Who We Are

The NBSP­CA has been on a mis­sion to pro­tect and advo­cate for ani­mals across our province for more than 120 years. 

When you sup­port the NBSP­CA, you’re giv­ing ani­mals a voice and the chance for a brighter future. Your dona­tions help us remove ani­mals from unsafe sit­u­a­tions and work close­ly with inde­pen­dent com­mu­ni­ty shel­ters across the province to give ani­mals the care and love they deserve — until they find their for­ev­er home.

What We Do

Meet Our Lead­er­ship Team

Les­ley Rogers, Exec­u­tive Director

Les­ley has been sur­round­ed by ani­mals through­out her life and they have played a major role in shap­ing her values. 

She has two Cairn ter­ri­ers, Ruby and Xan­der, as well as an old­er cat Sophie, and new kit­ten Gusto! 

Les­ley’s knack for prob­lem-solv­ing and her abil­i­ty to fos­ter col­lab­o­ra­tive rela­tion­ships have been inte­gral to her suc­cess over the past 34 years as a leader in the New Brunswick pub­lic service. 

She is pas­sion­ate and sea­soned when it comes to advo­ca­cy and ded­i­cat­ed to improv­ing the lives of ani­mals across this province. 

It should be no sur­prise that Les­ley and her four-legged crew love watch­ing the Wiz­ard of Oz!

Bernadette Mac­Far­lane, Office Manager

In Bernadet­te’s world, ani­mals are a part of every­thing she does. No mat­ter if it’s a cat or a dog, she loves them both because they all have dif­fer­ent per­son­al­i­ties just like peo­ple. Chee­ka, her 17-year-old Chi­huahua, and Cali, her grand-dog, were both adopt­ed from SPCA shelters.

She’s been the NBSP­CA’s sole admin for 13 years, and she sees all the staff as fam­i­ly. Ded­i­cat­ed to pro­tect­ing ani­mals, no task is too big or too small when it comes to lend­ing a help­ing hand.

Her down­time is spent with her fam­i­ly and grand­chil­dren, and she loves going to the Sum­mer House on the beau­ti­ful Miramichi Riv­er. Turn­er and Hooch is her favorite movie.

Tony Porter
Chief Ani­mal Pro­tec­tion Officer

After return­ing to Fred­er­ic­ton with his wife Jill in 2017, Tony joined the NBSP­CA as Chief Ani­mal Pro­tec­tion Offi­cer. He began his career as a police offi­cer with the Miramichi Police Force, New Brunswick, serv­ing in the Crim­i­nal Inves­ti­ga­tion Divi­sion, Drug Sec­tion, and Con­tain­ment Team before retir­ing from the Patrol Divi­sion as a supervisor.

He has two sons and two grand­chil­dren. In addi­tion to his love for dogs, he also has an avid inter­est in agri­cul­ture ani­mals, espe­cial­ly equine and cattle.

It is Tony’s mis­sion to improve the lev­el of ser­vice of the enforce­ment team and to do every­thing they can to elim­i­nate ani­mal neglect and cru­el­ty from the com­mu­ni­ty. Togeth­er with his provin­cial part­ners, he con­tin­ues to devel­op ways to enhance ani­mal wel­fare and has made sig­nif­i­cant con­tri­bu­tions to improv­ing ani­mals’ lives as a result of the Act and Regulation.

Jen­nifer (Jenn) Ten­ant
Deputy Chief Ani­mal Pro­tec­tion Officer 

Jenn joined NBSP­CA after a 16-year career with the Ottawa Police Ser­vice where she served as a Patrol Offi­cer for 6 years and 10 years with the Foren­sic Iden­ti­fi­ca­tion Sec­tion. Jenn has sig­nif­i­cant lead­er­ship expe­ri­ence and was pro­mot­ed to Sergeant dur­ing her time on the force. Pre­vi­ous­ly, Jenn worked inside the provin­cial court sys­tem for 8 years with the Attor­ney Gen­er­al of Ontario. 

Jenn grew up in Hull, Québec where her fam­i­ly was involved in dog breed­ing. This love of ani­mals has been a cen­tral part of Jenn’s fam­i­ly life and has con­tin­ued to include fam­i­ly dogs, com­pet­ing in west­ern eques­tri­an events with her chil­dren and 4 hors­es, and run­ning a farm. 

