:
I call this meeting to order.
First of all, welcome back to Mr. Ruff, who is joining us here today for this meeting.
Welcome also to our newest permanent member, MP Zuberi. Welcome, sir. We're glad to have you on board.
This is meeting number 31 of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Veterans Affairs. Today's meeting is taking place, as usual, in the hybrid format.
Pursuant to Standing Order 108(2) and the motion adopted by the committee on October 27, 2020, the committee is resuming its study on service dogs for veterans.
Welcome to all of the witnesses who have taken time to join us today.
I'll introduce all of the witnesses, starting with Sergeant William Webb, who is appearing as an individual. From Meliora Service Dogs, we have Marc Lapointe, certified trainer, and Carl Fleury. From the Canadian Foundation for Animal-Assisted Support Services, we have Joanne Moss, chief executive officer.
Each witness will receive five minutes for opening remarks, and after that we'll proceed to rounds of questions.
I will give you a one-minute signal when your five minutes are about up, and you will see me make this gesture throughout. I apologize in advance, but my role is often to interrupt and keep the time. I apologize in advance if I have to cut anybody off, but with opening remarks, I tend to give folks an opportunity to wrap up their thoughts.
Starting us off this afternoon is Sergeant Webb.
The next five minutes are all yours, sir.
:
I'm not a service dog trainer or a board member of a service dog organization, nor am I affiliated with any service dog companies' operations. I am an end-user.
Upon my release from the CAF in 2016, I relocated to British Columbia. This is where my difficulties began with other service dog providers, local businesses, government agencies, and local, civic and provincial governments. This is when the roadblocks to having a service dog began daily.
At that time in B.C., the government was lobbied by a single service dog provider, ADI/IGDF, and the new service dog act was implemented exactly at the same time that the Alberta act was implemented. Alberta and B.C. have nearly identical acts. All of these organizations were part of the CGSB process and did not disclose this to the B.C. government or the CGSB.
I was being excluded entry to public buildings and most services because my service dog was not from ADI or IGDF. All your witnesses have gone on to praise how good the B.C. test is. I would like to point out that my service dog was required to pass this test when it was a puppy to see if it would actually be entered into the program. The test in B.C. to certify your service dog costs $200. However, the B.C. test is an obedience test. It does not assess my service dog's ability to do what it was trained for. Those veterans or the public who get a service dog from ADI/IGDF preferred member providers are not required to pay this fee.
The former speaker of the house of the B.C. legislature and current MLA Linda Reid is the president of BC and Alberta Guide Dogs, an ADI/IGDF member organization, and MLA Scott Hamilton was on the board of directors of PADS, the Pacific Assistance Dogs Society. Both were involved with the committee making sweeping changes to the act in B.C. Subsequently, these two providers were the only approved providers in B.C. under the act. There are currently three. The director of corporate policy for B.C., Toby Louie, wrote the act and wrote policy for PADS as well.
As you can see, there is a huge conflict of interest, as no one involved with these service dog providers recused themselves from any debates or work on this act. This is a perfect example of how these service dog providers insert themselves into government policy.
The current Minister of Public Safety in B.C., MLA Mike Farnworth, has stated that the service dog act in B.C. is voluntary. However, if someone wishes to be afforded all the benefits of the act, they need to have a service dog ID card for B.C. On the back of this card, it states, “is in possession of a certified guide dog or service dog and is granted access rights to public places and tenancy rights”. The Canadian charter already affords us these rights. The Province also states that it does not certify service dogs; however, on the front of the ID card, it says, "certified by the Province of British Columbia".
This past Christmas my service dog became ill and suddenly died. Currently I am second-guessing whether to get another service dog—second-guessing because of the predatory behaviour of service dog providers and the restrictions in B.C. Many service dog providers in this country are predatory to some degree and are only looking to advance their agendas. If the veteran is the purpose for these psychiatric dogs, it is the veterans who are consistently stuck in the middle of the fight between providers. Ten years ago, there were only about eight service dog providers in Canada. There are now about 132, so yo you tell me it's not about the money.
