Kate Donovan v. Chief Animal Welfare Inspector, 2026 ONACRB 206

Tribunals Ontario / Tribunaux décisionnels Ontario

Animal Care Review Board / Commission d’étude des soins aux animaux

Date: 2026-01-29

Appeal under section 38 of the Provincial Animal Welfare Services Act, 2019, S.O. 2019, c. 13.

Between:

Kate Donovan Appellant

and

Chief Animal Welfare Inspector Respondent

AMENDED MOTION DECISION AND ORDER

Adjudicator: Debra Backstein, Vice Chair

Appearances:

For the Appellant: Kate Donovan, Self-represented For the Respondent: Adrien Iafrate, Counsel Canaan Dalton, Student-at-law

Heard by videoconference: October 28, 2025

OVERVIEW

1Kate Donovan, (Appellant), appeals to the Animal Care Review Board (Board), a Decision to Keep in the Chief Animal Welfare Inspector’s care (DTK) thirty-two cats.

2On June 25, 2025, Animal Welfare Services (AWS) removed one cat from the Appellant’s residence pursuant to a veterinary certificate and euthanized it humanely on July 9, 2025. The remaining thirty-two cats were removed on July 2025 for non-compliance with a previously issued AWS Order dated June 25, 2025. On July 14, 2025, the Chief Animal Welfare Inspector (Respondent) issued a DTK pursuant to section 31(6) of the Provincial Animal Welfare Services Act, 2019, S.O. 2019, c.13 (PAWS Act) for the thirty-two cats.

3Two of these thirty-two cats died of natural causes on July 21, 2025.

4On July 24, 2025, AWS issued a Statement of Account (SOA) to the Appellant in the amount of $22,794.31, in relation to the care costs of all thirty-three cats that had been in the Respondent’s custody.

5The Appellant appealed the DTK on July 28, 2025. Her grounds of appeal as listed in her materials were that she believed that the AWS Inspector John Duke destroyed her property and took her support cat.

6The Appellant did not appeal the SOA to the Board.

7The appeal of the DTK proceeded to a case conference on August 15, 2025. The Respondent was in attendance but the Appellant did not attend.

8An Order and Notice of Intention to Dismiss (NOID) was released on August 18, 2025 and was issued pursuant to Rule 3.4 of the Licence Appeal Tribunal, Animal Care Review Board, and Fire Safety Commission’s Common Rules of Practice and Procedure, Version I (October 2, 2017) as amended (the Rules), on the grounds that the Appellant had abandoned the proceeding, pursuant to Rule 3.4(d).

9The Board received a letter from the Appellant on August 29, 2025, which was accepted as an indication that the appeal had not been abandoned and a case conference continuation was scheduled for September 23, 2025.

10The Respondent was in attendance at the continued case conference, but the Appellant did not attend. In the interests of ensuring an efficient, fair and timely resolution of the merits of the proceedings, a hearing was scheduled to take place on October 28, 2025.

11On October 20, 2025, the Respondent brought a motion seeking the dismissal of the appeal of the DTK on the basis that the cats had been forfeited to the Crown as of August 16, 2025. The Respondent submitted that the Board had no jurisdiction to order the return of the cats to the Appellant since she is no longer their owner and therefore the appeal is moot.

12The Board scheduled the Respondent’s motion to be heard on October 28, 2025, at the start of the merits hearing. The Appellant was advised of the motion by the Board in a Notice of Motion emailed to her on October 20, 2025.

RESULT

13The Respondent’s motion is granted. The animals are now property of the Crown. The appeal of the DTK is dismissed because it is moot.

The Respondent’s Pre-hearing Motion to Dismiss the Appeal

14On October 20, 2025, the Respondent filed a motion seeking an order to dismiss the appeal of the DTK on the ground that the appeal is moot. The basis for the motion was that the cats had been forfeited to the Crown on August 16, 2025 pursuant to s. 35(4) of the PAWS Act because the Appellant did not appeal the SOA within the prescribed time period of 10 business days, nor did she pay the SOA with the prescribed time period of 15 business days.

15As noted above, the motion was scheduled to take place at the outset of the merits hearing, which was scheduled for October 28, 2025. The merits hearing did not proceed pending the determination of the preliminary motion.

16The Respondent made oral submissions in support of the motion and relied on the motion materials filed in advance.

17The Appellant did not file written materials in advance of the motion hearing. She participated via telephone from a detention center and had limited access to documents and communication tools.

18The Appellant acknowledged receiving the motion materials but said that she had only reviewed them “briefly”. I explained the nature of the motion to the Appellant and offered her additional time to review the documents and prepare a response. The Appellant declined the offer of additional time and stated that she wanted to proceed with oral submissions.

ANALYSIS

19I find that the appeal is moot and dismiss the appeal for the reasons that follow:

20The applicable framework on the issue of mootness was articulated by the Supreme Court of Canada in Borowski v. Canada (Attorney General), 1989 CanLII 123 (SCC) (“Borowski”).

