Thank you for the question.
As we went through the work on service dogs, we looked at what the different provinces are doing and their levels of maturity. As I mentioned, we have British Columbia with a very advanced legislative framework, which is not necessarily the case in other situations.
Given the inquiries we were receiving about service dogs for veterans, that is the reason why, in 2015, we contracted with the Canadian General Standards Board to establish that national set of standards so that there would be consistency in the training and the quality of the service dogs being used to assist veterans with mental health issues. It was largely because we were aware and saw the growing interest in service dogs in the veteran community and wanted to advance the issue in support of those veterans. Unfortunately, as noted, the board notified committee members in April 2018 that it withdrew its intent to produce a standard, because there was no consensus and the standard would not be able to be achieved with a positive impact, so it was discontinued.
However, we continued forward with the research, and then through the veteran and family well-being fund in 2019 we funded Wounded Warriors Canada to expand their post-traumatic stress disorder service dog program. They really are doing amazing work in this area, both in developing prescriber guidelines and criteria—