The SPCA has known about Van Dongen's severe neglect of animals for three decades. If the SPCA has received less than a thousand complaints about Van Dongen, we'd be very surprised. It finally did something in the 1980's but then permitted him to continue to neglect animals.

In April of 1998 a report about horses on one of Mr Van Dongen's several properties (link below) was sent to the SPCA.

Prior to Mr Daniell's hiring by the BC SPCA as Manager of Cruelty Investigations in November of 2002, there was only a pretence of prevention of cruelty. Now animals in distress are at last being spoken for by the BC SPCA.

There are many other areas where the SPCA has been dishonest for decades which also need to be addressed: animal control and open surrender for example. We hope that the BC SPCA will see what is still wrong and what must be changed as clearly as Mr Daniell saw what changes he had to make.

Mr Daniell told AAS that if the BC SPCA did not prevent cruelty, he would be gone. The exposure of the animal-using SPCA and its reform meant that enough directors saw what was wrong and gave Mr Daniell his head. So there is hope for the BC SPCA....