One of the biggest difficulties facing veterans is the misuse, misinformation, and downright dishonesty in the terminology used by this unregulated industry in Canada. Phil Ralph of Wounded Warriors Canada stated in his testimony that their standard falls in line with ADI, which is accredited. Ms. Forbes also stated that national service dogs were accredited by Imagine Canada. I would like to point out that Imagine Canada only accredits charitable organizations' operations; they do not accredit production, standards, or training of service dogs. Sheila O'Brien was asked about ADI accreditation and stated that ADI is reviewed peer to peer, not by an independent third body. There are no internationally accredited providers anywhere.
This is misleading not only to the public but also to governments, and when MPs, MLAs or MPPs use this language, it only reinforces the misinformation.
Service dog providers in Canada have inserted themselves into all levels of government to press their agendas, and some MPs—even on this committee—through advocacy, whether directly or indirectly, are not doing the veteran a service. On the contrary, it's a disservice.
Our member of Parliament for South Surrey—White Rock, , is the treasurer and a direct board member of BC & Alberta Guide Dogs, which is an ADI member, pressing to make their standard—which isn't published or available to the public—the law of the land.
Phil Ralph also referred to the ADI standard. Nowhere in the act is there a standard for B.C. In fact, the only standard available on the ADI site is a code of conduct for member organizations. The ADI/IGDF standard is proprietary, and they do not release this to the public or to anyone. It's for their members only.
The director general of policy and research at VAC, Ms. Garrett-Baird, stated that the CGSB study failed because members could not come to consensus. I would have to disagree with this assessment completely. The fact that the CGSB was shut down for a time and investigated because of this process is alarming. The service dog industry cannot be relied upon to make a national standard. There is too much animosity among providers for them to play nice in the sandbox, and there is too much money to be lost with these personalities.
Currently the Human Research Standards Organization, which is accredited by the SCC, the Standards Council of Canada, is working on the development of a national standard. VAC was invited to participate in the study but stated that they were not able to participate. This leads me to believe that the department plans to do something different. VAC needs to stay out of this independent process completely and allow it to proceed unimpeded.
MP Wagantall asked a question last week: Where did Wounded Warriors get the professional ability to determine whether or not they comply with standards, and how is Wounded Warriors qualified to do that? This question was not answered by Mr. Cousineau, so I'm going to answer it now: Wounded Warriors Canada is not qualified to determine compliance of standards. Wounded Warriors Canada is not a service dog provider. It has no trainers or master dog trainers. It only provides funding to third party providers, and it is not in a position to oversee or front a standards process.
I would like to thank the member for North Island—Powell River for mentioning my difficulties of being homeless with my service dog. On January 1, 2016, the B.C. legislature put into force the B.C. Guide Dog and Service Dog Act. This act does does not recognize any service dog teams or providers who were not trained or who were not affiliated with the ADI or IGDF, and it is in complete violation of the veterans charter of rights, the Canadian Human Rights Act and the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.
This act prevents me from obtaining housing in B.C. and continues to be a huge barrier for veterans who need housing, as well as a barrier to accessing public spaces. I am not allowed access to any provincial offices, to travel on board passenger decks of BC Ferries with my service dog or to take public transit. This is one of the main driving forces that forced me, in May 2018, onto the streets. It was because I don't fit the criteria for the B.C. Guide Dog and Service Dog Act.
Mr. Cousineau stated that the B.C. act has been upheld by the Canadian Human Rights Commission when in fact it has failed several times, with human rights complaints against BC Ferries, residential tenancy, denial of access at Costco, and also my own denial of public access. However, because the B.C. commission makes everyone sign NDAs, none of these cases can be discussed.
The B.C. act states that the B.C. Human Rights Code will prevail over the service dog act, and it has on several occasions. That clause allows the act to get around any human rights violations, so the act is in complete misrepresentation of what it is meant to be providing.
