Medric Cousineau

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by **Kizzer** Thu 06 Sep 2018, 5:16 pm

Medric Cousineau Posted on Facebook Sept 06, 2018

An Open Letter to Seamus O'Regan.

Seamus, I regret the fact that I have to resort to publishing this on Social Media, however, every other piece of correspondence I have sent you and your immediate predescessor have gone unanswered. The ostrich response will not make the issues I am fighting for go away. In fact, further delay and inaction will only lead to a greater political albatross for your government as you head into an election year.

So, I must ask a very important and salient question. Who is advising you on the Service Dog issue for Veterans battling PTSD? If you and I were to discuss living with menstrual cramps and attempted to dictate policy, half of the population would be incensed. Anything you and I know about that subject is purely book learned or second hand observational views. We have no real world first person lived experience with that matter. That makes sense and most would understand the issues and could sympathize with the ladies frustration if we attempted to dictate policy based on "our experience" in the matter.

None of your senior advisors & crats battle the demons of PTSD. Furthermore, none of them live as a Service Dog handler. Not a single solitary one. So after almost 32 years battling the beast and over 6 years as a handler I have learned much. Each and every single solitary day and night I have more real world lived experience than all your advisors combined.

You should be ashamed that a smashed up old guy, his wife, a service dog and a cadre of volunteers have accomplished what your entire department with the full weight of an entire government could not. However my story is not unique. We have paired 110 veterans and first responders with Service Dogs. We know the outcomes and see first hand the changes in the quality of their lives. Their families let us know how thankful they are for the life saving and game changing gift of their service dogs.

Your bureaucrats have spent the past 5 years mouthing a monotonous and tiresome mantra: We need studies to prove their efficacy. Well, now you got that and your department is dreaming up new ways to stall engagement on this issue. Why? Simply put, there is a price tag that is involved. Sadly, that price tag is measued in dollars and that is what your Crats use as their metrics. However, on our side of the table the metrics are human lives and the impact these service dogs have on their families.

Imagine if you will my "mental state" upon reading your comments about the Garnier case. Your department will provide funding and treatment for a convicted killer who is a "dependant" because it "may" help the family of a veteran. Here is a counter point. Why don't you fund the actual acquisition of a quality service dog for a real live veteran who was injured in service to this country?

My friends and family have urged me to back away from this fight because it kicks the hell out of me. They see it. They live it. However, they do know that the stakes in this fight are human lives. Money is a truly stupid reason for anyone to die. Money is a loathsome reason for those who suffer to be relegated to living in that hell because of governments inaction and money metrics.

Yesterday, I challenged one of your staffers to provide evidence that anything you have in your treatment modalities has the kind of quantifiable numbers as demonstrated in the "efficacy study" on Service dogs that your Crats demanded as "proof". It would behoove you to demand your Crats produce the same numbers for all the other modalities that they are so happy to support and endorse. Oh wait. The amount of money being spent on drugs and therapy are supported by doctors and therapists using studies paid for by Big Pharma. Inconvenient that.

I have spent 5 solid years engaged in this fight for what is right. You might find it interesting to note that not once has your Chief Medical Officer ever discussed these issues with me. However, I am sure from her chair of hubris she has determined everything the department needs to know. I believe that someone who does not know how these dogs work and what they actually do should at least do us all a favour and keep quiet or barring that have the fortitude to admit what she does not know.

Perhaps the bitterest of twisted ironies comes in the form of the reachouts we get from Case Managers, desperate for help for other veterans as they have born witness to what a Service dog can do.

Might I suggest that you and I need to spend some serious time sorting this mess out and the sooner the better. I appreciate our previous meetings, however with the delivery of the efficacy study results the time has run out of the hourglass(5 years worth) and time to deliver is now.

Just so you are well aware. The scorecard now reads Me & Mine 110 - You & Yours ZERO.

Regards
Medric "Cous" Cousineau, SC, CD, KStG
Capt Retd RCAF
& Thai the Service Dog

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