AAS has posted a number of times on its site that we don't object to good SPCA managers and good employees being paid well - in fact we have said before and say now that we believe good managers and employees deserve and must be paid well. We did agree that the $204,000 plus untold perks, paid at one time to the CEO of the Vancouver SPCA, was excessive. We asked how much the other Vancouver SPCA management employees were being paid, especially the Manager of the Vancouver SPCA's huge dog control contracting arm, but that information was kept secret.

The BC SPCA is a $20 million dollar a year organization with approximately 300 employees and 30+ branches. There is still no complete consistency in policy among the branches: for example some branches sterilize all animals pre-sales and some don't. (That is one of the most disturbing policies still practiced by the BC SPCA.) It is up to the Board of Directors to direct that all animals be sterilized before being sold. Yet despite of an announcement by the Board's CEO of the goal of full compliance by the year 2004, the Board cannot have directed that pre-sale sterilization must be policy at every branch. This inconsistency is just one thing that would make running any organization difficult.

Another is the inconsistency of two conflicting BC SPCA policies: It is both an animal welfare organization and a pet disposal business. The BC SPCA is not the only organization juggling these two balls: in fact, it is common practice for animal welfare organizations to branch into animal control, because they already have the kennels and cages (pounds) and employees trained in pet disposal: the impounding, the selling, and the killing of unwanted pets.

These animal control contracts with municipalities require the SPCA to protect the public from dogs, killing dogs that the courts or the SPCA itself has deemed a potential danger. The SPCA uses a highly questionable test (even world-famous dog expert Dr Stanley Coren has criticized it) to justify why it has killed a dog. Protecting people from dogs is not in the SPCA's mandate - its mandate is to protect dogs from people. The SPCA has not followed its own 2001 Community Consultation Report to end this conflict by ending its dog control business. No one likes the dog-catcher and being the dog-catcher has created the majority of much anger and ill-will toward the SPCA. This policy is also one reason that hundreds of competing animal welfare groups have arisen. The SPCA could have kept the whole animal welfare market for itself if it had only followed a pure animal welfare policy.

Other policies that vary from branch to branch are what to do with excess cats and how much pre-sales home screening is done. Inconsistent policies seem to be a cause of complaint from good employees who quit because of lack of direction. We don't envy anyone trying to run the BC SPCA and we don't object to salaries that reflect the hard work that it clearly would take to run such a large organization with policies that conflict and cause discord in employees and the public. Policies that conflict make the SPCA very hard to run indeed and anyone who does this well is entitled to be paid well.