Thursday, September 24, 2009

A very exclusive club

I wonder if anyone on the board of directors at the Toronto Humane Society still reads The Globe and Mail or The Star. If so, they must shudder every time they open the paper and see another article about the failings of the place they're supposed to be running.

For those of you still keeping track, here's the latest installment. It's about the upcoming elections to the THS board and the hurdles one particular person, Linda MacKinnon, had to go through to get her name on the ballot allegedly because she's doesn't have the backing of THS prez Tim Trow.

Ms. MacKinnon said she submitted a request for the charity's membership list in April so that she would have a way of reaching voting members. She said it took more than three months and the help of a process server and a lawyer before she got the list.

Soon afterward, when she tried to obtain a copy of the charity's by-laws she says she wasn't allowed to make a photocopy of the 20-page-long document.

And two weeks ago, when the 5-foot-6 widow went to the THS to drop off her notice of intent to run for the board of directors, she was physically blocked from proceeding beyond the shelter's lobby.


Well, at least they're not beating around the bush about their feelings.

4 comments:

Social Mange said...

Really makes you wonder what Tim & Co. are protecting, what they're frightened to have others see, doesn't it.

Marcie said...

I think they have been caught in so many lies that they can't be bothered to beat around the bush anymore. This AGM is going to be interesting, to say the least.

Anonymous said...

In the Globe article mentioned, PR guy McConachie claims McKinnon was not allowed upstairs so as not to disturb the animals. How, pray tell, do cats get adopted at all when no one is allowed up there. The real story is that Linda had an appointment, was going upstairs, but was stopped, then surrounded by three supervisor goons, who refused her entry. McKinnon would not be intimidated. Intimidating an elderly lady, by surrounding and browbeating her, is despicable.

Anonymous said...

(note: the following comment has been highly edited.)

The type of goon tactics described above, the obfuscating, passing the buck by staff, and generally giving people the runaround, are common at the THS.

They do all this, rationalize all this, in the name of loving animals, as if the greater the contempt you show to people, the more you utter that vacuous bromide "I love animals more then I love people", the more florid your displays of righteous indignation, the more you must love animals. And how humane are they to animals?

The THS is the shame of Toronto.