Anyone.... I'm just about done.
Bill Webb, thank you so much for what you just said. I was in the same battle for 10 years. We need to talk, buddy, okay? We need to talk about that.
My name is Marc Lapointe. I am a Canadian Armed Forces veteran with 25 years of service and experience as both a non-commissioned and commissioned officer with the infantry, the Airborne Regiment and special forces. While serving Canada on multiple overseas deployments, I, like many other brothers and sisters in arms, suffered cumulative post-traumatic stress disorder. That led me to medically retiring from the forces in 2014.
Here with me today is Carl and his service dog India. Carl is from the board of directors of the Meliora Service Dogs organization and is here to assist me with answering any questions you may have from the perspective of a member. Not only is Carl a fellow veteran; he and India are also graduates of the program curriculum. He has begun the process to be a service dog trainer and mentor in our peer support network.
Since 2013 I have dedicated myself, personally and financially, to helping others regain hope and healing through training medical service dogs and their partners. I personally have fostered and trained more than 75 dogs and 150 medical service dog teams. I was a director for two service dog training organizations in three different countries. In 2016 I was awarded the Minister of Veterans Affairs Commendation while working with veterans and their medical service dogs. In 2017 I was approached to assist with a psychological service dog medical study completed by the University of Saskatchewan and the Canadian Centre on Substance Use and Addiction. I am one of the consultants for the university. Since the co-founding of Meliora in 2020, more than 25 veterans and retired first responders have completed the Meliora program. Some have been able to return to work, school and other self-fulfilling activities.
On the first question, about the efficacy and use of psychiatric service dogs by Canadian Armed Forces veterans, I have first-hand experience of knowing how a medical service dog helps to relieve the symptoms of PTSD. With my own personal service dog, called Bosley, and as the director of standards and training at Meliora, I meet almost every day with disabled people whose lives have been improved and sometimes saved by the partnership of medical service dogs.
Medical service dogs are meant to complement traditional medical and psychological care for a disabled person. They're not an answer to all. Not only are the dogs known to have naturally calming effects on PTSD sufferers; each medical service dog is also specifically trained for their partner's needs. Many of Meliora's trained medical service dogs have been trained to interrupt unhealthy and unwanted behaviour symptoms in their partners. They wake up their teammate from night terrors, provide comforting pressure—weight—on their partner during a crisis, assist during recovery from fear paralysis or a dissociative state, and prevent or interrupt emotional overload.
Our medical service dogs are also trained to assist their partners with other medical conditions, such as to detect and assist members in the event of a seizure, an allergic reaction, high or low blood pressure and diabetic emergencies. As our members age, the dogs are trained to retrieve objects because of mobility issues, help with balance, and carry items or medical necessities. Members with hearing impairments have medical service dogs to alert them to alarms, doorbells and people needing their attention.
Throughout my time in training medical service dogs for veterans and first responders, I've both felt and seen the incredible improvements in PTSD symptoms gained only through the medical service dog partnership. All of our medical service dog teams benefit from increased physical activity, better emotional connection to others, improved sleep, happier family relationships, reduced anxiety, a significant decrease in depression and suicidal thoughts, and a reduction in medication.
The ultimate success of a psychological medical service dog partnership is measured when that person no longer needs a service dog to navigate during their daily living activities. That's our goal. In fact, most graduates of our training program will only have one service dog, because they've already regained their independence when their dog naturally retires.
To answer question (b), the resources required by the Department of Veterans Affairs to implement access to psychiatric service dogs are the recognition of psychiatric medical service dogs within VAC and across Canada; a national registry of responsible and ethical medical service dog program providers that identifies certified dogs, users, handlers, trainers and training organizations; a common standard for training and certification of medical service dog teams across Canada; a national registry of responsible and ethical dog breeders who have been proven to breed healthy dogs with a calm temperament and appropriately long working lives; funding for the breeding, training and care of psychiatric medical service dogs for injured veterans; and training for VAC case managers about psychiatric and mobility medical service dogs for veterans, and the application process, because the case managers don't have any clue about what's going on.
