I applaud your articles on the OSPCA in your April issue. I have seen first-hand the destruction that this organization can wreak on innocent civilians with its overzealous behaviour. A close friend, whose animals I saw the morning they were seized went through two and a half years of hell and financial ruin because of the OSPCA. What you didn’t cover in your article is the legal and emotional cost -- $35,000- 45,000 is the going rate when innocent civilians summon the courage to defend themselves in court.
Your article couldn’t show how my friend cried every day for two and a half years, was afraid to go out in public, had people passing her house and parking, then scrambling away when she investigated or the hang-up calls and the posts on “animal rights” Web sites across Canada and the United States. The list goes on. Do these inspectors ever think of the people whose lives they are ruining? Just for a moment, imagine your life, after being charged with “animal cruelty.”
It’s not fair that this organization has unlimited power. It’s not right that in Canada, innocent people can be subjected to a private living hell and destruction of the very fibres of their being with little regulation from above. My poor friend still doesn’t leave her home for long, and her livelihood has been ruined.
Just for the record, her case was thrown out of court. But that doesn’t mean that the general public, who read the “press releases” (which were utter rubbish) doesn’t think she is an animal abuser. And why doesn’t the newspaper check on the facts in these press releases? Maybe because no one has (yet) challenged them in court. But who could afford to? Why were the donation cups out for months after the animals were returned?
I’d like to see the government step in and make some changes. This organization has a good reason to exist, but there should be some regulation because, in Canada, animal-loving owners should not have to look over their shoulder.
And the next time you read a “press release,” perhaps think carefully before deciding the guilt or innocence of the owner. Because you might be next.
Penny Nicol,
Bancroft
Senior Staff Editor
Don Stoneman
87 Queen St. East
Cambridge, Ontario
N3C 2A9
phone: 519-654-9106 fax: 519-654-9357
email: dstoneman@betterfarming.com