Our Story
The following is a short summary of our story. For the detailed version of what took place, read our story in detail.
On January 4, 2004 something wrong happened. A family pet, our dog Sila, was carbon monoxided to death by an airline somewhere between Smithers, B.C. and Winnipeg , Manitoba. She was brought out to the luggage carousel dead for our family to pick up. We were devastated. It was winter, in the nighttime, in a city we did not live in. (More details of the circumstances are included in detailed events section.) We were initially just looking for an explanation and an apology. When we could find neither of these from the airline, we wondered why. We looked further and found many more stories that this airline, Air Canada, had killed and injured other animals. We decided to set out to do what we could to ensure this does not happen again to anybody else.
Finding no answers after repeated requests from Air Canada, we looked for legal advice. The legal bottom line is that a pet in Canada is worth nothing at all and can be treated as such, unless it has commercial value (like a race horse). Therefore, we didn’t have a hope to get justice. The rule was clear. We felt, and still do feel, an animal has some value. Our dog certainly had value to us. In fact, she was worth an awful lot to us. But she was from the pound, and had no commercial value; therefore, in the eyes of the law, she was worth nothing. It seemed our society and its laws did not value something unless it was worth money. We did not know how to resolve this, and therefore we followed legal advice. It took awhile to find a lawyer, since the rules are so clear on this. Initial legal advice was that we do not have a chance at changing things. Months passed and eventually we found a different lawyer who took an interest in our cause. We considered many options, and decided we could try two things. We could try to change the rules by putting a claim in to the Canada Transportation Agency (CTA). We could also try to change Air Canada’s practices by putting a claim in to them. We did both of these things. We were informed that in order to change the Air Canada’s way of transporting pets; it would have to be about money. So, reluctantly, we claimed for money. Air Canada is a large corporation that can write off legal expenses. We do not have that luxury. After multiple thousands of dollars spent with no clear end in sight, we could not continue our claim against Air Canada. We settled out of court. We cannot reveal details. We can, however, say that we are not happy. We feel that despite our efforts, this will not change anything for safe transport for pets. This was not justice. If money were no object, that would not have happened. It would have been very expensive to go to court. In summary, we found no justice in the court system. It seems that for someone to have a chance at justice in Canada, they need to have a lot of money. In this respect, I am ashamed of our legal system.
We did pursue our claim against the CTA. We asked for our lawyer’s help in this claim since she knew the words to use and she knew our case well. The CTA was given all the circumstances of our situation and how our dog was carbon monoxided to death. We hoped that they would see that, in principle, we are clearly right. As I understand it, the CTA has the authority to change the rules of pet transport in Canada. They could ensure care would be taken in transporting animals. They have the authority to put words to a new document that would ensure this care and outline potential disciplinary action to those that break rules. They chose not to do any of these things. After much delay, they simply restated their old documents that say that an animal has no value unless it is tradable for money. They ruled that Air Canada did nothing wrong. In fact, they seemed to make no ruling at all. In a complicated way, they simply spelled back to us the regulations that we already knew existed and were trying to change. We put over two years of correspondence and time and money and legal advice into a claim that did not even address our concern, let alone change anything. I am ashamed of the cowardice of this institution since after all this, they failed to even comment on the complaint: What does one do when their family pet dog is carbon monoxided to death by a major airline under their jurisdiction? Or, more importantly, what reassurance do I have that they won’t do it again?
We do not know the answer to these questions. But if somebody else finds themselves in a similar situation with their pet, I hope this website can help them get closer to a better answer.
Note
This website is under construction and may include more information in the future: particularly links that may be helpful.
Disclaimer
My wife Beth and I are not lawyers. We do not have a good grasp of legal words. I am telling the story and the events as I understand them. I have included some links to lawyer interpretations and legal documentation that speaks for itself. Therefore the fine details of my writing may not be totally legally accurate, but the story speaks for itself, and the point of this website is not to be a legal document.
- Darren Jakubec