The Backwash is Beginning from the Five Dollar Decision

It has been less than two months since the infamous Five Dollar Decision put NS in the limelight. For those who are new to NS, or just newly awakened, the full news story may be found on When NIMBY gets in the way of justice .

I strongly suspect that our Premier is tired of getting emails from this middle aged granny. Its actually been some time since I've had more than a canned response from him or his office. Now that he has moved on to the greener pastures of Transportation, the task of answering my emails on behalf of the Premier no longer lands on the plate of the Hon Brooke Taylor. Instead, our new Minister of Agriculture, the Hon Mark Parent gets the dubious honor of answering emails that will very likely find their way into my blog, such as his disappointing response on the Premier's behalf to my email protesting The Five Dollar Decision:

The outcome of this recent case in Hants County has upset many animal enthusiasts. It has also drawn attention to the lack of resources the Society for Prevention of Cruelty has to manage feral and stray cats. Hopefully this will encourage more people to come forward and assist the SPCA with providing better options for the feral and stray cats in Nova Scotia.

I don't imagine my email was much different from everyone else's;

Good afternoon,
As an animal lover, I regularly visit the Nova Scotia SPCA website, www.spacns.ca . I was appalled to read their latest press release, SPCA Cruelty Case Results in $5 Fine for Killing Cat.
In one fell swoop, all the hard work that was done by your government with Bill 186 has suffered a terrible setback. Even worse, in this electronic age word of this has already sped around the continent. This is not the type of image that Nova Scotia is trying to promote with the "Come to Life" campaign.
Even worse, this represents a terrible lesson in values for children in Nova Scotia. Respect for life is the cornerstone of any ethical system worth teaching to our children. As a grandmother, I can assure you that with children, "more is caught than taught". We can talk until we are blue in the face but the lessons they really learn are not necessarily the ones we meant to teach them.
The only good lesson that could be gained from this would be if our prosecutors became well enough acquainted with animal welfare issues to understand that animal cruelty to feral and stray cats is still animal cruelty.
Thank you in advance for your time and attention
Sincerely
Janet Young
East Tremont
webmaster for www.nshomelesspets.com
Coming out of the gate it is clear that nobody read the email. I wasn't complaining about the SPCA. The issue at hand was the Five Dollar Decision and its implications.

Its been less than two months and we are already seeing the backwash from The Five Dollar Decision. A couple of days ago, I did a pet blog post for a little pup (above ) named River, who was narrowly rescued from drowning and is currently in the care of the LA Animal Shelter . At the same time, I listed nine Shar Pei Mix Pups on the site as well.

It has been confirmed this morning that these nine Shar Pei Mix Pups pictured below were rescued by ARC at four days of age from being drowned. Why is that happening? How many other helpless pets are actually being drowned because noone is there to rescue them?

The Why is pretty simple. The Five Dollar Decision set such a dangerous precedent because it announced loudly and clearly that the Nova Scotia Legal system does not take animal cruelty charges seriously. ( The need for better laws is a separate rant for a different day ... today's topic boys and girls is to apply the full existing penalties .)

To receive an email from the Min of Agriculture suggesting that The Five Dollar Decision had anything to do with the resources available to the SPCA smells as bad as the red herring it really is. IF you want our new Minister know that as a voter and a taxpayer, you do not approve of such fishy business, the appropriate email is min_dag@gov.ns.ca.

What time is it? Its time for the minority Conservative government to summon up a more suitable level of concern for the animals in Nova Scotia and recognize that the backwash from The Five Dollar Decision has only just begun.