How Canada lost con't
Letter by Dr. Osing:
"Dear Members of the Alberta Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA),
It has very unfortunately fallen to my responsibility to inform all AVMA members of the formation of the foundation of the following potential class action suit against the AVMA, its Board of Directors, and its membership. Please see the embedded document below.
Please take note that the law firm of JSS Barristers, located in Calgary, Alberta, have been formally retained by myself on behalf of the Alberta Canine community, in order to create the strong, empirical and data-based foundation of a significant class action suit against the Alberta Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA), the AVMA Board of Directors, and potentially the membership of the AVMA. Please see the embedded correspondence from JSS Barristers confirming the formal retention of the firm for this purpose. JSS Barristers is well known in the legal community in Alberta for its expertise in class action suits and proceedings. The formal filing and activation of the suit will be triggered upon any future completion of any formal “yes” vote by the AVMA membership to support a Canadian Veterinary Medical Association (CVMA)-supported and proposed “ban” in the Province of Alberta, in relation to the historically available and accepted medical practices of professionally rendering docking, cropping, dew claw removal, and other such safe, humane, and ethical clinical procedures.
The now established historical agenda of the CVMA, and the Provincial-level VMA’s, upon the completion of a “yes” vote to ban these Professional medical services, is then to have the same formally read into Provincial law, in this case under the “Alberta Animal Cruelty Act,” and any animal owner undertaking or having anyone undertake these procedures on their animals will then be criminally charged with “animal cruelty” under the act, and any Veterinary Professional that is aware of any defined act of “animal cruelty,” is then also obliged to report the same to legal authorities. In essence, the Boards of Directors of the CVMA and AVMA has without any fact-based merit, in support of “politically based philosophical positions,” proposed to transform a significant percentage of your loyal, ethical, and law abiding customer base and friends into future “criminals of the State,” and force you into a position to be legally obliged to report their “crimes” to the authorities so that they may be formally charged and punished. If you are a history buff, does this not in a frightening way remind you of the social and political Mindset of the radical and misled political regime in pre-WWII Germany?
In a required defensive response to the same, the members of the Alberta Canine community have now put into motion a formal legal suit and class action building process designed to protect their legal rights, historical privileges, and their status as caring, law abiding owners/guardians of their animals, while at the same time, protecting themselves against the CVMA’s intent to “criminalize” the representative segment of the entire Alberta canine owning population that does not wish to be forcibly and punitively aligned with the obvious CVMA/AVMA agenda that includes these types of bans, which fall into the political category of “animal activism.”
At the upcoming AGM of the AVMA, scheduled for February 27th, 2011, a proposal to “ban” the ethical and humane tail docking, ear cropping, dew claw removal, and other such currently available medical services in Alberta, which have been deemed by the CVMA and some members of the AVMA to be purely “cosmetic” in nature, and without medical benefit, will be tabled for formal discussion by the Board of Directors of the AVMA, amongst all in attendance at that meeting. This is being undertaken in support of the similar position/agenda of the Board of Directors of the CVMA. This follows the path of similar actions by the Provincial Veterinary Associations in the Provinces of Nova Scotia, and Newfoundland. Based on the passing of the NSVMA “ban” on these procedures, the Province of Nova Scotia has currently passed into its Provincial Animal Cruelty laws provisions to formally and criminally charge any animal owner under its Provincial criminal code with “animal cruelty,” should they proceed to have their animals docked/cropped, etc., regardless of the humane and ethical manner in which this is undertaken, or even the geography in which the procedure may be legally undertaken at the time of the provision of the service, and Newfoundland is currently on the third reading in their Provincial Legislature of the same legislation. This is extremely important to note: Under available Provincial legal language, it appears that these “animal cruelty” charges can be laid against any animal owner even if the owner travels outside of the Province in question to have the procedures humanely and ethically undertaken legally in another geography, and regardless of “how little” pain, if any, and over what time period, has actually been caused to the animal, in the opinion of the lawmakers.
In effect, based on the actions of members of those Veterinary Associations, entire classes of currently law abiding, caring, and completely devoted pet owners, who are the “customers” of those same Veterinarians, will now be made “criminals” under Provincial animal cruelty laws in these Canadian Provincial geographies, for simply recognizing the time honored legacies of their nearly seventy (70) impacted canine breed standards; protecting their field/sporting/working dogs from serious injury while performing their duties; and preventing frequent and recurrent ear infections in otherwise long-eared breeds. Note: long/floppy ears on canines, which are extremely prone to recurring and painful ear infections (with associated potential loss of hearing), are a “man made” invention of selective breeding practices, and are in no way representative of “natural selection” or “evolution.” All canines are descended of the “Spitz” or Wolf, all of which originally and still demonstrate pointed/upright ears. The only long-eared, large mammal present in nature is the elephant, while the rest have erect or open ear canals, for the purpose of enhanced hearing, and the reduction of life threatening ear infections and/or high blood loss injuries.