Meliora is a national medical service dog training organization with members in practically every province. All of our members have stories of confrontation after our members and their fully certified medical service dogs were prevented from entering public places and buildings because their dogs were not recognized as a service animal. Provincially, Alberta, British Columbia and Nova Scotia require specific testing before they will recognize our members' medical service dogs, which, in truth and reality, is a Canine Good Citizen test. Quebec hardly ever recognizes any medical service dog unless they are used for the visually impaired.
:
Good afternoon, everyone.
Thank you so much for the opportunity to meet with all of you here this afternoon.
The Canadian Foundation for Animal-Assisted Support Services, or CFAS for short, is an impartial national registered charity that promotes Canada's burgeoning animal-assisted services sector. We are dedicated to consumers, end-users, the welfare of the animals, and collaboration with animal-assisted services, practitioners and service providers to promote quality and service excellence. We build bridges between communities, disciplines and sectors to benefit people, pets, and partners.
The easiest way to describe what the foundation does is to say that it aims to fill gaps and connect the dots within Canada's highly fragmented, unregulated, multi-million-dollar sector. The service dog industry is one segment within the sector.
While we appreciate the cited contributions concerning Assistance Dogs International, or ADI, please understand that ADI is not the service dog industry but rather one business model within the industry. For this reason, ADI's private standards and peer review accreditation program are applicable only to their respective member organizations for brand recognition and performance. However, this is characteristic not just of ADI but of all service dog organizations. This is one reason that private company standards could not and cannot be adopted as national standards of Canada, or NSCs.
The withdrawal of the Canadian General Standards Board's service dogs standards project had a lot to do with breaking new ground in uncharted territories within a self-regulated landscape. Suffice it to say that all new and established industries experience growing pains, and Canada's service dog industry is no exception. The reason is that national standards of Canada use international standard development best practices to safeguard the interests of Canadians. The Standards Council of Canada is a member of the International Organization for Standardization, ISO, and it is affiliated with 165 countries worldwide. It's important to note that an NSC is not a policy, a guideline, a procedure, or an accreditation or certification program. The user of the NSC can adapt its procedures to align with the population served—in this case, veterans.
For Canada's service dog industry to survive and even thrive, isn't it time to put aside brand and market share stumbling blocks to focus on what matters most—honouring and supporting Canada's veterans and their families? This initiative is about challenging the status quo—not consumers, end-users, practitioners or service providers—to enhance current practices to ensure quality, public safety and animal welfare. Diversity is the fuel that informs and ignites the development of highly effective national standards of Canada. Therefore, differences can be the catalyst for new innovations.
What happens next? The foundation is partnering with the Human Research Standards Organization, a Standards Council of Canada-accredited standards development organization, to develop four cutting-edge national standards of Canada. These NSCs are now proceeding to development.
With this in mind, I would ask all of you to please consider the following key points to formulate your conclusions and decisions.
NSCs are expressed through requirements based on current normative references, such as regulations, policies, and guidelines; informative references, such as publications, articles, journals; and seed documents, such as private company standards. NSCs emphasize the need to respect the interests of consumers as well as their human rights and dignity. NSCs must ensure that interests are balanced to prevent conflicts of interest.
The Standards Council of Canada's governing legislation, the Standards Council of Canada Act, outlines its mandate to promote efficient and effective voluntary standardization in Canada when standardization is not expressly provided in law.
The Competition Act contains criminal and civil provisions to prevent anti-competitive behaviour and practices that impede competition, drive up pricing and limit supply.
The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms proclaims that when a law conflicts with human rights, the charter prevails, as does human rights legislation.
We are at a crossroads. The broad road leads to endless debates, adversity, and division. However, the narrow road leads to hope, harmony, consensus decision-making and a promising future.
