LAURA DEAN, EX-SPCA DIRECTOR, SPEAKS OUT

July 29/00

To Whom It May Concern:

I have been involved in animal welfare for two and a half years. I began as a Director at the BC SPCA Penticton and District Branch. Soon after "coming on board" I was elected Vice-president of the Board. My ten plus years working as a veterinary assistant was one of the assets I brought with me to the group.

As a responsible Director I visited the shelter as often as my work schedule would allow; usually a minimum of twice a week. I would arrive unannounced and walk through the kennels and cattery. To my disgust and dismay I witnessed, on almost every visit, animal abuse and neglect within the walls of the Penticton shelter. I took the time to document the abuse/neglect and would bring my findings to the Board of Directors.

Two of the most horrific incidences occurred when some puppies had been left for over 24 hours in their own excrement. No food or water was present in their pen. On the second occasion, a cat had been brought into the shelter on a Sunday. The cat was in obvious distress and yet the staff left it to sit in a carrier for more than 1-1/2 hours.

Luckily another Director had stopped in, a rare occurrence, and instructed them to contact the vet on-call to have the animal examined. The cat was euthanised, as it was past treatment. The vet suspected poisoning. Both employees involved were given a written warning only. I pleaded with the Board to terminate the two staff members that were in charge when both of these atrocities occurred. The Board refused because they were afraid of a wrongful dismissal suit being filed against them. I told them if they chose to do nothing then I would be forced to resign. That is how I came to leave the Board of Directors. Not one other Director would stand with me. Even after I described how this neglect was violating the Act that we were supposed to be enforcing.

AAS comment: We have heard from many good people who have quit as directors of an SPCA because no one at the BC SPCA (head office) would support them. What AAS believes is that the SPCA attracts animal-users to its boards, breeders, etc - not animal-lovers. The true animal-lovers give up.

Then there was the time that the shelter manager apparently put a cat in the deep freeze or morgue before ensuring the cat was dead. He had used the CO2 box and either did not have the expertise or time to make sure that the cat had succumbed to the effects of the gas. He is reported to have put the cat in the freezer, and the next day when another staff member went to place another body in there, she found that the cat had clawed its way out of the body bag. It had tried in vain to claw its way out of the freezer as the inside of the freezer lid had been clawed and torn. That poor animal suffered an unthinkable death because of the uncaring and irresponsible actions of a man that was an ex-RCMP Staff Sergeant!!!

AAS comment: this sort of uncaring stupidity has been reported to us many times. It stands to reason that the SPCA must hire people who will kill animals for a paycheque. (see the Moral Contradiction of Pound Contracts and Betrayed). The BC SPCA has an official policy of killing all feral cats (punishing the victims) and they all kill excess dogs, especially the ones that hold pound contracts. There may be as many as 30 or more SPCA pound contracts in BC. The Vancouver SPCA alone has 18. A pound contract is a contractual ogligation to sell or dispose of stray dogs, for money. It is a clear moral contradiction of its professed purpose "to speak for those who cannot speak for themselves". They are silencing them.

During the huge wildfire in Salmon Arm in August 98, the Shuswap BC SPCA were left to deal with evacuated livestock, companion animals and their own shelter animals. The highly paid staff members at the BC SPCA's Head Office did not contact the shelter to see if they needed any additional staff, or financial support. Only after they were contacted by myself and one other Penticton Director, did they "bother" to phone the shelter. That took two days to happen and by this time the Shuswap SPCA was in the dilemma of having to evacuate the shelter and still assist others in the area to leave. Again, I was disgusted, embarrassed and shocked by the apathy and lack of caring from the Head Office staff and the Field Operations Director, Carl Ottosen, from Kamloops. If you check out the BC SPCA web site http://www.spca.bc.ca/about.htm you will see that they are taking the credit for the work of the Shuswap Branch. As an added note, it was not the BC SPCA that evacuated "smoke effected deer" as it says on the web site. It was a group called Critteraid that went up to a wildlife rehab centre and orchestrated the removal of one fawn, hawks, owls, skunks, raccoons, chickens and horses. To the best of my knowledge the 32 Branches still do not have an organized evacuation or disaster plan/policy in place.

