On November 2nd, the Excelsior 4 (the activists being charged for exposing animal cruelty), made their second appearance at Abbotsford Provincial Court to plead ‘not guilty’ to the total 21 charges they are facing.

Afterwards, they joined supporters at the BCSPCA head office to protest the BCSPCA's mishandling of the Excelsior animal cruelty case. The Excelsior 4 took the opportunity to engage Lorie Chortyk the BCSPCA General Manager of Community Relations. You can watch the full discussion here (20 minutes): https://www.facebook.com/416329241792696/posts/3429869017105355/

The BCSPCA continues to dodge our questions. They would rather tell an inaccurate story for the public to sympathize with them instead of having them be held accountable for their negligence intervening on animal cruelty. 

The following claims in bold have been made by the BCSPCA publicly. The bullet points following each claim are the facts from documentation received from the Abbotsford Police by Freedom of Information request. 

The BCSPCA claims they immediately investigated Excelsior Hog Farm and found no code violation.  

• The BCSPCA did not immediately investigate Excelsior. They received a complaint and video on April 23, 2019, and phoned Excelsior on April 25 to schedule an inspection for the week after.
• On May 1, after the Meat The Victims action on April 28th, the BCSPCA finally inspected part of Excelsior, but neglected to ask about any of the code violations shown on video.

The BCSPCA claims they told the confidential informant that they would turn him in if the cops asked. 

• The BCSPCA did not say this in any communications with the confidential informant. They said they would turn him in if they got a warrant, or if they needed to pass along his info in order to pursue animal cruelty charges. This is consistent with the BCSPCA's confidentiality policy, and with the BCSPCA's internal email that describes the conversations.
• The Abbotsford Police Department did not even ask for the informant's info (ie. there was no warrant). The BCSPCA took it upon themselves to call Abby PD to turn him in, breaking their own confidentiality policy. 

The BCSPCA claims the informant was “not cooperative” in confirming the validity of the full, uncut, footage that they were provided. They claim because of this, they could not pursue charges. 

• The informant was fully cooperative with BCSPCA, and has many emails to document that he reached out to the BCSPCA over and over to get updates on the file to no response.

What can YOU as a petition supporter do to help?

Ask the BCSPCA (advocacy@spca.bc.ca) to take the following action: 

• acknowledge that BCSPCA took it upon themselves to turn a confidential informant over to police despite a lack of court order, or even an informal request,
• review all the evidence that the informant provided,
• acknowledge that Excelsior Hog Farm committed multiple acts of horrific animal cruelty, including several criminal acts,
• publicly condemn Excelsior Hog Farm for their acts of animal cruelty,
• warn the industry that what Excelsior did is unacceptable, and that BCSPCA will take all action within its power to ensure that Excelsior faces some consequences, even if charges are not possible.

Photo: Tosha Lobsinger (toshalobsingerismyphotographer.com | #toshalobsingerismyphotographer)