Her goal is to advo­cate for the humane treat­ment of all ani­mals and to share her love and pas­sion by work­ing with stake­hold­ers and the com­mu­ni­ty to ensure all ani­mals are treat­ed and cared for.

Nor­man

Nor­man was aban­doned by his own­er and res­cued by an NBSP­CA offi­cer who brought him to the Char­lotte Coun­ty SPCA.

He was lat­er adopt­ed by NBSP­CA HQ and has set­tled in nicely.

Nor­man is kind, good-look­ing, loy­al and vocal.

News

Stay up to date on the lat­est news from the NBSP­CA on our blog.

Our Board of Directors

Scott Elliott, President

Scott has enjoyed a long career in the restau­rant indus­try encom­pass­ing oper­a­tions, train­ing, and as a con­sul­tant. A long-term sup­port­er, Scott has served on the Fred­er­ic­ton SPCA Board and is present­ly the Pres­i­dent of the NB SPCA. 

Nor­ma McCarthy, Vice President

Nor­ma works with numer­ous not-for-prof­its, pub­lic sec­tor enti­ties and boards, advis­ing on the chal­lenges char­i­ta­ble groups face and poten­tial solu­tions. A spe­cial­ist in mar­ket­ing, com­mu­ni­ca­tions, research, and stake­hold­er engage­ment, she leads a series of renew­al ini­tia­tives and over­sees strate­gic and busi­ness devel­op­ment project management. 
Nor­ma and her hus­band live with a cere­bral Cardi­gan Welsh Cor­gi and a gre­gar­i­ous Ger­man Shep­herd, who love dai­ly walks and end­less games of fetch. 

Robert Hunt, Past – President

Robert is a Civ­il Engi­neer­ing Tech­nol­o­gist with 22 years of expe­ri­ence. Pri­or to that he was a Detec­tor Dog Han­dler and Train­ing Super­vi­sor in the Unit­ed States Air Force. Robert is a Past Pres­i­dent of the Saint John SPCA and in 2016 formed a group which suc­cess­ful­ly lob­bied for changes to the Quis­pam­sis Ani­mal Con­trol Bylaws. 

Gor­don Per­ry, Secretary

A grad­u­ate of UNB, Gor­don is a super­vi­sor for the City of Saint John tran­sit. Gor­don pre­vi­ous­ly sat on the board of the Saint John SPCA in var­i­ous capac­i­ties, includ­ing Pres­i­dent, and cur­rent­ly serves on the NB SPCA hav­ing assumed var­i­ous roles over the past sev­er­al years. Gor­don is cur­rent­ly Sec­re­tary on the Exec­u­tive of that board. An ardent ani­mal lover, Gor­don lives in Saint John with his fam­i­ly includ­ing his faith­ful pup, Max 

Chris Bertin, Treasurer

Chris is a CPA with 9 years of expe­ri­ence in pub­lic prac­tice and cor­po­rate advisory. 
Chris has served on the board of the Soci­ety for sev­er­al years and is the head of the finance and invest­ment com­mit­tee. Chris is pas­sion­ate about ani­mals and con­tin­ues to strength­en his under­stand­ing of the ani­mal wel­fare field, as a mem­ber of the Society’s Board of Directors. 

Chris Pelkey, Director

A grad­u­ate of UNB law school, Chris cur­rent­ly prac­tices law in Fred­er­ic­ton focus­ing in the areas of labour and employ­ment, human rights and administrative/​regulatory law. Chris has served on the board of direc­tors of the NB SPCA for the past sev­er­al years.

Among enjoy­ing var­ied inter­ests out­side of work, Chris enjoys spend­ing qual­i­ty time with his fam­i­ly and dog Walker.

Daniel Greene, Director

Daniel is a Char­tered Pro­fes­sion­al Accoun­tant (CPA) cur­rent­ly work­ing at the Depart­ment of Nation­al Defense at 5 CDSB Gagetown.
Daniel has served in var­i­ous posi­tions with the Fred­er­ic­ton SPCA and cur­rent­ly sits on the NB SPCA board pro­vid­ing strong guid­ance on finan­cial strategies. 