We may not have it all together, but together we have it all, so let's make our veterans and their families as proud of us as we are of them.
Thank you.
First off, I give my personal thanks to you, Bill and Marc. My assumption is that Carl is a former member of the Canadian Forces too, just based on his stellar haircut.
I spent 25 years in the infantry myself and only retired two years ago. I know where you're coming from. I want to thank you for your service.
I'm fortunate. I'm not dealing with some of the challenges many others have, but a lot of my friends and former colleagues do suffer and are dependent upon their service dogs to support them. As you stated, for some of them.... What standard to they meet? There is no standard here.
I was fortunate to be part of this committee when I first got elected. I haven't been on it in the last almost eight months. I'm glad to be back. I'm a little shocked to see some of the challenges we're facing here.
I want to go back to you, Sergeant Webb, on some of your comments. I totally agree. I think we need to keep the politicians and even the government out of the business of deciding standards. That isn't for elected officials.
What organization...? Do you guys have a suggestion? How do we select that process to set these standards? I want you to elaborate a bit more on that, Sergeant Webb.
:
Exactly. It doesn't have the right stamp.
The service dog act in B.C. does not measure outcomes of training or standards of training. They only have what they call the “public access test”. They don't assess or look at the organization that I got my dog from and the standard that my dog was trained to. It's all about industry infiltrating government policy by being in the right place at the right time, by having members of Parliament sit on boards as active treasurers or chairs to push that organization's agenda. That's what's happened in B.C., Alberta and Nova Scotia.
I'm not afraid as an end-user—I'm not a trainer but an end-user—to call a spade a spade. When it comes to pushing their agenda, the industry is extremely predatory, and they'll do whatever it takes to push their agenda. One provider specifically, and that's ADI/IGDF, will push hard for their brand. They're affiliated with Wounded Warriors and they have inroads with Veterans Affairs and provincial government staffers. They're everywhere, and it's wrong. It needs to stop, and not just with them. All providers need to just step out.
Veterans Affairs can support that by suggesting to all the providers to send in all their documentation to the human resources standards organizations—their standards, documents, training manuals, all of that—and let them put something comprehensive together under one roof. If they have all the information from all the providers, the process would probably go pretty quickly.
:
I'm going to take a little step back in time to answer your question, if I may.
This organization exists because of advocacy work in the disability community more than 20 years ago. Because this sector is so fragmented—and it was even more so then—we needed to come up with an impartial organization that would advocate with and for Canadians with disabilities and other stakeholders to make sure that the gaps would be filled and the dots would be connected. Doing that requires bringing all these different stakeholders together, including the service providers, discipline sectors, and so on. It's a huge mandate.
Yes, there's going to be adversity, but we actually work through that. We've done a fair amount of work in terms of consensus-based decision-making and appreciative inquiry to work with all the different interest groups. There is always going to be that adversity, but we also emphasize that this is not an adversarial process.
In other words, our standards, our national standards of Canada, have been published by the Standards Council of Canada. They're on their website. They are ready to proceed to development. I'm actually working on the first technical committee. We've had a phenomenal response from across Canada for people interested in participating on the technical committee.
That's how the process starts. It starts with a technical committee that will vote and will work very diligently on a draft standard. Later on, it will go to public consultation. We'll get feedback, and it will come back to the technical committee. We'll make revisions as necessary. We'll clean up the draft standards, and then it will go to the Standards Council of Canada for their review. If all is good, the Standards Council will publish that national standard.
We are ready to go. We're out of the gate and proceeding to development. The reason we are doing it is that this is exactly the nature of our mandate. We are here to make sure that people don't fall through the cracks, and neither do the animals, and also to make sure that we are able to bring justice into this environment for the sake of the end-users and their animals.
:
I'm sorry. We're missing our fearless leader today, so we're kind of jumping around here. Thank you.
