Dear BC SPCA,

For two years AAS has been trying to help you to become a true animal welfare Society.   We realized that not all of you, especially not all the presidents and directors, knew what the executive of their Society had done to the British Columbia Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals in the last fifty years, since it became a private pound contractor. (To see why pound contracting is corrupting, click here)

Some of the presidents and directors knew very well, and some, who had a duty to know, did not inquire. (Read more ) Some of the BC SPCA executive who had created the human-serving, animal-neglecting SPCA are still in charge.  And the BC SPCA is still choosing p.r., grandstanding, and dissembling over telling the truth, admitting mistakes, and taking the high road. (Read more soon)

We collected the evidence that forced you to say you would reform and presented it to the public on this web site that we built for that express purpose (Read more.)  You tried to stop us with threats of legal intimidation but it didn't work (Read more.)

Our advice to you has not altered in those two years.  It is:

Get out of sheltering/reselling/shuffling:  AAS advises you to let municipalities do the control of dogs  work (and pet-shuffling if they want to) and concentrate on prevention of cruelty enforcement, advocacy, and education.  AAS said this several years ago - that you should not even operate reselling centres   that you should be the drafter of standards for pounds and shelters and enforce those standards, but you should not be in the animal-reselling business.  AAS has said over and over, that sheltering is corrupting; that sooner or later any shelter will have to kill an animal (for being dangerous or just unwanted) because no shelter has endless space and endless money, but if it says it is humane humane, it will have to hide this fact, and that leads to lying and deceit and secret killing. We believe that you  know that sheltering leads easily and almost inevitably to pound contracting (staff already trained to dispose), and pound contracting is the antithesis of animal welfare because it absolutely requires the killing of some dogs.  This is why "sheltering" corrupts, and we believe that it corrupted you.
Read more about how corrupting open shelters and pet shuffling is, click here ,and the story of Odie who just barely survived the crowded SPCA "shelter" system, click here

Get out of taking owner-surrendered pets:  You have boasted for decades that you have "open shelters" (which sounds so compassionate and caring),  when in fact open shelters must kill to make room as no shelter has endless space and money.  You enable pet-dumpers to behave irresponsibly, taking their unwanted pets and reselling or killing them, and then, to the  public and media, you blame these "irresponsible" pet owners for you having to kill so many animals.  You kill so many animals because you choose to.  You could choose to never kill another animal. You could have chosen at any time to amend your bylaws so that you could say to pet-dumpers, "Sorry - we are full and we will not kill an animal in our care to make room for yours - you will have to rehome or kill your pet yourself because that is all we will do.  If we take your pet some other pet is going to have to take the long walk down the hall, and we won't do that".  But you will only be able to stop disposing of society's cast-off animals if you stop being "open".
Read more on what is wrong with taking owner-surrendered pets, click here

Get out of killing for cash - Anyone can walk into an SPCA and pay to have their pet killed, no questions asked, even if it is healthy and rehomable, even sometimes if the "owner" has no proof that the animal being killed belongs to them.  AAS proved this. We don't believe that anyone who likes animals would do this, but employees who routinely kill animals are used to killing and the SPCA has had the tools and the trained staff so it makes perfect sense that it would provide this revenue-generating "service" click here

Get rid of employees who are trying to force you to stay in the dog-disposal and killing for cash businesses -  It is these employees' behaviour, their treatment of animals and the public, who revealed your true agenda to even the most believing SPCA supporter.  They are fighting to protect their 300 jobs to dispose of dogs under contracts, using the gullible media and anyone who will help them to go on providing what they call "services".  They don't say what all these services are, allowing the media and the public to think they are talking about animal welfare services, when they are actually talking about their animal disposal service jobs. (Read more, click here)

Don't worry - you'll still all be handsomely paid:  You do not have to have pound contracts or so many "shelters", for head office staff to continue to make handsome salaries.  If you rid yourselves of your facilities   you could rid yourself of all the staff who are such a p.r. liability, all the huge overhead, the constant complaints from the public about how you operate your facilities, the anger from the real animal-welfare community, the terrible press and damage to your reputation that you brought upon yourselves.

Write the standards to make pounds and shelters humane: As AAS said long ago, the SPCA should have standards for pounds and shelters added to the PCA act and the SPCA should be paid by the provincial government to enforce the standards. We know that no provincial government is going to pay for this anytime soon, but it should be a goal of the SPCA. The SPCA's own pound and shelter standards are so appallingly bad that it will be able to spot a bad shelter easily. In the meantime, the SPCA should be divesting itself of pound contracts, and of most shelter facilities. 

Just try telling the truth: In 2001, when AAS refused to be scared by threats of personal ruin to take down our web site and promised to keep posting more evidence of SPCA self-serving and deceit if it didn't reform, and the SPCA backed down and said it would reform, the SPCA had an opportunity to straighten up an d fly right; to admit to past errors and to commit to ethical animal welfare in the future.

Stop blaming the public for behaviour you enable and encourage: click here

Build one state-of-the-art centrally-located shelter, rehabilitation centre and clinic:  The SPCA must have a least one shelter in which to house seized animals.  We recommend that it build one state-of-the-art shelter for all species, located in the lower mainland.  That way, the SPCA can concentrate resources: animal  rehabilitators (especially dog trainers), volunteers, species experts, in one place.  The real experts in the field of animal rehabilitation are very few, no matter how many people call themselves that. This "true" SPCA shelter would take only truly "rescued" (seized) animals.  The independent pet rehomers, who dedicate themselves to rehoming pets, can take the owner-surrendered animals if they want to, but the SPCA would have to write standards for these people too, not all of whom are doing honest animal welfare. Trying to provide rehabilitation shelters for animals in several centres in the province is unworkable as there are so few resources.  And the expense and logistics of several shelters is a drain on finances and P.O. staff that is counterproductive for animals.  This facility would have a state-of-the art vet clinic, for the animals in rehabilitation and in the SPCA's charge - only, not for the public.

Judy Stone,
President, Animal Advocates Society of BC