Throughout media and social media the complaints directed at Ontario’s PAWS Act legislation as a whole and at Animal Welfare Services (AWS) the enforcement/investigative arm specifically are growing daily.
In the fall of 2025, the Auditor General of Ontario commenced with a 12 month long deep dive investigation into Ontario Animal Welfare Services (AWS). This was done in response to a very high number of complaints about the poor level of animal protection in Ontario. Their report is expected towards the end of 2026 and will be available to the public. NOTE: their report is for recommended changes – not mandated changes.
In January 2020, COVID and the associated lockdown and people working from home arrangements created what I refer to as the “Perfect Storm”. In this period of growing social isolation the demand for a pet literally exploded.
The above, alongside the rollout of The PAWS Act – the start of the Government of Ontario being responsible for animal welfare legislation and enforcement throughout the province.
The timing could not be worse! The left hand did not know what the right hand was doing. The province literally copy/pasted the OSPCA Act into the new animal welfare “law” of Ontario. They put a high ranking police officer in charge of animal welfare, adopted some OSPCA Inspectors who were now redundant then tried to fill out insufficient number of inspectors with newly graduated college students from unrelated disciplines, want to be mall cops and security guards. Again….the PERFECT STORM!
Then just to place the cherry on top….a consumer who should have known better just lost any sort of common sense. They wanted what they wanted and they wanted it immediately and were willing to pay top $ for it. Thinking that meeting a complete stranger in a parking lot, handing over $3000 in cash for a little puppy and thinking this was just A OK! That were was nothing sketchy about this! The PERFECT STORM!
In response, commercial breeders (puppy mills/kitten mills), backyard breeders and brokers (middleman between breeder and purchaser) were MORE than happy to respond to the growing demand. Their inner greed was insatiable. And why not !!!! It was not a crime and there was really no risk to them. And gosh….the upside!!!! All this UNDECLARED income!!!!!
A PERFECT STORM! What a mess!
And just when things could not get worse, a conscious, seismic shift in the enforcement model for AWS.
Ontario shifted from a deterrence based enforcement model (focused on complaint/investigation/order to comply/seizure or charges then court prosecution) to a compliance / education based model (focused on complaint/education/re-inspection/administrative penalty and very rare: the laying of charges).
This marked a massive philosophical shift in animal welfare enforcement in Ontario.
Under this new model of compliance based enforcement AWS inspectors are encouraged to:
- Provide guidance to animal owners
- Allow them time to correct issues
- Use orders before charges
- Improve on improving animals living conditions
Sounds great EXCEPT for:
- AWS response times to many calls is very very poor, leaving vulnerable animals unprotected
- The PAWS Act is SO VAGUELY worded, full of loopholes. Making compliance measurement very difficult
- The Standards of Care in the PAWS Act – the foundational cornerstone of animal protection is so opaque and grey that again compliance measurement is nearly impossible.
- This is supported by statistics from the Ministry of the Attorney General showing the high % of charges dismissed
But WHY? Why did the Doug Ford Government make this massive change?
- Cost
- Animal cruelty under the PAWS Act is managed under the Provincial Offences Act.
- Animal cruelty charges in Ontario are 99% handled as “offences” vs “crimes
- Why?
- Criminal prosecutions are expensive
- The education and compliance model is cheaper and faster than the deterrence model
- Animal cruelty cases require veterinary expert analysis and testimony
- longer investigations
- Criminal prosecutions are expensive
- Rural / Agricultural Sensitivities
- this means the Ford government does not want to tick off a huge voting block for them (farmers) by making enforcement stricter and more invasive.
- Many large full blown puppy mills are operated by farmers
- How did Ford appease them?
- brought in the Ag Gag legislation
- made the PUPS Act weak and literally useless as an enforcement tool
- let farmers pretty much enforce themselves by allowing them to follow “industry standards” as opposed to animal welfare laws
So in summary, here is where we are due to the government refusing to take animal cruelty seriously:
Current Enforcement Philosophy:
- Educate the owner
- Achieve compliance
- Seize animals and Prosecute ONLY if necessary (someone please define necessary????)
Previous Enforcement Philosophy:
- Investigate
- Seize/remove from further abuse/neglect
- Charge
- Send clear message of deterrence to the public
To be clear, the OSPCA was not perfect. But their philosophy was focused on the humane treatment of animals and the sending of a clear message that abusers will be charged and held accountable.
Under the government controlled PAWS Act legislation and AWS enforcement model:
- They will do the bare minimum in actual protections but spend 4 times the annual $budget on doing it
- Has very poor Standards of Care
- They do zero proactive enforcement
- Has yet to replicate the support infrastructure that the OSPCA had and Doug Ford committed to putting in place
- because of this volunteer based Ontario rescues and rehabilitation centres are being forced to pick up the pieces of an entirely broken animal welfare system
- the government provides no support for these groups
- Refuse to license breeders, allowing them to stay invisible to oversight and justice.
- PUPS Act is all smoke & mirrors – zero teeth, zero ability to help animals
- Rescues and shelters are beyond capacity due to out of control breeding
- Ontario consumers buying unethically bred puppies/kitten – rampant disease spreading
- Owner surrenders are being turned away
- irresponsible owners and unethical breeders are dumping defenceless animals out in the middle of nowhere with little repercussions
- Complete lack of transparency and accountability to the taxpayers of Ontario (statistics)
Are you disgusted? Please have your voice heard:
Contact:
- Premier Doug Ford: Premier@ontario.ca
- Solicitor General Michael Kerzner: Minister.solgen@ontario.ca
- Attorney General Doug Downey: Attorney.General@ontario.ca
- Chief Animal Welfare Inspector Melanie Milczynski: Melanie.Milczynski@ontario.ca