The BC SPCA is a member of PIJAC. What, if any, complaints has the SPCA ever made to PIJAC about the way pet stores keep animals for sale? What, if any, recommendations has the SPCA ever made to PIJAC for the keeping of pets for sale? Has the SPCA sent the thousands of public complaints against pet stores that are members of PIJAC to PIJAC?

When AAS sent it proposals for the humane treatment of pups for sale in pet stores to 18 lower mainland municipalities, we were blocked by the SPCA itself. It told mayors and councils that most complaints were frivolous and the pet store owners were easy to get along with. We have no doubt that the SPCA told mayors and councils that they would "take care of this", just as it told the City of Vancouver that it would take care of the yard dog problem in Vancouver after AAS brought it to the attention of the City with our 2001 report.

The SPCA prefers donation-attracting and media-attracting seizures and charges to working behind the scenes with the pet breeding/selling industry. The SPCA has ignored approaches from dog breeding organizations wishing to draft standards so that their members can know what the SPCA considers acceptable so that they won't suddenly be destroyed by an SPCA seizure. The SPCA could have put breeding/selling standards in place decades ago and much suffering would have been avoided. Instead it defended and protected the breeding/selling industry from change and criticism....until....suddenly it began hammering them to a pulp.

First it used the vagueness of the PCA Act to say it could do nothing, then, with the advent of Craig Daniell, it used the vagueness to do anything and everything. AAS argued long ago that the PCA Act was too vague. We got shouted down by lawyers! Now at last lawyers are seeing why the PCA Act is an invitation to abuse.