Walk for Animal Welfare

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Saturday, April 23rd, 2011
1:30 PM to 4:00 PM

This is a peaceful vigil and a walk for animal welfare in order to raise awareness against animal cruelty and in memory of "The Whistler 100",

Red ribbons will be available to place on your dog, in memory and to honor their fallen comrades


Why are we doing this?

I'm sure most of you have heard about the terrible tragedy that occurred in Whistler last year. For those of you that haven�t, 100 sled dogs were shot to death in front of their surviving pack members by sled dog tour operator and part owner Robert Fawcett. Like us, we�re sure that many of you may have wanted to do something, but what?

Whilst there is very little we can do to help those Whistler Sled Dogs, the Walk for Animal Welfare will hopefully give you a way to help the suffering of future abandoned and abused animals.

"In Memory of the Whistler 100" the Walk for Animal Welfare aims to ensure that the recent killing of 100 sled dogs in Whistler were not in vain and that something positive can come out of their terrible suffering.

These dogs suffered because the current Animal Cruelty legislation is incredibly antiquated. It was created in 1892 and the only changes that have been made to it were in 2008 when some penalties were increased. The current law contains many loopholes and vague definitions and it gives Animal Protection Officers *very* little leverage.

Amanda Hamilton, creator of Walk for Animal Welfare, knows this first hand because she used to work with Animal Protection Officers at the BC SPCA. She saw the SPCA battle against Howling Dog Sled Tours for years. The law simply did not allow them to proactively protect these dogs.

Please join us to share your voice. Petitions will be available for signing to support MP Mark Holland who introduced a Private Member�s Bill currently numbered C‐229, which is identical to Bill C‐50 from the 38th Parliament, and which takes a comprehensive approach to reforming Criminal Code provisions on animal cruelty; and the passage of Bill S‐203, though it raised penalties for animal cruelty offences, in all other respects
failed to modernize the laws