I want to bring up an individual I just met in my province who is a veteran and has a responsibility within government. He got a service dog from this organization that has not been mentioned much today, but he didn't realize what he had. He was told he had a service dog, but once he met with a good friend of mine who's involved in the research in Saskatchewan, he realized that he had an obedience dog, which is not a service dog.
Marc, hi. It's good to see you.
I'm going to ask both Marc and Ms. Moss, very briefly, to each talk about the dynamics of what we need to do here when I hear about concerns such as that and the importance of realizing, even for our veterans, the difference between an obedience dog and a service dog and what that is.
Then, of course, Dr. Dell and Dr. Chalmers have done extensive research at our university in regard to the importance of having to have the individual working with the dog from as early on as possible, because veterans understand teams.
Another critical component is that they have to have continued follow-up. This individual was given this dog and they said farewell. He has asked them to come back, and two years later there's still no response.
I'd like your perspective, because these are the key values and key things that we need when we're talking about standards.
Marc, do you want to go first, and then Ms. Moss?
:
I'm going to backtrack a little bit again.
Our organization was receiving a horrendous number of calls from veterans and their families concerning the situation. At that time, back in 2012, a lot of people were committing suicide or attempting it.
That's when our organization developed the Major-General Lew MacKenzie Fund, and donations started coming in for that. We used up the fund and have been trying to replenish it ever since.
We very happily held two national military service dog summits and brought together a lot of stakeholders. The Canadian General Standards Board was one of the organizations that wanted to present at those events to talk about standards, and they did.
As I mentioned earlier, after the second event took place, at the very end one of the veterans stood up and asked me ask if it was okay if all of of them voted on whether or not our organization could represent everyone. She said we were the only impartial organization that exists in this sector. She said that they'd like me to see if they can have a new proposal to CGSB to see if it's feasible to develop this standard. It was a unanimous decision, so I wrote the new work item proposal and submitted it to the Canadian General Standards Board.
The process did start out fully with the intention of doing the study itself prior to developing the standard. Internal conversations between Veterans Affairs, the CGSB and others we weren't aware of were happening behind the scenes, and a decision was made that they were going to proceed with the development of the standard.
Back in 2019-2020, since the previous process had failed, we went to ground zero and conducted a year-long service dog feasibility study. We actually did an industry and marketplace study. That is available on our website and in my briefing as well.
:
Veterans Affairs has been involved, as I said, with organizations like ADI and Wounded Warriors. That's certainly their prerogative. We certainly have done our best to keep them informed. The staff keeps changing, though, so that's very difficult.
However, they are aware of the national standard that we are about to develop, and they have reneged. They have said, no, they're not able to participate. For an organization that is so interested in developing national standards, I found it quite curious that, as Bill was saying, they would not want to at least support it if not necessarily get involved in it. It is a very specialized area. We understand that the government doesn't necessarily want to participate, but the government, the public sector, is very much a stakeholder in this work.
I am pretty sure that we can do this together, because we're going to have zero tolerance for adversarial behaviour. That's absolutely not acceptable. We will get nowhere fast again. There will be zero tolerance for that kind of behaviour. At this point in time, we will move forward regardless of which organizations want to participate or not. It's time. We will work together with stakeholders who wish to proceed and help our veterans and their families.
The other things that people need are support, information and resources—incredible support, resources and information. The standards are one of many tools in a tool kit, if you will. They are part of the bigger picture. They will not fix everything, but what they will do is provide an opportunity down the road so that if any level of government wants to reference standards in their legislation, they won't reference a brand; they will now reference a national standard of Canada that was developed in a fair and transparent process through basically regulated requirements. The Standards Council of Canada Act also guards this work and its integrity.
:
Thank you, Chair, and thank you for your service, all of you, and for the excellent presentations you made today.
It's only been four meetings, but it seems as though we've had info from all different angles, and sometimes I have questions.
