moved for leave to introduce Bill C-345, an act to amend the Canadian Human Rights Act.
Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to reintroduce this private member's bill. It is very important. The bill would amend the Canadian Human Rights Act to protect the rights of individuals who require assistance dogs for daily living and the rights of the individuals who train these dogs.
This enactment would specify that it is a discriminatory practice to prohibit access of an individual with an assistance dog to goods, services, facilities or accommodation normally acceptable and accessible to the general public. The bill would assure that assistance dogs, other than seeing eye dogs, are recognized under federal law including seizure response and seizure alert dogs.
The owners and trainers of assistance dogs should be given the same rights of access under federal law as those individuals who require seeing eye dogs. As the House know, that has been in place for a very long time.
These exceptional assistance animals are a necessity in the daily lives of many Canadians. They can be trained to pull wheel chairs, carry and pick up things for persons with mobility impairments, alert deaf individuals to sounds, and even dial the telephone in an emergency. I have seen one of these dogs in action. It is high time that we enacted the laws that they would be given the same rights as others.
(Motions deemed adopted, bill read the first time and printed)