Tuesday, June 2, 2009

Globe and Mail on Toronto Humane Society part 3

Part 3 of The Globe and Mail's exposé on the Toronto Humane Society is out.

A humane society that’s short on shelter

I hope the board members who elected Tim Trow into the office of the president are reading these articles.

I hope the general voting membership who voted in the THS board members are reading these articles.

I hope the general public who support the THS with their donations are reading these articles.

The emotions these articles have imparted in its readers runs pretty high. Let's hope these emotions lead to a sustained effort to push for improvements at the Toronto Humane Society.

I caught the article probably just as soon as it came out, around 12 midnight last night. I read it through to the end and then noticed that there was a comment posted. If you've been following the articles, you'll probably have noticed that comments have been disabled for the whole series - and I can understand why given the nature of the stories - but I guess because the disable button hadn't been hit yet by the on-line editors, here was posted one lone statement from a reader.

I don't remember the full extend of the comment, and even if I did, I wouldn't publish it here, but to give you an idea, I think there was one sentence which used the words "fecal matter", "feed tube" and "Trow" together in a phrase. Colourful indeed.

A minute later when I went back to write a comment of my own, the editors had hit the switch and disabled comments and even that first one that was up was no longer visible.

9 comments:

Social Mange said...

IMHO, there are several things wrong at THS. The board seems to have abdicated its responsibility (for which they should be held accountable), and Mr. Trow appears to have confused responsibility and authority. There appears to be an excess of emotion in management, a definite lack of "people skills", and a profound lack of competent financial management. Any shelter/rescue is a business, and must be run like one to survive. Emotion and ego cannot be allowed to overtake the primary responsibility of the organization: the humane treatment of rescued animals.

Miz Minka said...

I read the article and viewed the slide show of conditions inside THS. "Shelter" my ass. This is just unforgivable. Tim Trow should rot in hell.

Anonymous said...

Holy cr*p! OSPCA just suspended THS' affiliate status, pending the investigation.

"The suspension means that Toronto Humane Society will not be able to conduct cruelty investigations and will not have authority or protection under the Ontario SPCA Act."

http://ontariospca.ca/press_releases/2009/09_june02.html

Fred said...

redstarcafe, wow, thanks for catching that so quick.

onequarterdal said...

SPCA Raids Toronto Humane Society

http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/article/644372

Just posted at 5:10 p.m. today

Joe said...

Well, it wouldn't be the first time. And look how that turned out.

Anonymous said...

Huge coverage on the 6 o'clock news on several stations tonight.

Fred said...

joe, do you have any info on what happened the first time? I know nothing about that.

Joe said...

Fred, ask James about it.