----- Original Message -----
From: Animal Advocates
To: mltroman@ntouchcorp.com ; p_mackillop@telus.net ; rennebergv@cnc.bc.ca ; vanessa.lycos@shaw.ca ; zred@telus.net ; carla_maruyama@hermanmiller.com ; SPCA DIRECTOR Howard Gray ; tinakcr@hotmail.com ; enlepage@shaw.ca ; g-peterson@shaw.ca ; tigerbowen@yahoo.com ; kared@telus.net ; thebad3@shaw.ca ; kimby_59@yahoo.ca ; phyllisgregg@telus.net ; mthorntn@pris.bc.ca
Sent: Friday, September 03, 2004 7:35 AM
Subject: AAS has not ever, and still does not, want the destruction of the BC SPCA.

September 3, 2004

The Board of Directors,
BC SPCA

AAS has not ever, and still does not, want the destruction of the BC SPCA.

AAS has said on its web site since May 2000, that it does not want the SPCA to be destroyed. We have said that in as many as fifty posts, and hundreds of times in private emails and conversations with our supports and with other SPCA critics. We said that in a meeting with CEO Craig Daniell in January, 2003. We have written that in letters to you.

What we have said is that we will stop criticizing the SPCA when it is honest - when it does honest animal welfare and honest prevention of cruelty.

We have repeatedly said that we don't expect the SPCA to be perfect according to our lights, that there is not one perfect version of animal welfare.

We have said that if the SPCA reforms, we knew that the process would take from five to ten years and that as long as it was honest we would not demand instant change, as did other critics.

We have said that we did not expect Craig Daniell to tell the whole truth about the SPCA because that would drive away donations and we wanted the SPCA to be financially strong so that it could do honest animal welfare. We argued with other critics that Mr Daniell be allowed to cover up instances of wrongdoing that we knew of, because it was too late to undo them, and if the SPCA were destroyed, there would be nothing left for him to reform as we believed he would do until his actions in several matters were so dishonest that we lost all trust.

For a long time we did not criticize the SPCA's financial mismanagement and secrecy. We said that we believed that Mr Daniell had to have a financially strong SPCA to reform so that it could do honest animal welfare and honest cruelty prevention. We knew that though the media did not understand, or were even interested in what was wrong with the SPCA's animal welfare (the only thing that interested AAS), that the media and the public were very interested in the SPCA's finances. We did not want the SPCA to be destroyed, so we stayed out of the financial attacks that others were making. But because the SPCA continues to kill for space and lie about it, instead of discontinuing the two policies that require a lot of killing - unlimited surrender and pound contracting - we have joined other critics in informing government and media that the SPCA has not ever filed audited financial statements that the PCA Act requires, and has not filed any financial statements of any kind for 2002 and 2003.

Whenever we found anything to praise in the SPCA we praised it.

We have said over and over that the way to silence AAS is to be honest.

Even now, we still hope that the SPCA will reform, not self-destruct. By suing AAS, it is shooting just one messenger of thousands. If the AAS web site is forced to close, another will spring up.

You members of the BC SPCA Board of Directors and past boards have never chosen the only effective or intelligent way to end criticism. And now you may be self-inflicting fatal wounds on your own Society by suing AAS, its directors and its posters. You are doing this to the SPCA in the full knowledge that AAS has 50 years of documentation, a thousand pieces of evidence, and as many as one hundred witnesses who will provide the proof of everything AAS alleges because we have posted that many times. These witnesses are professionals, municipal staff and councillors, lawyers, ex-SPCA Board members, staff and volunteers, and many credible animal welfarists.

You are doing this to the SPCA knowing that, because of the actions of its CEO, the media is no longer in its pocket and has turned on it.

As one past board member said, "There is no need to attack the SPCA, just stand back and let it do the job itself".

You are doing this job yourselves, every day, especially by suing AAS. You and past boards have spent as much as $200,000 on attempts to silence AAS, and if you continue the current action, it will cost the SPCA another $200,000. This in spite of deficits the SPCA has accumulated of close to ten million dollars in the last few years of mismanagement and in spite of ruthless cuts to the care of animals in its charge and cuts to community spay/neuter programs.

AAS still does not want the SPCA destroyed. I still wants what it wanted in 2000 - an honest SPCA so that even after we are gone, we know that animals will be honestly protected from cruelty and that tens of thousands of innocent animals will not be killed by the SPCA's pet disposal and selling businesses, after suffering horribly in its grim facilities.

Unless this board comes to its senses, it will destroy the SPCA. We will be urging the Provincial government to dissolve the board and appoint a new board of directors.

Judith Stone, President,
Animal Advocates Society of BC
www.animaladvocates.com
604-984-8826