On December 2, 2002, the BC SPCA seized over 100 animals kept in conditions of physical and social abuse from an animal hoarder in Kaslo BC.

AAS received information about this person more than a year ago and was told by our informant that the SPCA had been begged to relieve the suffering of these animals for several years, perhaps as long as five years. Appeals to the SPCA from witnesses were met with the SPCA's stock answer: "As long as the animals have food, water and shelter there is no law being broken, there is nothing we can do". This answer has worked for many years to silence the thousands of people begging the SPCA for help, by its seeming finality.

Of course there was a law being broken - the SPCA's own Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act which does not say that a lack of food, water and shelter is the only definition of neglect. (PCA Act:http://www.animaladvocates.com/pca.htm.) In fact the Act permits the SPCA to decide what constitutes neglect, and the Act could have been used to seize these animals long ago, and to seize the hundreds of thousands of other animals that have suffered in equally bad (and worse), conditions of physical want and mental cruelty. In BC, animal neglectors and abusers have had carte blanche to do their evil for a long time. (See an independent legal opinion on the scope of the PCA Act: http://www.animaladvocates.com/lawyers-opinion.htm)

The SPCA's dereliction of its duty to enforce the PCA Act, and its concentration on money-making dog disposal contracts with municipalities (pound contracts), is fully documented on the AAS web site beginning: http://www.animaladvocates.com/spca.htm. We show that the Act had been misrepresented by the SPCA for many years, and we show that the SPCA admitted as much when it told the BC government (1998) that the Act was adequate and did not need amending (as AAS had asked the government to do) , and again when it said in 2001 (at meetings held with the City of Vancouver), that the definition of neglect in the Act was adequate to seize for social neglect and it did not need to be amended. The proof that it could have used the Act for years is that it is using the Act now.
(See a lawyer's opinion on the PCA Act: http://www.animaladvocates.com/lawyers-opinion.htm)

What has changed? Why did the SPCA seize the Kaslo animals? The law has not changed. Has the SPCA changed? And if it has, is it real change, or is the Kaslo seizure just more money-making grandstanding?

Craig Daniell, who is now the BC SPCA's General Manager, Cruelty Investigations, headed the investigation of the Kaslo case which resulted in the seizure. Mr Daniell was the Cruelty Investigator for the Ontario SPCA, and is a lawyer.

This is very encouraging. A lawyer will know how to investigate with a view to writing a report to Crown that will result in charges being laid, will know how to get convictions, and how to build case law. He will know his way around the courts and can even be used to prosecute privately, if Crown will not lay charges.

This is the kind of employee who is worth paying well - if in fact the SPCA is at last serious about using the law to prevent cruelty. Time will tell, but in the meanwhile - congratulations BC SPCA and Craig Daniell.