Thanks to Dale McInnes and Laurie DeRycke who bought a pup from Cliff and Ellen Elliott's puppy mill four years ago and reported it to the Port Alberni SPCA and telling CHTV in Victoria, we know that Port Alberni SPCA did know about the Elliotts.

Why would the SPCA ignore this and other puppy mills for so long?

The BC SPCA has a long and ignominious history of ignoring its mandate to prevent cruelty in favour of contracts to dispose of dogs. AAS proved that so thoroughly that attempts by the SPCA to silence us failed. (Read the first attempt: http://www.animaladvocates.com/libelthreat.htm) and the second attempt: http://www.animaladvocates.com/cgi-bin/newsroom.pl/read/1937

AAS believes that investigations of cruelty were squelched in favour of money-making contracts to dispose of dogs. The SPCA got into dog control/disposal contracting fifty years ago and the legacy of this vile work is no prevention of cruelty and hard-nosed employees to carry out the contracts. (read more on how pound contracting corrupts: http://www.animaladvocates.com/pounds-moral-contra.htm)

Why raid it now?

There are a few possibilities. The best one for animals is that the new BC SPCA Manager of Cruelty Investigations sincerely wants the SPCA to prevent cruelty. But the SPCA has a history of grandstanding for the media to get donations and to deflect criticism for some of its most egregious lapses. Here are some interesting coincidences: AAS just criticised the manager of the Port Alberni SPCA for failing to use the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act and the SPCA's Five Freedoms to seize a chained pup in Tofino (read here: http://www.animaladvocates.com/cgi-bin/newsroom.pl/read/2006) and in 2001 AAS criticized the Port Alberni SPCA manager for what we believe was her mishandling of a case of a dog, bound to a boulder, that was shot (http://www.animaladvocates.com/port-albion-dog.htm). And the Kelowna SPCA just killed the last of the dogs seized by a backyard breeder in Beaverdell BC - after allowing some of the female dogs to be impregnated while in the Kelowna SPCA and selling the puppies. (http://www.animaladvocates.com/cgi-bin/newsroom.pl/read/2030). There was sure to be a fuss about that. And a lot of people are very angry about the way volunteers were diddled over the closure of the Chilliwack SPCA (http://www.animaladvocates.com/cgi-bin/newsroom.pl/read/2040).

Why claim not to have known?

AAS knows that SPCA employees, all over the province, give the same word-for-word answers in certain situations. When a complainant reports animal neglect, the SPCA says, "As long as the animal has food, water and shelter, there is nothing we can do. Our hands are tied, the law is inadequate". AAS proved conclusively that it was within the SPCA's power to define neglect, and it, not the Act, chose to narrowly define neglect only as a lack of food, water and shelter.

And when the SPCA chooses to 'target' a media-ripe puppy mill, it always says it is the worst it has ever seen and that it didn't know about it until recently.

We don't believe either of those statements. The SPCA has seen and ignored much staggering cruelty for a long time.

AAS believes this is the legacy of decades of pretending to prevent cruelty while doing animal disposal. It is the legacy of not building case history of animal neglect and abuse in BC courts. It is the legacy of not bringing thorough reports to Crown so that charges could be laid and cases prosecuted. It is the legacy of not showing crown prosecutors and the courts what the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals considers cruelty and neglect to be.

Why is AAS "picking on" the SPCA? Because if the SPCA is truly reforming, the first reform it must make is to its ingrained habit of not telling the truth. No one can trust it. No one should trust it - not until it can be trusted. And it can't be trusted until it admits that it is only just now beginning to prevent cruelty to animals - if in fact it is honestly trying to prevent cruelty and not just grandstanding for donations and to deflect attention away from some of the things it is not doing - and worse, some of the things it is doing, such as the Beaverdell fiasco (see this topic at http://www.animaladvocates.com/cgi-bin/newsroom.pl/read/2030)

Fifty years of the dog control/disposal business and fifty years of open-surrender, no questions asked of pet dumpers, and free pet disposal, led to a lot of deceit and hard-nosed animal-disposing employees.

The SPCA would like AAS to trust it, but that is not possible, not as long as the employees, at the branch level and the head office level, are still "misrepresenting" the truth.

We have said many times, that if the SPCA is truly trying to reform, the first thing it must stop doing is lying. The manager of the Port Alberni SPCA could have been told to say, "We have known about this puppy mill for some time but we did not feel we would be successful in prosecuting it until now. We are very glad to be prosecuting it now."

AAS would have been very glad to hear the SPCA say that. We do not relish the job of holding the SPCA's feet to the fire forever.