Lynn wrote: "Pound Contracts are the BCSPCA bread and butter. It is one of the last stable sources of revenue."

The SPCA always justified building a dog-disposal pound contracting empire by saying that it gave it a presence in many communities that allowed it to educate, to enforce the PCA act, and help other animal species, not just dogs. But of course it did no such thing. It did take in many other species, but just like with dogs, it killed the ones it couldn't sell. And it did no education, in fact it sided with animal abusers against the animal-lover reporting the abuse. It gave out or rented traps so that people could trap feral cats which it then killed immediately. And they denied abused animals any help under the PCA act by prostituting its meaning so that they never had to move their butts to help a suffering animal. Driving around in the SPCA van looking for dog owners to ticket was more fun.

But what it did provide was a place, usually free, provided by the municipality's taxpayers, from which to pretend it was doing animal-welfare and to get a lot of donations. The ex-boss of the Vancouver SPCA's pound business said that the Coquitlam SPCA attracted $2 million a year in donations.

The contracts were not necessarily very rich, but they paid the salaries and the expenses of running a pound and the millions in donations they attracted were gravy.

So the SPCA was not doing pound contracting so that it could do so many other wonderful things, and it allowed donators to believe that when they made a donation it was staying at their SPCA, when in fact every penny went into Vancouver head office revenues (and a lot ended up in the CEO of the Vancouver SPCA's pockets in the form of a $204,000 yearly salary to say nothing of the travel and vehicles and other perks).

AAS does not wish to see the BC SPCA go broke. And we don't want to see it go under. But currently it looks very much like it is spending most of its money on more head office staff, more salaries, more travel, more lawyers, and more consultants. We are anxiously waiting for signs that the SPCA understands that it can never again get away with the deceit it practiced for fifty years, and to start putting animals first. The SPCA is spending money like water when it should have decided to tighten its belt, practice some short-term self-sacrifice and win the respect of the public honestly, instead of with glitzy media appeals.