21The framework involves a two-stage analysis:

1. Is the dispute between the parties moot?
2. If so, should the Board exercise its discretion to hear the appeal?

22In Borowski, the Supreme Court of Canada described the doctrine of mootness as follows:

The doctrine of mootness is an aspect of general policy or practice that a court may decline to decide a case which raises merely a hypothetical or abstract question. The general principle applies when the decision of the court will not have the effect of resolving some controversy which affects or may affect the rights of the parties. If the decision of the court will have no practical effect on such rights, the court will decline to decide the case. This essential ingredient must be present not only when the action or proceeding is commenced but at the time when the court is called upon to reach a decision. Accordingly, if, subsequent to the initiation of the action or proceeding, events occur which affect the relationship of the parties so that no present live controversy affects the rights of the parties, the case is said to be moot.

Step 1-Is the appeal moot?

23I am satisfied by the Respondent’s submissions including:

1. Forfeiture occurs by automatic operation of the statute and is not subject to any action taken by the Crown or the CAWI to initiate or finalize the forfeiture process. Specifically, Subsection 35(4) of the PAWS Act states that if the Appellant does not appeal or pay the SOA within the time periods set out in the legislation, the animal is forfeited to the Crown:

   (4) Subject to any agreement made under subsection (5), the animal is forfeited to the Crown if, (a) the owner or custodian does not appeal the statement of account in accordance with section 38 and fails to pay the stated amount within a prescribed period of time after being served the statement of account;

2. The legal effect of forfeiture is well settled. In Guillaume v. Ontario (Chief Animal Welfare Inspector), 2023 ONSC 5782 (Div Ct), the Divisional Court confirmed that once animals are forfeited to the Crown, they become the property of the Crown and the previous owner/custodian ceases to have any rights of ownership or possession over the animals and that pursuant to s.63(1) of the PAWS Act, the Chief Animal Welfare Inspector is thereafter entitled to deal with the animals as if they were the owner. They can then transfer ownership of animals or sell the animals to another owner who then assumes responsibility and care for the animals.
3. The dispute over the return of the animals disappears upon forfeiture, and the Board has no ability to order the return of the animals.
4. The finality of forfeiture has been confirmed in the Ontario Court of Appeal case of Windrift Adventures Inc. v. Ontario (Animal Care Review Board), 2024 ONCA 89, where the states “it is not possible to make an order unwinding this development”.

24I accept the Respondent’s evidence that the Appellant was personally served with the SOA by AWS Inspector John Duke on July 24, 2025 outside of the Provincial Offences Court.

25I am not persuaded by the Appellant’s oral submissions including that she recalls Inspector Duke “walked up to me and handed me papers and walked away” at the Provincial Offences Court but she was unaware that those papers were the SOA. It would have taken minimal effort for the Appellant to review the documents to determine what they were.

26The Appellant acknowledged that she neither appealed nor paid the SOA but submitted that she was unaware of the timelines for appealing or paying the SOA.

27I note that the SOA form itself provides the information regarding timelines for filing appeals with the Board as well as the consequence of forfeiture if an owner/custodian does not appeal a SOA or pay an SOA within the prescribed timelines under s. 35(4) of the PAWS Act.

28Pursuant to s.1(1) and s.3 of Ministerial Prescriptions, O. Reg 447/19, made under the PAWS Act, a statement of account must be appealed within 10 business days from the date of service or paid within 15 days from the date of service. If an owner does not appeal a statement of account or fails to pay the amount within the prescribed time frames, their animal is forfeited to the Crown. As such, I find that the remaining cats were forfeited to the Crown on August 16, 2025, pursuant to s.35(4)(a) of the PAWS Act.

29In the current circumstances, due to the forfeiture, the Board cannot return the animals and the appeal is therefore moot.

Step 2- Should the Board exercise its discretion and hear a moot appeal?

30Even where a matter is moot, the Board retains the discretion to hear it.

31According to Borowski, there are three factors to consider when deciding if the Board should hear a moot case:

1. The requirement of an adversarial context;
2. The concern for judicial economy; and
3. The need for courts and tribunals to demonstrate a measure of awareness for their proper law-making function. Meaning, whether deciding the matter would risk the tribunal exceeding its adjudicative role by issuing a decision in the absence of a dispute affecting the rights of the parties.

Adversarial context

32The cats were forfeited to the Crown in August of 2025, and the Board cannot “unwind this development” or order their return. An adversarial context may still exist if the Appellant has a direct interest in any remaining issues to be decided by the Board. In the current circumstances, it has been confirmed that there are no outstanding or impending appeals to the Board and therefore no adversarial context between the parties remains.

Judicial Resources

33There are no special circumstances that would warrant an expenditure of limited Board resources in this case. A determination of this appeal on the merits would have no practical effect on the parties since the Board cannot order the return of the cats. I am also not aware of any collateral consequences that would justify proceeding. In these circumstances, any determination on the merits would be purely hypothetical.

The Board’s limited role as an adjudicative body

34Pursuant to the Borowski case, the Board is to consider its proper law-making function to avoid intruding into the role of the legislative branch by pronouncing judgments in the absence of a dispute affecting the rights of the parties.

35Given that I find no adversarial context and I do not find that hearing this case would be an efficient use of the Board’s resources, there is no concern regarding an intrusion into the legislative sphere. Consequently, I will not provide a detailed analysis of this factor given that the Board will not be hearing this matter.

CONCLUSION

36I find that the herein appeal is moot given that the cats were forfeited to the Crown.

37After considering the Borowski framework, I decline to exercise the Board’s discretion to hear the moot appeal.

ORDER

38The Respondent’s motion to dismiss the appeal is granted.

39The appeal of the DTK is dismissed and the file is now closed.