ANIMAL ADVOCATES SOCIETY OF BC - THE DESTRUCTION OF THE VANCOUVER SPCA

From Dr. Dear, veterinarian, Past President, Vancouver Regional SPCA,

The Sun, letters, August 25/01

An apology, for the animals’ sake.

"Sometimes when one prays, “Thy will be done,” one gets crushed (Critics forced SPCA to act, Letters, Aug. 21). One’s intentions might have been good, but one’s comprehension was not.

As acting president at the time Doug Hooper, the former executive director of the SPCA’s Vancouver regional branch received his salary increases, I have to accept responsibility for the inappropriate remuneration.

Thanks be to God that, working through some people within the B.C. Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (especially Doug Brimacombe, the chief executive officer, and Michael Steven, the president) and some people without (the Animals Advocates Society and the Vancouver Humane Society), a whole new energy and direction – with significant restructuring – is taking place within the SPCA.

The animals will rejoice.

I apologize to those on both sides whom I have disappointed."

M.G. DEAR
Past President
B.C. SPCA Vancouver Regional Branch

August 25/01,
The Letters Editor,

The Vancouver Sun,

In my opinion, Dr Dear, long-time President of the Vancouver Regional SPCA, had to take the second hit in the BC SPCA's tactics to dismantle the Vancouver Regional SPCA and take their power and money. The first "arranged" casualty was Douglas Hooper, CEO, for his $203,500 salary. But an explanation was needed as to how this could have happened, and so Dr Dear (who is only one of those responsible, but is most directly responsible) had to be sacrificed too. It looks like this affecting admission of guilt is the price Dr Dear had to pay to escape prosecution. Notice how he thanks and absolves the men who exacted his touching mea culpa, deflecting inquiry into their parts in this: Michael Collin, who replaced Dear as the president of the Vancouver Regional SPCA; Douglas Brimacombe, the CEO of the BC SPCA, Michael Steven, the president of the BC SPCA; and both boards of the Vancouver SPCA and the BC SPCA and the financial officers.

Dear and the SPCA are ludicrously transparent - in the proper meaning of the word - to be seen through easily.

We can attest that Dr Dear was begged many times for many years by many people to make the SPCA help animals. These people begging him to help animals were all women who didn't understand what the SPCA's agenda was. As long as these women were baffled, the SPCA was safe. As for his plea that he doesn't know business? He is a businessman. He owns his own veterinary clinic. And as for his naming Animal Advocates Society as one of the agencies changing the SPCA? The SPCA tried to silence and sue Animal Advocates for insisting that change be made - the only organization that did all the work of investigation, documentation and exposure, said everything, and took all the hits.

Below is some recent correspondence from an ex-SPCA employee, just one of many such letters Animal Advocates receives frequently, because we had the brains and the bravery to figure out the SPCA and to speak out through our web site when all the other groups carefully kept quiet and didn't get involved in controversy.

Judy Stone,
President, Animal Advocates Society of BC
(Printed by the Sun, severely edited)

LETTERS

Scrutiny of SPCA dealings long overdue

Sept 5/01
The Vancouver Courier: (in response to the Courier article Vancouver Courier, august 29-01 Re SPCA

The Courier is to be commended for its continuing investigation into the SPCA ("SPCA may cut workers, reduce shelter numbers," Aug. 29). Thank goodness one member of the media isn't letting this story die.

It's good to see that Michael Steven, the president of the B.C. SPCA, and a lawyer, is now saying that, "It's not a universally held belief we should be involved in animal control." This statement confirms that he is coming around, at last, but it was only a few months ago that he was trying to sue Animal Advocates Society for saying so and saying why.

Pound contracts to do animal control are a blatant moral contradiction for an agency that purports to be an animal welfare organization. Pound contracts corrupt.

A pound contract is a contractual obligation to collect and impound stray dogs, which can be disposed of in one of three ways: returned to the owner if claimed, or if not claimed, sold or killed. And if a pound is full, and more strays come in, then dogs are killed to make room. It's not rocket science. So - many of the SPCA's "shelters" were really pounds and the SPCA was the dog-catcher - for money.

We've been saying for a long time that the SPCA is involved in animal control because control pays money, and does so little animal welfare because animal welfare costs money.

Steven says the SPCA got into animal control because, "It gives us... an opportunity to have control handled in a humane way." We have so much documented evidence that the SPCA often did not do control in a humane way that they weren't able to sue us. (Read about the SPCA's "humane euthanasia", click here)

We hope reporter David Carrigg finds out who cut that deal with the union. And if the SPCA is going to be open, accountable and transparent in the future, as CEO Douglas Brimacombe has said, Mr. Brimacombe should start by revealing his own salary.

Judy Stone,
President,
Animal Advocates Society of BC

Letters Editor,
Vancouver Sun
August 25/01

I have great deal of trouble accepting Dr. Michael Dear's apology for betraying the animals by approving Hooper's salary, paid by unknowing benefactors. How can a highly educated man who runs his own veterinarian clinic plead ignorance of financial matters? Not just disappointed, I am furious.
Kimberley Brower
(Long-time Vancouver SPCA volunteer)

The Letters Editor,
The Vancouver Sun,
August 29/2001

Another revealing article about the BC SPCA was printed in the Courier today, and again I am left wondering why this type of information has not been covered by the Sun. Vancouver Courier, August 22-01 Re SPCA, Vancouver Courier, august 29-01 Re SPCA

The Courier article says that in the SPCA contract with the Union, there is a provision that the SPCA must bid on any animal control contract that comes up. Union president and SPCA employee Jeff Lawson states that if the SPCA does not continue to bid on these pound contracts, then the Union will file a grievance.

Other animal groups have already been pressing the SPCA to stop bidding on pound contracts and to instead focus on the reason the SPCA was founded - animal welfare. It is a direct conflict of interest for them to continue with pound contracts where they kill animals, at the expense of the welfare and advocacy work they're supposed to be doing.

It seems obvious by Jeff Lawson's threat, that the Union has far too much control over the BC SPCA, and that it has turned the SPCA into something other than a true non-profit organization where animals come first. A judicial inquiry is what's needed for the BC SPCA to undergo any meaningful reform, that's not just window-dressing for the donating public's benefit.

E.Vandewetering