SPCA de Montréal, il y a de quoi se poser des questions!

[isabelle20 0]

Un reportage hier soir a CTV (la suite ce soir..) sur la SPCA de Montréal et M. Barnotti..

Montreal SPCA's funding queried
TU THANH HA

MONTREAL -- An 87-year-old woman gave $2,000. Another woman was 97 when she gave
$1,200. In recent years, tens of thousands of Canadians outside Quebec have
donated at least $1.6-million to an animal-welfare group that operates solely
in the Montreal area.

Many now say they were misled because, in its nationwide fundraising, Montreal's
SPCA uses the name Canadian Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals,
under which it is incorporated.

Pierre Barnoti, the society's executive director, defends the practice.

"That's our name," he said in an interview. "We cannot change it today."



However, his French-language fundraising does not use the society's legal name.

What's more, Mr. Barnoti is a controversial figure who has drawn criticism in
the past for his pay package. He denies that he receives a cut of SPCA
fundraising, although one of his past contracts said that he was supposed to
get 10 to 15 per cent of the society's profits.

Although he declared bankruptcy before he worked for the SPCA, he is now the
majority shareholder of a $1.7-million shopping mall in St-Joseph-de-Beauce,
south of Quebec City. And Mr. Barnoti gave changing explanations when asked
whether the SPCA paid for a trip he took to South America in 2004.

But it is the ad campaign that has drawn the most heat.

According to its internal fundraising documents, between 2001 and 2003 the
Montreal SPCA collected $1.6-million from more than 34,000 donors outside
Quebec.

The Globe and Mail tracked down 18 people or families outside Montreal who had
given money. In 15 of 18 cases, people said they were not initially aware that
they or their relatives had pledged money to a Montreal-only operation.

Six of those cases involved elderly donors.

"Oh, my golly," said Paul McKnight of London, Ont., when asked about his
87-year-old mother's $2,000 donation. "That's terrible."

Another Ontario man, who asked that his name not be published, said his mother
was 97 when she gave $1,200. Both men said neither they nor their mothers knew
that the Canadian SPCA was a Montreal society.

"What? You're joking!" said Leah Bjork of Whitehorse, when told her $220
donation hadn't gone to a national group. "Well, that's the last nickel they'll
get from me . . . You only have so much money."

When asked about such cases, Mr. Barnoti said: "If my mother, who's 91, donated
to a good cause but isn't sure where this cause is, as long as I knew that the
money went to the right place and served the right mission, I'd be perfectly
happy."

As for removing the reference to Canada in French-language fundraising, Mr.
Barnoti at first said that the society's French-language name does not have the
word "Canadian" in it. He acknowledged that it did when corrected by a reporter.

Neither English nor French fundraising letters explicitly say that the society
isn't a national organization. In addition, donors are invited to mail their
cheques to a local postal box in their province, rather than the Montreal
address.

Mr. Barnoti notes that at the bottom of the letters is the line: "Proudly
serving the animals of Quebec since 1869."

But Diane Shannon, a spokeswoman for the Edmonton Humane Society, isn't
impressed. "It is more like a P.S. footer message at the bottom of a very
lengthy body of text," she said.

Even Quebec humane societies have complained.

"Their whole fundraising strategy is based on confusion," Serge Marquis,
director of the Trois Rivières society, said.

It is also based on volume: Filings with the Canada Revenue Agency show that, in
2004, the Montreal SPCA spent $2.2-million on promotion; by comparison, the
Toronto Humane Society spent less than $221,000 the same year.

The Montreal society spends more on travel, too -- $85,266 in 2006, compared
with $11,410 for the Toronto organization.

In July of 2004, the Montreal SPCA paid for Mr. Barnoti and a veterinarian,
Ronald Beaulieu, to go on an 11-day trip to meet veterinary students whom the
SPCA sponsored to sterilize dogs in Argentina.

"It was all business," Mr. Barnoti said of the trip.

In fact, the two men spent only five of the 11 days with the students, according
to internal e-mails obtained by The Globe. Mr. Barnoti then acknowledged that
during the trip he also went to the famous Iguaçú Falls, at the
Argentina-Brazil border. He said he kept those expenses separate by booking a
rental car on his own.

It would have been a memorable trip: Mr. Barnoti would have had to drive 1,336
kilometres, a distance local buses cover in 14 to 19 hours.

But according to a May 21, 2004, e-mail, a travel agent booked Mr. Barnoti and
Dr. Beaulieu on a flight from Buenos Aires to Sao Paulo in Brazil, from which
they flew to the falls.

On being shown the e-mail, Mr. Barnoti said, "Yeah, you're right. I flew to
Iguaçú. I remember."

He could not say how he knew how much to reimburse the SPCA. The booking was
made along with the flights that took the two from Montreal to South America
and back; there was no breakdown for the flights, which cost $4,104 in total.

"I gave the SPCA a cheque of $1,000," he eventually said, adding that he would
provide documents to back it up.

However, contacted a week later, Mr. Barnoti said $1,159 had been deducted from
one of his paycheques. He said the society's comptroller, Lorraine Lamarre,
would confirm it.

But Ms. Lamarre and Howard Sholzberg, treasurer of the SPCA board of directors,
said Mr. Barnoti's pay slips were confidential and would not be made public

[kanga1 0]

Ouains, déjà que je l'aimais pas beaucoup lui !

[La-Gang 0]

Vous êtes surprises??????? C'est un genre de scandal fréquent de la part des dirigeants de ce type d'organisme. Ces gens-là feraient des salaires de beaucoup supérieurs ailleurs, alors ils se payent autrement! Centraide a vécu un truc similaire il y a quelques années. Bien souvent un DG de OSBL fait moins qu'une adjointe administrative dans une grosse boîte......... pis des passionnés qui ont et les connaissances nécessaires et le coeur qu'il faut, faut croire qu'il n'en mouille pas.........

Désolée, mais j'ai plus beaucoup d'illusion sur la race humaine!

La Gang

[isabelle20 0]

Voici le lien..en bas completement

Merci Dina!

http://montreal.ctv.ca/cfcf/news/cfcf#news_10285

[Invité]

pas surprise du tout......en fait, je connaissais déja la majorité...mais je tirerais pas sur Barnotti en ce moment parce qu'il est une figure connue et appréciée du public et les gens sont portés a associer cause-personnes-organismes tout dans un beau multing pot...tirer sur lui en ce moment pourrait nuir a la cause.

déja j'ai jamais accepté les campagnes de pubs de la SPCA de Mtl qui se dit tellement pauvres...je recois 2 a 3 fois par années des cartes, des calendriers, cette année kit pour embaler les cadeaux et un porte clé, des chandails, etc etc et tout ça parce que j'ai payé mon membership (20$) durant 2 ans il y a x année

[kanga1 0]

C'est à quelle heure ce soir la suite ?