In our society, animals are most often treated as if they are not sentient, as if they are incapable of feeling. They are considered as "things", not beings. They are seen as possessions to be utilized for entertainment and for profit. They are isolated, abused, maligned, denigrated and murdered.

In our society there is one institution that is charged with the mandate to "speak for those who cannot speak for themselves" . There is one institution charged with the mandate to act on their behalf in order to alleviate as much as their collective and individual suffering as possible. That institution is the BC SPCA . If that institution, by acts of omission and commission, fails that mandate, it must be brought to task.

I personally have witnessed the failure of that institution to stand for, to speak for, to act for, those suffering beings under its charge and care. It would seem to me to both wise and compassionate, from that institution's point of view, to seek to include its critics in its operation rather than to seek to destroy them. Destruction is neither wise nor compassionate.

As long as the SPCA is neither wise nor compassionate, especially in the fulfilling of its mandate to act on behalf of those for whom it so glibly speaks, I will stand in opposition to it. I am a grateful supporter of the Animal Advocates Society of BC. Indeed, I am a part of that Society; I am a member of its board of directors. I would sincerely like to be a grateful supporter of the BC SPCA. At this time, I cannot be.

Barry Faires,
AAS director and a defendant in the SPCA's defamation suit