For decades, community animal management in rural and remote Canada has been funded as if it were an episodic problem. A grant here. A pilot there. A visiting service when conditions become acute. When funding ends, systems revert to crisis management. This pattern persists not because the problem is poorly understood, but because the financing model does not match the nature of the challenge. In many communities, families and local leadership are working within systems that

What is the Indigenous SPCA?

If Animal Rescues Are a Financial Vertebra of Veterinary Care, What Public Systems Are They Holding Up? For many people, veterinary care is understood through a fairly simple lens. Veterinary clinics are places of care, and when they work with animal rescue groups, that work is often seen as an extension of their generosity. Clinics may offer discounts, accommodate urgent cases, or help when options are limited. Animals benefit, and goodwill follows. That story is not false. 

Why Indigenous-Led Governance Cannot Be an Afterthought As Increased ACCESS and its Indigenous SPCA project have become more visible, people have asked thoughtful and appropriate questions about how decisions are made, how leadership is structured, and what “Indigenous-led” means in practice. These questions matter not because of optics, but because leadership design determines whether systems actually function differently from the ones they are meant to replace. This post is

Victory Vetmobiles emerged from a simple lesson learned through experience rather than planning documents: services can and do operate in the absence of infrastructure, but rarely in ways that are effective, efficient, or sustainable. In many rural and remote Indigenous communities, animal management has been shaped not by a lack of care or concern, but by the long absence of the physical spaces, systems, and tools required to act safely and consistently. In towns and cities,

Education is one of the most common responses to animal-related harm. When dogs bite, when animals roam in ways that create risk, when communities struggle with population management or safety, the solution offered is often the same: more education. Humane education. Awareness campaigns. Workshops. Curriculum. Materials. This instinct is understandable. Education feels constructive. It signals care. It avoids punishment. And it allows institutions to say they are doing someth

Volunteers can be the heart of a system. They should never be its backbone.

When people think about land use, they usually picture zoning maps, housing footprints, or transportation corridors. They rarely picture dogs or cats. Yet in many rural and remote Indigenous communities, animal management is the invisible factor that determines how people actually move across the land. It dictates which spaces feel accessible and safe and which remain off-limits for everyday use. What is often framed as a narrow animal welfare challenge is in reality a struct

When people talk about animal wellbeing in Indigenous communities, the conversation often reveals something deeper than opinion. It reveals the language we inherited. Words can appear neutral, but they quietly shape how responsibility, care, and blame are assigned. They influence whether an issue is understood as a public health challenge or as someone’s personal moral failure. They determine whose worldview becomes the standard, and whose is treated as the exception. We see

Across Canada, Indigenous communities continue to experience a troubling pattern. Outside ‘rescue’ groups enter communities without permission, remove dogs that are clearly cared for by local families, and then post dramatic stories online about having “saved” animals from neglect. These posts often have little connection to what actually happened, yet they spread quickly and raise significant amounts of money for the individuals or organizations involved. Communities are lef

As 2025 draws to a close, one theme has run through every major conversation that the Increased ACCESS team has had across communities, professions, and policy circles: leadership . Who holds it, who should hold it, and what kind of leadership this moment actually requires. Across our last four blog posts, a podcast, a national article in Healthy Debate, and a feature in West Coast Veterinarian, Increased ACCESS examined an uncomfortable truth: Canada has never had a coherent

Every year in Canada, one of the country’s largest animal-welfare charities receives the equivalent of a major lottery prize. Not figuratively. Its annual budget, roughly fifty million donated dollars, functions as a renewable jackpot for animal services. Most of us imagine that if we ever won that kind of windfall, we’d use it to tackle the problems we care about most: ensuring safety for children, supporting families, or creating real change for animals. Yet despite this en

Canada’s animal-health gap in Indigenous communities isn’t an “animal issue” — it’s a public-health inequity created by federal policy. Mobile vet care, community-designed bylaws, and Indigenous-led infrastructure are not charity; they’re essential services. To close this gap, philanthropy must shift from funding symptoms to supporting systems Indigenous communities are building.

Animal health is a public-health issue, and remote Indigenous communities face the greatest risks because they have the least access to veterinary care. For more than 150 years, systems were built for settler towns while Indigenous Nations were denied the tools to build their own. Communities are now leading new solutions, and partners across sectors are working together to create lasting, equitable change.

“...FOR MANY REMOTE COMMUNITIES, THE EXPERIENCE OF INEQUITABLE ACCESS IS ROOTED IN AND COMPOUNDED BY A HISTORICAL LEGACY THAT THE VETERINARY INDUSTRY AND ANIMAL WELFARE SECTOR MUST ADDRESS.”

@crittersandcultures podcast interviews some of the @increasedaccess team about their work to make communities safer for everyone.

We know how.

Is Halloween the scariest day for dogs & cats?

"I couldn't stop laughing when I saw the looks on the high schoolers' faces when I started showing them how to use a disposable camera."...

Broadly speaking, there is enough food, fresh water and other life essentials for everyone to thrive. The challenge is distributing those...