An anonymous source provided this info to us – thank you! This is some great information that Miriam Yaniv and Jessica Yaniv Simpson’s strata corporations / councils need to know about service dog laws and human rights tribunal history.
Might want to pass this onto JY’s Strata. The new dog may not be legally allowed. Attached is a bulletin summarizing information respecting the Guide Dog and Service Dog Act.
The Guide Dog and Service Dog Act is helpful for strata corporations as it sets out qualifications for service animals and is not open to the discretion of council.
The Act sets out certification limits and criteria for dogs and no other animals, recognizes both guide dogs for the visually impaired and service dogs for individuals with other disabilities, requires specific training standards for certified dogs, provides an option for dogs to be tested by a designated third party if needed, extends public access rights to certified dogs in training, extends tenancy rights to include strata properties and retired certified dogs that continue to reside with their handlers, and increases the existing penalties and create a new offence of falsely purporting to be a certified team.
Note: strata bylaws and rental provisions that prohibit or restrict pets will continue to apply to certified dogs in training. In other words, dogs in training are not exempted from the application of a pet bylaw.
You may want to review the government of BC website re: the Guide Dog and Serve Dog Act at https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/justice/human-rights/guide-and-service-dog
[mdocs single-file=”The-Case-of-the-Uncertified-Service-Dog.pdf”]
[mdocs single-file=”The-Case-of-the-Uncertified-Service-Dog.pdf”]
Thank you to our friend for sharing this information! We’ll work to ensure this ends up in the right hands.
Update: I’ll update this post as more info comes in. A friend shared some more great links, including lots of info about fake service dogs.
National Post article about fake service dogs in BC.
