National Post (National Edition)
OSPCA quits role enforcing laws
TORON TO • For the first time in a century, Ontario’s animal welfare agency will no longer investigate and enforce animal cruelty laws.
In a letter Monday to Community Safety Minister Sylvia Jones, the Ontario Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals said it will not sign a new contract with the province after the current one expires at the end of March.
“The current model is just simply not working,” CEO Kate Macdonald told The Canadian Press in an interview. “This is a very significant shift in who we are and what we do.”
The letter said the OSPCA will offer a three-month transition phase, by way of contract, until June 28.
“During the transition period, we will not be accepting complaints or cases dealing with livestock,” said the letter signed by Macdonald and Catherine Macneill, the chair of the OSPCA’S board of directors.
Macdonald said the organization will shift into a support role in animal cruelty investigations, providing animal shelter, forensic evidence collection and veterinary services.
She said the OSPCA would like to see a model similar to that in New York, where the NYPD has an animal cruelty squad that leads investigations and works with the American SPCA, which handles similar support services.
“We expect to continue to be involved as a support to law enforcement agencies,” Macdonald said. “They’re going to need help and we’re the logical choice.”
The minister of community safety was not immediately available for comment.
The OSPCA has police powers — it can enforce both provincial and Criminal Code animal cruelty laws — under the OSPCA Act that became law in 1919.
Its role came into question in early January when an Ontario court found the OSPCA’S powers to be unconstitutional and gave the government a year to remedy the situation. The judge said the province erred when it gave police powers to a private organization without imposing accountability and transparency standards on the agency. The province appealed the decision.
Macdonald said the court’s ruling was the “catalyst” in its move away from animal cruelty investigations.
“The recent decision has helped us to see, truly, that enforcement is a function of government,” she said, adding community members concerned about animal cruelty should contact their local police or animal control units. Macdonald said the agency’s 65 enforcement officers will be offered jobs on the organization’s expanding animal rescue arm.
A scathing 2016 report by Kendra Coulter, a labour studies professor at Brock University, found the majority of the OSPCA officers were poorly paid, worked in the field alone often facing dangerous circumstances, and were responsible for extremely large geographic regions.