among politicians. The media is not the SPCA's lap dog anymore, at least not in Vancouver and the Lower Mainland, where it counts. In 2002 the media were all over the story of one CEO's salary of over $204,000. In November 2003, the Province newspaper was only one of the major media that reported deficits of $2.6 million in 2001, $4.5 million in '02 and an expected $3 million. The SPCA did this to itself. It is required by law to produce audited financial statements to the provincial government, but it didn't for no one knows how many decades. Only after a campaign in the media and to government did the SPCA finally produce an audited statement for 2003. Anyone who hears that the SPCA was not producing audited statements is bound to mistrust it.

Did Nanaimo council ask the SPCA for an accounting of how the last grant was spent? That seems likely. Was the SPCA able to produce an accounting? As we know, it hasn't in the past. Perhaps the mayor is just basing his refusal on the SPCA's own behaviour. Paper announcements of new animal welfare policies aren't going to change deep mistrust.