Monday, February 5, 2018

Two more added to SPCA oversight body

Three more people, all lawyers, have been appointed to the body that oversees the Ontario Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, bringing the total to 27.

The new people are Stephanie Kepman a lawyer who recently moved from Montreal to Toronto, and Dawn Kershaw, also a Toronto lawyer who was a full-time vice-chair of the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario from 2012 to 2017, and a member of the Social Benefits Tribunal from 2006 to 2017.

Melody Maleki-Yazdi was appointed days earlier. She is also a lawyer who works at Deloitte Canada in the legal project solutions group, prior to which she was an associate lawyer at Hope Springs Fertility Law.

None of them will draw any pay.

They were all appointed for two-year terms.

So how many Toronto lawyers does it take to judge whether an SPCA inspector has erred in accusing a farmer of abusing his livestock or poultry?

Recall that an SPCA inspector in Eastern Ontario accused a leading Holstein breeder of abusing his dry cows.