Increased ACCESS (Animal Care and Community Empowered Safety Society) is an Indigenous-led organization working to improve community safety and public health by addressing long-standing gaps in animal management systems in rural, remote, and Indigenous communities.

Across Canada, many communities continue to experience serious animal-related safety risks, including dog culls, high rates of injury to children, unmanaged dog and cat populations, and increased human wildlife conflict. These conditions persist not because communities are indifferent, but because the infrastructure, authority, and ongoing services that support animal management in towns and cities have never been equitably available in many rural and remote Indigenous communities.

For more than a century, Canada has relied on urban, municipal, and provincial animal control and SPCA models supported by tax bases, permanent facilities, and professional services. Indigenous and rural communities were largely excluded from those systems. As a result, animal-related risks have been managed through crisis responses rather than prevention, with serious consequences for both people and animals.

Solutions

Increased ACCESS works at both the systems and community levels. We support Indigenous Nations and rural communities to strengthen local animal management through community-led planning, governance development, and improved access to veterinary services where they are structurally absent. This work helps communities move from emergency responses toward prevention, consistency, and local control.

At the same time, Increased ACCESS works to shift policy, funding, and institutional decision-making so that animal management is recognized as a public health and safety responsibility, not a charitable gap. By bringing Indigenous perspectives into animal-related policy and resource allocation discussions, we aim to change the conditions that have allowed these inequities to persist for over 150 years.

Donations support systems change, community-led solutions, and transitional supports that reduce long-term reliance on crisis intervention.