© 2002 |
Edited: Dec 8/02 |
Animal
Advocates of B.C. An all-volunteer registered charitable organization dedicated to rescuing and rehabilitating animals that official agencies will not help.
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THE FIGHT FOR REAL
ANIMAL WELFARE IN BRITISH COLUMBIA- |
HOW POUND CONTRACTS CAN CORRUPT |
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Fifty years ago the BC SPCA got into dog control contracts, all over the province. These are contracts to round up and dispose of stray and dangerous dogs. They require absolutely that the contractor kill the dogs that aren't claimed, aren't sold, or are legally too dangerous to sell. That is what a pound contract is. THE SPCA BUILDS A POUND
CONTRACTING BUSINESS EMPIRE No pound kills no dogs. Not even the pounds that claim to be no-kill. Every municipality legally must protect its citizens from the danger of loose and/or dangerous dogs. No municipality will give its pound unlimited money to build an endless number of kennels to keep an endless number of unwanted, unsold dogs in. Nor can a pound ever say "We are full, we have no room, we will not take anymore dogs", because legally the pound must take stray and dangerous dogs. Under a pound contract there is no such thing as "no room" - the contractor must make room. And the only way to make room is to kill the unsellable. All pounds kill. And municipalities must pay someone to do this. This is what we believe the SPCA has been quietly doing for fifty years, without admitting it, in fact has been denying it, and this is why AAS believes that the SPCA has been behaving dishonestly for fifty years. That is the money the SPCA went after, and in fifty years it built a huge pound-contracting business. AAS has asked for several years to be told the number of municipalities the SPCA contracts with. The SPCA will not tell us. They quite rightly understand that this information, if made public, would absolutely expose them for what they are - paid dog-disposers. The SPCA kept up an image in the media and with appeals for donations of compassionate animal welfare while taking money (3-4 million a year) to "dispose of" unwanted dogs. It even went so far as to say publicly, over and over, that it did not get a penny of government money. That is not true.* But it worked, and for fifty years the animal-loving public of BC kept sending millions to the SPCA never knowing that the white hat of animal welfare was traded for the black hat of dog disposal contracts behind closed doors. Almost entirely ignored in favour of the growth of a pound contracting empire were the promotion of animal welfare, humane education, spay and neuter, lobbying for improved laws, controls on puppy mills and back yard breeders, and most importantly, the prevention of cruelty and the prosecution of animal abusers. * Taxpayers pay for the pound contracts that are the reason an SPCA will pick up a stray animal. We have tracked a long history of the SPCA refusing to pick up animals where it doesn't have a contract that pays it to. Every municipality has to have a pound to collect and impound and dispose of stray dogs. It can run its own, as in Vancouver and New Westminster (where the SPCA will not pick up stray animals), or the municipality can pay a pound contractor to do it, and in about 50 BC municipalities (the SPCA refuses to tell AAS how many pound contracts it has), the SPCA is the paid pound contractor. POUND CONTRACTING IS CORRUPTING The SPCA says it got into pound contracting because it disposed of dogs more humanely than other private contractors. AAS disproved this by getting the evidence of the SPCA's use of a horrifying dog-killing machine, the electrothanator. (read about electrothanators, click here) And the SPCA's own penitentiary style concrete dog cells, dirty, cold, lonely and frightening, with no blankets, beds, toys or exercise is further proof that it was just warehousing dogs. Pound contracting is the antithesis of animal welfare because it absolutely requires the killing of dogs and a bottom-line business attitude. Real animal-lovers could not do it. Getting into pound contracting was a business-savvy decision. The SPCA already had the tools to euthanize and the staff trained to euthanize. From a bottom line perspective, it makes perfect sense. But it can corrupt. Over time the
SPCA had to hire employees who were willing to kill excess and unwanted animals without
objecting that the bosses didn't appear to be doing anything to stop the flood of animals
that the employees were killing. This led to two things: unionized pound
employees and a lot of deceit. The deceit was so pervasive that the SPCA allowed its
employees to openly breed and sell dogs and cats; the employees' day jobs paid them
to kill excess dogs and cats and their side jobs paid them to breed and sell more. And
while the SPCA ran glib little ads urging everyone to have their pet spayed or neutered,
(that it can point to as "proof" that it is concerned about
pet-overpopulation) the SPCA was selling thousands of intact breeding animals and allowing
its employees to breed and sell. The SPCA hid this as much as possible from the
donating public. |
© 2002 |
Edited: Dec 8/02 |
