Mr Daniell has not hesitated to seize thousands of puppymill dogs and cattle, even though the dogs and cattle sometimes die of neglect at the hands of the SPCA because it does not have the ability or knowledge or training to take humane care of these seized animals. But big seizures = big media coverage = big hero status = big donations. Removing one chained dog at a time is unlikely to interest the media. And so chained dogs are left to rot or be illegally removed, almost always by a terrified woman at her own expense.

Under previous CEO Douglas Brimacombe, the SPCA spent itself into a multi-million dollar hole and Mr Daniell's grandstanding seizures have helped to dig the SPCA out of that hole. But are they always, or even often, morally right? Are they often even lawful? Or is the SPCA misusing the justice system to enrich itself at the expense of the lives of the animals it seizes and the lives of innocent people it publicly vilifies and financially destroys? These are questions that government is going to be asked. No one is safe from uncontrolled police. The public, the courts, and legislators have a jaundiced view of the behaviour of the police and for good reason - the police have shown themselves too often to manipulate their power in dangerous ways. The courts watch the behaviour of the police closely and clamp down on its misuse of the law, especially when it ignores Canadians' rights to reasonable search and seizure.

But the courts and legislators have yet to awake to the possibility that the uncontrolled, unwatched, unaccountable BC SPCA needs the same oversight as do the police. That must change, and we are going to try to change it.

The government decided over one hundred years ago that the SPCA had to raise the money itself to enforce the PCA Act. That is why the SPCA was created within the PCA Act - not the other way around as so many think. The government is getting animal cruelty enforcement for free and it is unlikely to want to assume the millions it costs. But having to raise the money itself with no oversight, was, in our opinion, an invitation to corruption.

The government must, at the very least, remove the SPCA's exemption from FOI inquiries, and create an oversight body. Currently, complainants can only complain to the SPCA - government refuses to listen. Victims of the SPCA's enforcement must pay a lawyer to defend them when most of them have no money. And when lawyers are hired, they are failing to inform themselves of the SPCA's tactics and therefore courts are not being informed. All this must change.