I am a Burnaby resident and former pound manager for the Cities of Vancouver and Coquitlam. I am very disturbed by Mayor Derek Corrigan’s recent comments that “it’s always difficult to assess the legitimacy of complaints”. Burnaby was presented with colour photographs, x-rays, dates, times, places and names? What additional evidence did they need?

Obviously Burnaby considered the complaint legitimate. Under the terms of the Burnaby/SPCA contract the alleged abusive employee was removed from the Burnaby Pound. The SPCA saw fit to transfer the employee to another municipality, possibly allowing the cruelty to continue. How could a Society that is given the power to prevent this cruelty, allow it to continue under its own roof at the hands of its own employees? At very least the employee should have been terminated. More appropriately, charges laid. This Society and its employees investigates cruelty daily, yet don’t recognize it when dispensed by its own hand?

I sat on SPCA task forces with regards to euthanasia and spaying/neutering. After countless hours of meetings, nothing changed. All talk, a fistful of excuses, and no action. The usual excuse is lack of money. Lack of money rarely stops the right thing being done. Where there is a will, there is a way.

Having money causes a whole new set of problems! Building a monster that needs to be fed. Feed the monster or fix the problem? Unfortunately, the people making the decisions don’t realize that they are the "monster".

The SPCA has policing power, yet is privately funded through donation dollars. A cheap yet ineffective way for the government to deal with the problem of animal cruelty.

It’s time to fix the problem. Take the power from the SPCA. Form a provincial department responsible for investigating animal cruelty and establishing standards of animal care. Then hold the SPCA to these standards, as they currently do all other animal rescue groups.

Barbara Fellnermayr,
Burnaby resident
Former pound manager (Vancouver & Coquitlam)