The medical expense tax credit should be embedded inside the Income Tax Act and provide equality for a psychiatric service dog—and here I would suggest to the committee that we look toward dispensing with the use of the stigmatizing word “psychiatric”. “Veteran-assist service dog” or “first-responder-assist service dog” are certainly much more palatable options, from my chair. That needs to be embedded inside the Income Tax Act. It's also related to the legislation and policies that VAC is continuing to struggle to implement. There's almost a commingling of benefits, and there is no clearly defined policy. However, any attempt by the government to say that we have no standards for these dogs.... Unfortunately, there are no standards for the dogs that are already there. It has to be an equal playing field.
On April 30th, 2018. See this statement in context.