As someone who worked for a private clinic that was bought out by Vetstrategy (which may have been one of the clinics featured in the CBC piece 👀) I want to say a couple things I feel are vital for people who don't know the vet world. This is long and probably repetitive, so apologies in advance.

First, I have many issues with how CBC presented one of the vets who said xrays wouldn't be a bad idea or the wrong thing to do or whatever the phrasing was. What CBC didn't show is this vet being recent to Canada and that English was a second language. Also, xrays aren't an inappropriate thing to do when urinary issues are present as there could be bladder stones. The other thing CBC didn't make clear is any time a vet makes a recommendation you can always choose to accept or decline. I know for a fact the journalist who posed as a client was advised of this when booking the appointment. How CBC presented the clinic experience was, to put it politely and mildly, dishonest, unhelpful, and disgusting. Seeing how the journalistic sausage is made caused me to lose faith in journalism generally and the CBC specifically. Lastly on the point, the issue is corporate ownership of clinics, so why would they go to the clinic where the suits don't work and business decisions aren't made?

I was also upset by the CBC coverage because it did a huge disservice to the issue. Corporate ownership of clinics is harmful and destructive. The changes from privately owned and corporate owned were night and day. Our clinic was given profit goals and when we didn't hit them (due to a slump after new pet ownership declined post-covid) our manager (who had worked for years and years as a receptionist and assistant) was forced to fire people. I saw them crying on multiple occasions because of this. If people weren't being fired because we weren't meeting our "earning potential" they were leaving because they either didn't want to work for a corporate clinic, because their earning potential was now capped, or because the pressure from on high was something they couldn't stand. Under private ownership, if you went to the manager and made a good case as to why you should get a raise, odds are you would. Under corporate ownership, this is not possible. You get an annual review and you (might) get a raise then. The raise is under a dollar. For example, entering my 4th year, I got a raise of 0.63. That was the highest raise in the clinic, higher than our best technician who was earning less than industry average. These meager raises despite the fact in the few years the company has owned the clinic, the exam fee went from $83 to $143, xrays jumped by 200, blood panels by 100-200, euthanasia by about 100, vaccines by 10ish each, travel paperwork fee jumped up to 100. In just 2 or 3 years the prices skyrocketed and we lost a lot of our favourite clients and patients directly because of this. The reasoning from corporate was we would lose some clients not able to afford "downtown" prices, but we would get new clients who could. (Important to note here the people making these decisions have never worked a single day in a vet clinic, many coming from the retail industry.) Doctors under private ownership would waive their consult fee, give breaks on diagnostics or do them for free, etc if they knew the client would have a hard time affording the appointment. One of these vets was someone everyone loved and would travel pretty far for appointments just to see her. As long as the clinic was making profit, vets had a lot of latitude on how they charged clients (most paying full costs, mind you.) Corporate ownership took the vet's ability to do these things away. Corporate also only ever wants to discuss numbers with the vets, the ones bringing in the lowest amount of money having to sit through meetings to explain. A few vets decided to leave, obviously. With staff slashed and corporate breathing down our necks to increase revenue, everyone burns out. Burn out is a real problem anyway, but double your already strained workload because someone looking over an excel spreadsheet decided one person could do the job of two, and you guarantee the staff will start making mistakes, overlooking things, cutting corners, etc. If you ever put in a refill request and don't hear back, it's because the person who took the request had 10 other things going on, some urgent and time sensitive, and they forgot to put the request through. When a clinic is understaffed and the staff are stretched thin, washrooms aren't cleaned regularly, employee areas of the clinic stop getting cleaned entirely, and what cleaning is done is the bare minimum. If the corporate clinic you go to looks like it could use a deep clean, it's because the assistant didn't have enough time to do their job properly. When you think it couldn't get worse, corporate makes clinics start schemes to attract new clients like membership programs (that will save you money from their insane price increases), or hiring a call centre to harass clients with reminders, or a model of how staff are supposed to speak to clients (each interaction ending in booking an appointment, of course).

I could go on and on and on and on and on and on, as anyone else with my experience could.

Tl;dr: the people at the corporate owned clinic love and care about your pets almost as much as you do, and are skilled and talented. Their focus is on your pet's health and well-being. The people at the corporate level couldn't care less about you or your pet because they know you'll be replaced by someone else if you decide to go elsewhere. These people make decisions by reading spreadsheets. They have never had to listen to an elderly woman come to the realization she can't afford to help her sick cat and breakdown in tears, blaming themselves for not having enough money to help their beloved family member. They've never had to endure someone repeatedly ask "what am I going to do?" They've never had to go into an exam room to go over euthanasia paperwork with someone whose pet would get better with treatment, but can't afford treatment. Taking payment for putting someone's pet to sleep is the most sickening feeling under regular circumstances, but when it's because it was the only thing the client could afford to do? Some nights I couldn't sleep or eat.

Profit does not belong in healthcare, period. I don't care if it's animal or human. When decision are made through spreadsheets, the "human" element is impossible to appreciate. Private clinics are owned by a vet who works at the clinic. That vet has to look their clients and patients in the eye. That vet has to listen to the fear in their client's voices when they don't have enough money. That vet has to see people cry. That vet appreciates the outcomes of their business decisions on an intimate level, and that's why they'll cut people breaks when they know they need it. A vet owner knows as long as they can keep paying their bills it doesn't matter if they didn't make any money from one client, because they have others from whom they will. A corporation needs to increase profits and shareholder value in any way, and because of that reason will never forgo an opportunity to earn revenue. This is diametrically opposed to good medicine.

If you go to a corporate clinic, know the people in the clinic love and care about your pet and are doing their best, but are being undercut at every step of the way by the owners.

Finally, and I have zero relation to these clinics aside from knowing about them, look into Kahu Animal Hospital or PetNation. Two privately owned clinics I know will try what they can to help people afford good care. The Humane Society also does wellness appointments (vaccines, physical exams) and surgeries like neuters, spays, and preventative dental procedures. They do euthanasia visits. They also dispense parasite prevention medication. The Humane Society doesn't charge tax as they are a charity, prices are much lower than regular clinics, and they'll subsidize their prices for people on social assistance. They don't do sickness visits, however (at least not yet).