The Mae Bachur Animal Shelter is broke.

Unless more money is found soon, the shelter will be lucky to pay its staff through the end of the month.

Five more employees have lost their jobs, bringing the total of laid-off staff to nine.

The dismal picture was painted Thursday at a hearing in Yukon Supreme Court.

The territory's registrar of societies took the Humane Society Yukon, the non-profit organization that runs the shelter, to court, asking a judge to enforce orders he made around the organization's finances and management.

Earlier this year, the registrar ordered the humane society to reinstate suspended members, hold a special meeting to elect a new board of directors, make public a complete membership list and produce missing and incomplete financial statements.

An email from society president Shelley Cuthbert describing the shelter's current state was among more than 1,000 pages of evidence presented as part of the hearing.

Philippa Lawson, the lawyer representing the registrar, asked Justice Leigh Gower to order the new AGM for Dec. 20, earlier than the 10-day notice normally required for a meeting to be called.

The meeting should be called sooner "given the crisis” the society is currently in, she said.

Thursday's eight-hour-long hearing went much later into the evening than normal and Gower has said he would make his ruling this afternoon.

The judge wondered aloud if holding the meeting next week would be enough to keep the shelter from closing at the end of the month after 14 years serving Yukoners.

The Tlingit Street facility is no longer accepting animals. It's currently having nearly $40,000 in funding withheld by the Yukon government until it clears up the problems with the registrar.

While the board has agreed to hold an AGM, much of Thursday's hearing centred around whether it had the authority to kick members out of the society, in some cases banning them from the shelter.

In total, 23 memberships are in question — six people banned, 14 new memberships the society says are "on hold” pending the court's decision and three people who are attempting to renew their memberships.

If all 23 are approved or reinstated by the court, that would expand the society's membership size by 50 per cent and give those people voting rights to elect a new board.

Lawson claims the board has no authority under the humane society's bylaws to screen or ban potential applicants.

As it stands, a person only needs to pay his or her dues to become a member, she said.

In the Yukon, all official societies have a default set of bylaws through territorial legislation, the court heard.

Groups have the option of adjusting those bylaws as long as the changes are approved by the members and the registrar.

When its bylaws were first created, the humane society actually removed a section of the default bylaws that would have permitted more membership criteria, Lawson said.

Any attempt to add screening criteria back into the bylaw would needed to be approved by the membership.

The board's lawyer, Rebeka Breder, argued there is an implied requirement for the board to screen potential members.

Otherwise, someone like a known animal abuser could easily obtain membership.

Lawson countered by pointing out that a new member can be expelled from the group after they are accepted through a vote by the rest of the society.

When it comes to the members in question, the board believed it was doing what was in the best interest of the humane society by banning them, Breder said.

She pointed to many newspaper articles, letters to the editor and posts on social media sites, where these former members were critical of the current board.

The board believed these members were doing damage to the society, Breder said.

In one affidavit, Cuthbert accuses some of the members with being responsible for destroying or stealing humane society documents.

Those accusations have been vehemently denied by the members involved.

During the hearing, Gower pointed out that many of the unsubstantiated allegations mentioned in affidavits by Cuthbert could be considered defamatory outside of a courtroom.

"So it's OK for her to throw a little mud but not the other way around?” he said.

Breder admitted that many of the reasons given for expelling members were based on assumptions, but said it's unreasonable to expect a board of directors to do things like hire a private investigator to prove every fact.

While the court may not agree with the board's decision to deny memberships, that doesn't matter, she argued.

What matters is that the board genuinely believed it was working in the best interest of the society, was being loyal to the society's goals, was acting in good faith and was not in any conflict of interest, she said.

The board believed that the public airing of problems was doing serious damage to the society, Breder said.

"So anyone who doesn't agree with the board can't be a member?” Gower asked at one point. "Is that where this ends? Sure sounds like it.”

In her reply later in the afternoon, Lawson again argued that there is no criteria for membership in the humane society's bylaws aside from paying dues.

A criteria banning members who disagree with the board would not likely be approved by the registrar because it is "contrary to the fundamentals of freedom of speech,” she said.

Lawson pointed to many situations since the registrar's investigation began where she says the board "steadfastly refused to comply” with the registrar's orders.

They refused to hold a special meeting that was ordered by the registrar to elect a new board even after a petition was signed by 20 per cent of the membership, as required by the bylaws.

They did not follow an order to produce a complete membership list, something that is supposed to be publicly available, she said.

Breder said the board believed making the list public was violating privacy laws.

The list is now available.

The humane society says it's doing the best it can to comply with the orders.

The ordered financial records have not been completed by a newly-hired accountant, Breder said.

As the hearing wrapped up, Gower questioned whether having the AGM on Dec. 20 would do much to help the shelter if it is on the verge of closing by the end of the month.

Lawson said the hope is that having a new board in place will lead to more people being willing to donate.

In the past, Cuthbert has said it costs approximately $450,000 annually to run the shelter.

Among those costs are $20,000 a month in staff wages, $4,000 a month in building utilities and $5,000 a month in vet care bills.

Meanwhile, the board members also face charges in territorial court, accused of not following the registrar's orders.

That case is scheduled to appear in court next week.

It was put on hold until after the Supreme Court matters were completed.

See letter.