Veterans Affairs committee  I can go next. In terms of that piece of it, suicide is a very individual thing, but making sure that our team is suicide aware and responsive, and trauma-informed, is part of what we do at NSD. In terms of the anecdotal evidence we have seen from our clients and heard from our

Veterans Affairs committee  Do you want to go first this time, Laura, or do you want me to dive in? Okay, I'll dive in. With “off the shelf”, in terms of there already being pieces of the puzzle in place, I'm going to go back to what Laura said in her opening remarks. There are a few different lanes. If y

Veterans Affairs committee  For our part, we actually use the prescriber guidelines that were developed by Kristine Aanderson. She was also my co-chair in the CGSB committee. That is our first line of defence because that allows us to ensure that there's been a conversation with a medical professional about

Veterans Affairs committee  Sheila can speak to this as well. Currently under ADI's situation you have to be a registered charity—whether it's in the U.S., Canada or around the world, whatever the equivalence is—in order to apply and go through the process and become a member of Assistance Dogs Internation

Veterans Affairs committee  On that front, I'm going to leave Medric's personal take on all of that to him. As co-chair of the committee, I can tell you that where we fell down was not in the standard in and of itself, but how it was going to be administered. The policy piece is what scared people. The sta

Veterans Affairs committee  Sure. Narrowing the focus down to what you guys with Veterans Affairs are interested in, which are standards for the PTSD side of things, I would put forward to you that there are currently already recognized in law through international standards already developed a really goo

Veterans Affairs committee  Good afternoon, everybody. Thank you for providing me with the opportunity to speak to the committee on this important issue. I am currently the executive director and co-founder of National Service Dogs. We're based in Cambridge, Ontario. Over the past 25 years we've successful