For dogs that are suffering physical distress (pain, disease, etc), the SPCA has the power and the right to seize (but only if the owner has not promptly corrected the distress).

Dogs that are living in less than perfect facilities the SPCA cannot seize at all....but it is. And why it is doing that has to be examined. Also to be examined is whether we want it to have the right to seize from less than ideal sites.

My opinion on the latter question is that I don't want it to have the right to seize from less than ideal facilites, at least not when the "lawfully correct" conditions rrequired by the SPCA are a mystery to everyone and are not formulated or published anywhere. This is the same as there being no speed limit but the law being allowed to ticket you for speeding. And if you are haven't the money to fight the ticket, the law does have the money and the lawyers and you have no chance of proving you were not speeding. That way lies tyranny and chaos and no one is safe from the law itself, a condition that exists in many third world countries, the kind where women are stoned to death.

In the West we live (with imperfections) by the Rule of Law. The Rule of Law applies equally to King and chimney sweep. (This ideal is not practiced perfectly, but it is the underpinnings of our civil society.) Elected legislators make the laws (based on what they perceive the people who vote them into power want); law enforcers enforce the law; and the courts interpret the law and decide guilt or innocence. All are separate from each other to prevent corruption and to make it possible for the chimney sweep to get as fair a hearing as a King.

If law enforcers act outside the law, the other two parts of the Rule of Law - the legislators and the judiciary - can step in and control them.

SPCA enforcers are acting outside the law in our opinion, and the other two parts have not perceived it yet, or have, but are (very humanly) hoping it will go away (like with Bountiful: our issue desperately needs a Daphne Bramham, Vancouver Sun columnist, to force action).

Giving too much power to enforcers is very dangerous for you and me. We suspect that the SPCA is in the control of the wrong people and no civil society should be glad of that.