On July 20, 1969, we went to the moon, and in 2021, we still can't establish standards. That's unbelievable. We've got to get through this, and we've got to get through this as quickly as we can to support our veterans in their communities. It's got to be a top priority as we move forward.
Mr. Webb, I really enjoyed your presentation. It was very factual, clear and concise, but I'd like you to expand.
Throughout the last two or three years, really, it's been evident that the service provider seems to have been the cause of the.... The Canadian General Standards Board was the problem. You seem to make that clear.
Mr. Webb, if you were the decision-maker today, what would you do? How are we going to get through this? Tomorrow or next month, how are we going to have standards? You talked about getting Veterans Affairs out of there. Could you tell me in one minute how you would do this? How would you establish standards?
:
The idea of a national standard of Canada again is that it remain impartial so that the process is fair when the standard is being developed and is not leaning toward one particular brand, as I mentioned earlier. It's not just the brands. Perhaps you can appreciate that in the service dog world or in any of this work, there are a multitude of different stakeholders from sectors, communities, disciplines, etc.
It's important that all of those people at the table be on the TC, the technical committee, because right now I have to make sure that the TC is going to be balanced. I have representation for about five different categories as well as five different regions across the country. There are rules to establish a national standard of Canada that we are obviously following very closely.
That said, the current situation in this environment in the service dog industry is very fragmented, and there's no rhyme or reason. Anybody can hang a shingle on their door. That's why once a standard is actually developed and published by the Standards Council of Canada, there will be an impartial standard that everybody helped to produce, that all of the various stakeholders had an opportunity to produce. Those who don't want to participate don't have to, but where it gets interesting is that if the government says, “My goodness, this is an amazing job. We like what we see here. We're going to reference those standards in our legislation”, then it becomes law. If it becomes law, that actually puts pressure on all of the industries involved to look at what kind of certification is going to happen to comply with the standard, because then it's no longer a choice; it's mandatory.
I've been researching this for over 20 years, and one of the nice things about NSCs is that not only can they be referenced in legislation, but when it comes to the conformity assessment piece, there's also a huge opportunity for third party accreditation bodies that already exist within Canada's national standards system, so we could turn to those organizations. Again, organizations may decide that they don't necessarily want to go through one particular accreditation body; there may be three or four, depending on the organization and the cost of accreditation.
There will be a lot of variables at that point in time, but there's definitely an opportunity for the national standards of Canada to also inform public policy, and through the process, the more public sector representation we get, the better. That way, we can look at our shared objectives—
I'm going to start off with just a comment. I'm assuming with regard to veterans that we're talking about more than those serving in the Canadian Armed Forces, but the RCMP and our police services as well. They matter.
I'm going to quote an organization that's in my backyard. I don't think they have any skin in the game, so I think this will be unbiased, but I'm trying to make a point here.
They say, “Service dogs are not just companions providing confidence and reassurance that the handler is not alone, but integral for the entire healing process, helping with emotional self-regulation and mobility while performing various essential tasks and supporting activities of daily living based upon the individual's requirements. A service dog can promote healthy connections with individuals prone to self-isolation and withdrawal, thus offering hope and promoting recovery in the form of post-traumatic growth.”
I'm hoping there's nothing there than anybody would disagree with.
I really want to go back, though, to my previous question and give Ms. Moss a chance to answer it, because it's about time. Playing devil's advocate a little bit here, I think MP Samson made the comment that we got to the moon 50 or 60 years ago, yet here we are failing to establish standards.
I want to go back, Ms. Moss, again to understand why standards failed to be set a few years ago. Why can't we just adopt another country's standards? Because you're involved in this, you said you've already been a year getting the technical standards and groups set up, so how much more time do we need?
Dogs mean different things to different veterans. Safety is of vital importance, but ultimately it's the mobility aspect, or accessibility from my point of view. I don't care what the dog does as long as it's safe and it does that for that veteran. When Sergeant Webb gets on the ferry next week, he should be able to take his darn dog and take care of himself.
Can you comment on that, Ms. Moss?