BOARD OF DIRECTORS Veronica Morris, PhD Elaine Malkin Chanda Hagen Linden Gue Heather Walker Bradley W. Morris, MA, CPhil 1651 SANDPIPER DRIVE ROCK HILL SC 29732 USA (805) 876-4256
[email protected] www.psychdogpartners.org Canada transportation law comment March 20, 2019 TO: Sonia Gangopadhyay Acting Director Centre of Expertise for Accessible Transportation Canadian Transportation Agency 15 Eddy Street Gatineau, Quebec K1A 0N9 (819) 953-8961
[email protected] RE: Canada Gazette, Part I, February 28, 2019; Comment on updates to regulations pertaining to travel with a service dog Ms. Gangopadhyay: Psychiatric Service Dog Partners is a US-based nonprofit that advocates internationally for its worldwide service dog community. As an all-volunteer group led by people with disabilities—and a leading voice in creating reasonable solutions for disability-mitigating animal use in air travel—we have previously urged you (the Canadian Transportation Agency) to heed the lessons wrought by your neighbors through much effort.1 With the current request for comments on the proposed transportation regulations, we write again to accentuate these lessons with an overview and valuable pointers to useful resources. The present update from CTA's previous draft makes improvements when it comes to some of the proposals regarding service dogs. However, on other important points in this area, we fear CTA plans to follow a clandestinely perilous path others have counseled against after learning the hard way themselves. Shift human rights to the fore 1 See our February 23, 2017 letter. https://www.psychdogpartners.org/wp- content/uploads/2017/02/USAUSA-CTA-Comment.pdf 1/5 We begin with what should be an uncontroversial premise.