Rose St-Pierre, Director

Rose is a CPA with expe­ri­ence work­ing in both the Pub­lic and Pri­vate sec­tors. Cur­rent­ly, she is employed with a local com­mer­cial real estate com­pa­ny. Rose lives in Fred­er­ic­ton with her hus­band, their dog Gin­ger, and cats Mozart and Kate. She also spends time with Berkley, her horse friend friend, and dog-sits Nico and George on a reg­u­lar basis. 

Ginette Savoie, Director

Ginette Savoie is employed with the Province of New Brunswick as the Direc­tor of Advo­cates Ser­vices with Post-Edu­ca­tion Train­ing and Labour. She was part of Box­er Res­cue Atlantic Cana­da for many years. She sits on the Board of the Fred­er­ic­ton Com­mu­ni­ty Kitchen. She has one grown skin child and four fur children. 

Ang­ie Kel­ly, Director

Ang­ie is a Cer­ti­fied Fund Rais­ing Exec­u­tive with over 20 years expe­ri­ence rais­ing funds for a vari­ety of non-prof­its in the edu­ca­tion, social ser­vices and health sec­tors. Through­out her career she has served on a num­ber of Boards of Direc­tors for pro­fes­sion­al asso­ci­a­tions and char­i­ties ded­i­cat­ed to improv­ing the wel­fare of the most vulnerable.
When she’s not work­ing, she’s redis­cov­er­ing all that our province has to offer with her hus­band, daugh­ter and her Rot­tweil­er Rosie. 

Eliz­a­beth Hale, Director/​NBVMA Representative

Eliz­a­beth Hale is a vet­eri­nar­i­an who has been prac­tis­ing since 1992. She has expe­ri­ence with shel­ter med­i­cine and par­tic­i­pates on the board as a liai­son between the NBSP­CA and the NBVMA

Our Sto­ry

1881

We got our start in 1881 when 15 cit­i­zens of Saint John peti­tioned the leg­isla­tive coun­cil for an ani­mal pro­tec­tion agency. One of our first pub­lic acts was to com­mis­sion a drink­ing foun­tain for hors­es — which still exists in uptown Saint John today!

Most ear­ly SPCAs focused on the well-being of hors­es, but as horse work began to decline in the twen­ti­eth cen­tu­ry, they shift­ed their focus to com­pan­ion ani­mals. To this day, we still pro­tect livestock.

1960s

In 1965 Bri­an Davies from Oro­moc­to became the Society’s first full-time employ­ee. Davies was a pas­sion­ate advo­cate of ani­mal rights and held the title of Exec­u­tive Secretary.

The 1970s & 1980s

In the late 1970s the Soci­ety plunged into a finan­cial cri­sis. Although there remained a small net­work of part-time inspec­tors, fund­ing was pre­car­i­ous and the NBSP­CA itself was rel­a­tive­ly inactive.

The 1990s

The 1990s brought a revival of gov­ern­ment inter­est in the NBSP­CA and ani­mal pro­tec­tion issues. Amend­ments to the SPCA Act set up our cur­rent sys­tem of gov­ern­ment-sanc­tioned Ani­mal Pro­tec­tion Offi­cers with the sta­tus of peace offi­cers. Gov­ern­men­tal respon­si­bil­i­ty for the NBSP­CA was trans­ferred from the Depart­ment of Agri­cul­ture to the Depart­ment of Envi­ron­ment and Local Gov­ern­ment, where it remains today.

The 2000s

With Paul Melan­son as the chief Ani­mal Pro­tec­tion Offi­cer, the corps of APOs under­went rapid pro­fes­sion­al­iza­tion. Exer­cis­ing their increased legal author­i­ty, the Ani­mal Pro­tec­tion Offi­cers launched a num­ber of large pup­py mill seizures that raised pub­lic aware­ness of the Soci­ety. In 2009 the NBSP­CA assumed the con­tract to pro­vide dog con­trol ser­vices in rur­al areas, a ser­vice pre­vi­ous­ly deliv­ered direct­ly by the government.

The 2010s

In 2010, the gov­ern­ment passed leg­is­la­tion estab­lish­ing manda­to­ry inspec­tion and licens­ing of pet estab­lish­ments and gave the NBSP­CA author­i­ty for that licens­ing. That same year our 24⁄7 hot­line was cre­at­ed to allow the pub­lic to report alle­ga­tions of cru­el­ty and abuse.

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