AAS comment: this makes one wonder how much of the SPCA web site, and media releases, and mail-outs are truthful? Look again at their site, http://www.spca.bc.ca/about.htm, scroll down to "1997...dedicated to treating and rehabilitating injured wildlife" and then go to our page Trigger-Happy SPCA and read the SPCA version of helping wildlife. The SPCA often takes credit for other struggling and broke groups' hard work. Most recently, after POWER (their mandate is to get the residential tenancy act changed to allow pets in rental accomodation) worked hard and spent hard-earned money to get a test-case before the courts, and won it, and then actually got the interest of the provincial government, the SPCA waltzed in, and grabbed the spotlight and the credit. And after referring to animal "rescue" groups as disreputable, the SPCA may have decided that the term may be gaining public acceptance, and even some admiration, and maybe (horrors!) some donations, hence Stephen Huddart, Director of Community Relations, BC SPCA, in a letter to the Courier newspaper, claimed: "We rescued 2,400 animals..." Huddart also makes the interesting statement that the SPCA "responded to 20,000 complaints, 3400 of which involved allegations of abuse or neglect. That leaves 16,600 investigations that weren't about abuse or neglect. Were they to do with their obligations and duties under their pound contracts, pickingup stray dogs, making poeple buy licences, ticketing people for letting their dogs run loose in on-leash parks, telling people to silence a barking dog (by muzzling it if necessary)? No wonder the staff are too busy to clean the excrement out of cages, wash blankets, or even know what animals they have back in their grim, medieval cages.

The SPCA has also been saying, comparing themselves to real rescue groups that are doing all the real work, "We are animal welfarists - they are animal activists". Frankly, they are neither. But why aren't they animal activists? Isn't that what they were created to do - act for animals. They leave the activism for all the women who scrimp and save, and have bake sales, and go out fearfully in the middle of the night to take a dog that has suffered for years, because the SPCA DOES NOT ACT! And then they boast about it. Why aren't they animal activists?

I guess my point in telling these accounts of my time with this one shelter is to convey my feelings of disappointment and disbelief. I once held the BC SPCA in high regard. I thought that they did everything they could to prevent animals from suffering. Not only do they choose to not enforce the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act, but there are times when they have been guilty of committing offenses under that act themselves.

AAS comment: this is true. Even the way they keep animals in their "shelters" should constitute "neglect".

I cannot comment on what happens at other shelters in B.C. I only know what has been reported to have occurred and what I have witnessed first hand, at the Penticton Branch. I believe that it is time to hold the BC SPCA accountable for their obvious lack of commitment to the animals in our province. John van der Hoeven, long-time Director of Operations for the BC SPCA, (paid employee) told me that it is improper and probably illegal for them to investigate animal cruelty cases if the RCMP are investigating. This comment was made to me after I inquired why the man that beat a dog in the head with a hammer and then buried it alive, was not going to be prosecuted for animal cruelty. Mr. van der Hoeven also blames this on the Crown. Who then is responsible for seeing these cases make it to court? Isn't this what the public wants?

The BC SPCA should do the job the donating public thinks they are doing -enforcing the PCA Act. So many abused/neglected animals are falling between the cracks because the Special Constables are too busy carrying out the obligations of their pound contracts that they don't have time to properly investigate neglect and abuse complaints.

AAS comment: Indeed, they are very assiduous in carrying out their pound contract obligations and duties such as issuing fines, selling licences, stopping lonely back-yard dogs from barking, etc. They could lose the contract if they didn't.

The PCA Act is capable of helping thousands, it just needs to be consistently enforced by the society that is legally empowered to. They are paid for this job through the donations of little old ladies and young children who honestly believe that each penny or dollar they give goes to "help the animals". When they find out that this is not the case, they will be heartbroken.

Less money needs to be wasted on the salaries and expenditures at the Provincial office and the Vancouver Regional Branch. They should leave the animal control contracts to the municipalities. I applaud the efforts of Animal Advocates Society to effect change, and to establish actual "no-kill" pounds. It will take a lot of hard work, commitment and some sleepless nights. All involved must come to the table without egos, and with the welfare of the animals at the top of the list always.

Best regards,
Laura Dean
Summerland, B.C.
BC SPCA member