Ali is right and that is why I do not ever feel angry at the SPCA. I asked many years ago, how could any agency that had a monopoly, that was protected by the government with impregnable secrecy, that attracted $20 million a year, but not made by government to account for it, that had a slick P.R. department that fooled most of the media for fifty years, and whose stock in trade were voiceless animals, how could it not corrupt? It was inevitable.

I only ever wanted the corruption to end. After tracking the many times that hundreds of animal lovers had failed to end it, over many decades, by trying to change the SPCA from within, as Directors, as staff, as volunteers, and by begging and pleading, I realized that only exposing the SPCA might make it change. Keeping quiet, working "with" the SPCA, had failed absolutely. Every single person who tried to reform the SPCA from within, had failed.

A very few times, others had success making the SPCA change a policy by going to the media. For example: selling dogs and cats to UBC for research, and the use of the electrothanator to electrocute dogs to death. But only public exposure forced the SPCA to change those policies, not compassion for animals. The SPCA has only ever changed its behaviour under the threat of loss of money. And it is still doing this. Animal welfare change at the SPCA still is to protect its bottom line. There are many proofs of this, but the most obvious is that the SPCA is hanging onto its dog disposal contracts, in spite of the clear conflict of interest, and the recommendation of its 2001 Community Consultation Report to stop contracting to do dog control and disposal.

I believe that the sudden change from decades of refusing to investigate cases of horrifying cruelty, to suddenly swooping down on animal owners all over BC, is also about the bottom line. So too do the vets who see behind the SPCA's veil. The media is brought to the seizures. Press releases full of lies are put out. Now the SPCA's way to raise money is just a new version of the old way... show suffering animals to the public and say how the SPCA is preventing the suffering (now by making seizures). And then, when the media has moved on...kill any that won't make money for them. Or give them back to the alleged abuser if enough money is paid. The PCA act allows the SPCA to leave the animals where they are, while forcing onsite improvements, but if the SPCA did that, there would be no "heroic seizure" in the media to attract thousands of dollars in donations, and it could not demand more thousands of dollars in "seizure costs". In one case, in Port Alberni, the SPCA demanded over one hundred thousand dollars in "seizure costs" for dogs that were perfectly healthy and happy, and which were seized and then put into diseased SPCA cells where some of them died of SPCA-caused disease. The owner of these dogs had crossed the SPCA, and this, we believe, was her punishment: the destruction of her dogs and her life as the SPCA vilified her in the media and on its web site and destroyed her in court then sold her purebred dogs, the ones it hadn't killed by neglect that is.

(See photos of healthy animals seized by the SPCA that should have been left where they were while making the owner provide a safer environment, rather than being hauled to SPCAs where they are then killed deliberately or by neglect, or are returned on payment of outrageously inflated "seizure costs" sometimes injured, thin, and ill: http://www.animaladvocates.com/ILLEGAL-SEIZURES/healthy-seized-animals.htm)

Since AAS pointed out that the SPCA had been keeping the lowest, vilest puppymillers in business by telling them for decades that they were breaking no law, the SPCA began making grandstanding, money-making puppymill seizures, media in tow. But this change is not based on true animal welfare. The proof that this is about making money, not animal welfare, is that the SPCA has rejected offers from the BC Dog Breeders Association to write standards so that breeders know what they might have their animals seized for. The PCA Act is so vague that it allows the SPCA to decide what "suffering" is, and the SPCA has used that vagueness to seize animals that are in much better conditions than its own abysmal cells, make them sick, physically and psychologically, and then kill them, all the while telling the public through the media, what heroes they are.

Since AAS pointed out that the SPCA was (illegally) making seizures before instructing the owners to make specific improvements (as the law - the PCA Act - says it must), we notice that SPCA press releases are very careful to say that the owner was given this warning before the animals were seized.

Since AAS proved that the SPCA was killing animals it had "heroically" rescued, it has started to hide seized animals, and we hope, it has stopped killing most of them.

Since AAS pointed out that bringing the media was an infringement of a Canadian's right to be protected from unreasonable search and seizure, we notice that the media isn't being invited anymore.

Since AAS pointed out the immorality of the SPCA allowing employees and directors to breed and sell animals while the SPCA killed many thousands of excess animals a year, the SPCA changed that policy (for new employees). The policy was blatantly and clearly unethical, but only the fear of public exposure changed it.

Since AAS pointed out the SPCA lie "We don't get a penny of government money", when it got four to five million a year from municipal governments to dispose of stray dogs, we notice that it no longer claims that.

Since AAS and others began telling the provincial government that the SPCA had not, perhaps ever, filed the audited financial statements the Act says it must, the SPCA has produced an audited financial statement. The SPCA's statements still don't let one see many things, for example, how much money it spends on lawyers, but that too will be revealed one day, but only under pressure.

Since information that the SPCA had not paid vet bills for many months got to the media, even though volunteers and animal lovers had raised thousands of dollars to pay vet bills for specific animals, used in the media to get the money, the vets suddenly got paid.

Since AAS pointed out that the SPCA sells intact animals, thereby perpetuating pet-overpopulation, even while it runs ads that say that everyone ought to sterilize their pet because of the problem of pet-overpopulation, the SPCA has begun pre-sales sterilization in some branches.

Since AAS pointed out that killing pets for money was a conflict of interest for a true animal welfare organization (but a steady source of income from killing perfectly healthy unwanted pets more cheaply than vets, and a business-like use of staff trained to kill, and the tools on-site to kill), the SPCA stopped this money-maker.

Since AAS pointed out that unlimited surrender was actually a pet disposal business practice, not animal welfare as the SPCA said for decades, the SPCA has begun to practice some limited surrender.

The SPCA operates in an ethical vacuum, only reacting in a punch-drunk way to enough blows. That is why AAS has been forced to make strongly worded accusations. It is the only thing that has ever worked...and it's working.

Only when the current board and executive are gone, and replaced by intelligent animal-welfarists, whose only wish is to serve animals, and who will take the financial risks to do that, will AAS ever be silenced. This board, and this executive, have proven without any doubt, that they are not capable of understanding and implementing real animal welfare practices, for the sake of principle. They only react to pressure. Only principles can be trusted.

I started this post by saying that I am not angry at the SPCA, and that is true. I recognized long ago that the way the SPCA corrupted was inevitable. It is those that support the corruption that I reserve anger for. The MLAs who don't want to pay for prevention of cruelty and are glad to let the SPCA raise the money to do it. The MLAs who know that the SPCA has been acting against the law, but don't want to incur the wrath of gullible voters who don't understand, by investigating it. The media, who use the SPCA's P.R. to get quickie "feel good" stories without looking deeper. And the women volunteers, who have seen inside the SPCA for years, and keep quiet so that they can go on being called "rescue angels" for saving one or two animals a month from the SPCA, thereby betraying thousands.

Making the SPCA do real animal welfare is just a job, and if we don't give up, we will do it. As Ali points out, the SPCA is not the enemy, it is just a symptom.