Please note that this same proposed “ban,” driven by the CVMA, was voted “down” with a “NO” vote in the Province of Saskatchewan, by a recent vote of the SVMA members.
Based on this background information, every AVMA member should be in possession of the full knowledge that at the current time, the AVMA membership in attendance will now be asked at this year’s AGM to formally consider supporting such a “ban,” and if then in the future a “yes” vote is passed by a simple majority of the AVMA membership who actually take the time to cast a vote, a movement will then follow suit and seek to “criminalize” a huge segment of the canine owning/breeding population in the Province of Alberta….punishing for no substantiated reason the very same people who are both historically and currently significant financial and personal supporters of the Veterinary Profession in Alberta.
Based on the knowledge of this impending action, and the serious consequences of the same, the stewardship of the various canine communities in Alberta will now be given full opportunity to formally protect themselves, legally, financially, and otherwise, from what it considers to be frivolous, misled, unethical, and materially damaging behavior being considered by certain members of the AVMA/CVMA.
Therefore, be fully advised that should the AVMA Board of Directors and/or its membership formally pursue this matter to a future “yes” vote in support of this proposed ban, the matter will then immediately be turned over to JSS Barristers in order to file in the Alberta Court of Queens Bench a significant and widespread class action suit against the following organizations and individuals, with maximum and full compensation for the wide variety of damages caused, both direct and indirect, financial and otherwise, being sought by this legal action:
The members of the Board of Directors of the AVMA;
The members of the Board of Directors of the CVMA;
The membership of the AVMA located in Alberta who have supported such a vote;
Moreover, this suit will at that time seek to substantiate beyond any reasonable doubt that any AVMA member of the Board of Directors who is in support of this proposed ban, will have violated their fiduciary responsibilities, and the sound Governance-related mandates of their Directorships in doing so. These individuals will be potentially demonstrated to have knowingly acted in this matter based upon personal opinion, and personal political philosophy, in opposition to acting upon clear, consistent, and readily available peer reviewed research-based data. In doing so, these individuals will at that time have been demonstrated to have in fact NOT acted in the best interests of the Veterinary Profession, their Professional Associations, its historic and future customer base, and the Alberta canine community.
The following individuals and groups in the Alberta and Canadian canine communities who are unfairly, punitively, and without factual merit targeted by this potential ban, and who will be publicly invited via media advertisement and other communication mediums to fully participate in such legal action as is required in the future, include, but may not be limited to:
All current owners of the nearly seventy (70) identified canine breeds that are historically docked and/or cropped in accordance with their accepted pure breed standards (a complete list of which can be found at the following site:
www.k9alliance.com); as the historic and time honored legacies of these breeds, in some cases hundreds of years in historic recognition and distinction, will be massively negatively impacted, as will the financial and other value of such breeds; the “working ability” and utility value of these breeds will also be negatively impacted in a significant manner, as the historical practices of docking and cropping of these breeds have been undertaken in large part to ensure the physical safety and unique capability of the breeds while performing their designated duties in the field or otherwise;
All identifiable breeders of the nearly seventy (70) identified canine breeds historically docked and/or cropped in accordance with their accepted pure breed standards; many of which who have invested significantly in breeding, showing, travelling, training, and “Veterinary Care” over decades of providing for their ethical breeding practices and programs; including spending significant sums of money on the provision of Veterinary services while furthering the overall quality, conformation, temperaments, and health of the breeds in question;
All varieties of canine conformation show/event Clubs; working/performance/field event Clubs; hunting and field sport clubs; and other such entities that will be damaged, financially and otherwise, by such action;
The entire membership base of the Canadian Kennel Club (CKC) and the CKC organization itself, as the entire “canine fancy” will be materially adversely impacted, financially and otherwise, by such a ban;
Importantly, the individual Association members of the AVMA who are non-supportive of the current AVMA/CVMA Board of Directors, or individual AVMA/CVMA BOD members in this regard, and who feel that they have been both misrepresented, and damaged financially, professionally, or in reputation, for alienation and damages caused to what is in many cases their most important customer base, and otherwise, by the proposed ban;
Therefore, at this time, based on this formal notice of intent, it should only be reasonably recommended that each member of the AVMA, both BOD members and Associate members, may wish to consider the provision of full and adequate notice and information disclosure to their Commercial and Professional liability insurers, of the retention of JSS Barristers for the purpose of the establishment of this meaningful class action suit, if required by a future “yes” vote in the Province of Alberta, in relation to the proposed “ban” of historically legitimate and legal medical services. If at this time you choose to not provide timely and formal notice to your insurers of this potential action, including the letter from JSS Barristers, as well as access to the factual information/data supplied to you and now made readily available to you below for their due diligence, your insurance company may have the full legal right to (1) refuse to provide you at that time with coverage/defense in regard to this potential future suit; (2) cancel your existing insurance policy; and/or (3) raise your current insurance rates to reflect the added “risk profile” of your account in the event a formal vote is taken, a “yes” vote results, and the suit immediately activated.
