Kendra Coulter, Associate Professor in Labour Studies, wrote a piece recently published in the National Post about the need for police enforcement of animal cruelty laws.

Coulter writes:

Who should enforce animal cruelty laws and how? This is an important question that deserves careful consideration. It has serious implications for vulnerable animals, the safety of front-line officers, victims of domestic violence and public safety overall.

Finding the best possible answer to this question has become urgent in my home province of Ontario. For a century, animal cruelty investigations have been offloaded to charities. Only crimes against animals have been treated this way.

But that’s about to change. The OSPCA has announced it will end its law enforcement work. The era of charity-based animal cruelty enforcement in Ontario is over.

In January, I launched a survey open to all adult residents in Ontario in order to take the pulse of the public at this critical time. More than 20,000 people completed the survey, a significant number and a powerful comment on the level of public interest.

The findings, along with detailed but succinct analysis and other key data, are assembled in the report A More Humane and Safer Ontario: The Future of Animal Cruelty Investigations. It is freely available at stopanimalcruelty.ca.

The results are clear. People view fighting animal cruelty as a public responsibility. They want crimes against animals to be taken more seriously by our government, law enforcers, Crown attorneys and judges.

Continue reading the full article here.