Your series on the Ontario SPCA (Better Farming, April 2006) brings to light some of the many ongoing difficulties the farming community has faced with this agency over the years. There is nothing new about the problems with the OSPCA and the system under which it operates. They just aren’t widely known by the public. For nearly 20 years, groups such as the Ontario Federation of Agriculture and Ontario Farm Animal Council (OFAC) have pushed for change.
As a private entity, the OSPCA has the right to advocate its own views in their policies and publications. Past attempts to modify some of their extreme views on farming have only had limited success.
But the OSPCA is more than a service and advocacy group. It is a charitable organization granted powers through provincial legislation to enforce the federal Criminal Code. It is partially financed by government to do this. Yet legislative changes in recent years have given the OSPCA more power without added -- and much needed -- public accountability and controls. It is no wonder then that charges and warrants are up sixfold since 2000 and that we are hearing more complaints from animal owners.
And more change is coming. The province’s Good Government Act, introduced last spring, has little in the way of OSPCA changes to control their conduct. Meanwhile, Criminal Code changes, stuck in Parliament, will make OSPCA charges easier.
Farmers also have a responsibility to themselves to know the laws and the powers of the OSPCA. They need to pay attention to what is happening in the whole area of animal law. And they need to know their recourse, as lacking as it is, when wrongly treated.
The system is indeed broken but the solution won’t be found in the Alberta or Manitoba models. Fixing the problems will take a “made-in-Ontario” overhaul of the entire enforcement system.
Leslie Ballentine,
Ballentine Communication Group,
Toronto
Editor’s Note: Leslie Ballentine is the former public affairs director of the Ontario Farm Animal Council.
Write to:
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