For your convenience, and for your Professional and personal knowledge related to this issue, use the following link to access a “free download” of more than two hundred (200) pages of empirical, peer reviewed research articles assembled from various Veterinary Medicine Journals, which support the MEDICAL and HEALTH-RELATED BENEFITS of docking, cropping, and similar procedures, and therefore clearly refute ANY reasonable claim of these procedures being purely “cosmetic” in nature, which is the very foundation of the proposed “ban,” and subsequent criminalization, of these medical services. This link is to the “Paws for Laws” Legislative site:
http://paws4laws.com/official-arc-r...ture-regarding-ear-cropping-and-tail-docking/
Furthermore, please use the following link to the “special report” assembled by the American Rottweiler Club (ARC) addressing the “politically based philosophical position” adopted by the American Veterinarian Medical Association:
http://www.amrottclub.org/bsl/arc-final-avma-responseapart-one.pdf
These bodies of publicly available information are only a sample of the readily available information that will be used as fact-based legal evidence in this future suit if required. As can be readily seen, the factual body of evidence is NOT in support of any claim that these medical procedures are only “cosmetic” in nature, and without medical/health/clinical benefit, and therefore any such claim should be viewed as not only completely inaccurate, but also only rooted in activist-based agendas and politics.
As one Alberta Veterinarian who recently contacted me in regard to this issue stated it explicitly: “The same activist-minded “Veterinary Science Practitioners” in the industry who would for the most part fight to the death to protect a woman’s legal and other right to “choose” to have a safe and confidential medical abortion at her discretion….would also then do a complete and public “about face,” in essence making complete hypocrites of themselves, in undertaking every attempt to transform this very same woman into a prosecutable and punishable “criminal” in this Province for exercising her legal and ethical right to “choose” to have the tail on her beloved canine clinically docked to breed standard, or for its own protection in its field of work.” I think that individual made a very good, albeit very sad point.
In closing, please remember this: the canine owners, breeders, and various Associations to be represented by this potential class action….DID NOT CHOOSE THIS FIGHT, AND HAVE EFFECTIVELY BEEN FORCED INTO A POSITION OF HAVING “NO CHOICE” BUT TO PURSUE THIS DEFENSIVE LEGAL ACTION! This potential significant collision course, and the potential personal/professional impact to each and every one of your Professional practices and personal lives, has in fact been instigated directly by the majority of the Board of Directors of the CVMA, as well as certain individuals on the Board of Directors of the AVMA. It should also be clearly noted once again that each and every one of you, as a practicing Veterinary professional, already has the personal, professional, legal, and ethical right to provide ethical/humane docking and cropping services to the public here in Alberta and the majority of other Canadian Provinces….as well as the commensurate legal and ethical right and privilege to NOT provide those services at your personal/professional discretion, based on your own opinions, belief systems, or political philosophies.
Therefore, it can be simply stated that ALL the canine community in this Province seeks is to be “left alone” and not unreasonably targeted/pursued by the political activists in your midst, who would with no second thought be pleased to do our canine community serious and irreparable harm while making “criminals” of us, and to simply continue to love and care for our furry family members, while at the same time having our Veterinary service providers respect our historical, legal, and moral rights, privileges and choices….in the same way you would expect us to protect and support your rights.
If you have previously taken a “passive stance” in regard to this issue, because up until this point in time, and the formation of this suit, it did not personally impact you or your Professional practice….then perhaps it is now time to step up and take some personal action to preserve the existing personal and legal rights, freedoms, and choices of your long term, moral customer base, as the launching of this potential suit will clearly now put your personal and Professional “skin in the game,” financially and otherwise. This action would unfortunately be a “no-win situation” for everyone in many ways (except perhaps our legal counsel), but in the end if/when it becomes necessary, then the foundation has been created, and the trigger is ready to be pulled. Also please note that a full “media plan” has also been designed, and will be deployed if and when required.
It is with anticipation that I, and many others in the Province of Alberta and elsewhere, look forward to hearing the outcome of your AGM “discussion” as it regards the topic of this proposed “ban,” which will occur on the 27th of this month, as well as your stated plans for future course of actions. Please be advised that this is NOT a temporary measure of protection for our canine communities, and that at any time in the future, if required, this course of action will be immediately and formally pursued.
Sincerely,
Dr. Byron Osing
Calgary, Alberta, Canada"
