Recovering from a workplace accident, Cynthia Desgagné realized it was no longer feasible to use the stairs in her Quebec City home every day.
Turning to Facebook Marketplace, she had hope that her search for a new apartment had come to an end when she landed on a listing for one that met her needs. But when she let the landlord know she had a service dog, she wasn’t allowed so much as a visit to the dwelling.
“They practically told me that my disability was invalid,” Desgagné said. “I found it hurtful and humiliating.”
Desgagné lives with multiple health conditions, including post-traumatic stress disorder. Following advice and a prescription from her psychiatrist, she acquired a service dog named Raziel.
But the building Desgagné was interested in only accepts dogs under 20 pounds, and Raziel weighs more than that. Even after explaining that her dog was a service dog and that she had documentation to support that, Desgagné was denied access to the apartment.
“My dog is primordial in my life. I don’t go out without her,” said Desgagné. “[She] helps me, on a certain level, with my mobility and my balance, but also with managing my chronic pain.”
After attempts to come to an agreement with the owner failed, Desgagné took her case to Quebec’s human rights commission, which ruled in her favour.
She then took the case to the province’s Human Rights Tribunal. In a decision rendered in July, both the real estate company, Entreprise 9444-0831, and its vice-president Allison Turcotte-Cloutier, who is in charge of rentals, were ordered to pay around $7,000 in damages.
Their actions were ruled as discrimination “based on a disability or on the use of any means to palliate a disability.”
According to the tribunal ruling, Turcotte-Cloutier said she had consulted her lawyer who had informed her Desgagné’s condition did not qualify for a service dog. They were under the impression that only those with autism, those with limited mobility or those who are either visually or hearing impaired qualified for a dog.
“[Turcotte-Cloutier] distinguishes service dogs from emotional support dogs. To her, the distinction is important because she says just anyone can claim to be anxious and need the presence of a dog,” the court documents read.
But the tribunal ruled Desgagné qualifies for a dog as she meets the Charter definition of a person with a disability, because her condition “has an impact on her daily ability to function.”
Desgagné also had the medical paperwork to back that up and had suggested Turcotte-Cloutier better inform herself of the regulations. However, it was to no avail, and she was told the apartment had already been rented out to someone else.
“I told her she was infringing on my rights at that point,” Desgagné said. “But she decided to refuse me anyway.”
Desgagné says this issue isn’t new for her. She says she was denied about 20 other apartments because of her dog and has had misunderstandings with business owners in the past as well.
“Every single time I go somewhere, I have to justify myself, I have to explain, I have to fight so that my rights are respected,” said Desgagné.
Daniel Jean, the director general of the Office des personnes handicapées du Québec, says this situation is one of the more common complaints brought before Quebec’s human rights commission.
Between 2017 and 2024, the commission saw a 64 per cent increase in the number of complaints related to service dogs — much of these in public spaces like hotels and restaurants, but also in workplaces, schools, transport services and housing.
“Someone with a trauma who is followed by a doctor and who has a prescription from a doctor is, in theory, protected by the charter,” said Jean. “If the person has the proof and can demonstrate that it’s part of their condition, then for sure if there is a complaint and the complaint is admissible the [other party] will face a penalty.”
Part of the reason for the rising number of complaints, Jean said, is that Quebec, like most provinces, has no legislation regulating service dogs.
Only a handful, including Alberta and British Columbia, now have legislation in place detailing the right to a service dog.
Following an interministerial committee on the issue, the Office des personnes handicapées du Québec is looking to help draft legislation that would clarify regulations surrounding therapy and service dogs.
The goal, Jean says, is to modify articles in existing laws in the near future.
“What we’re aiming for is to have a law that regulates this and gives certain responsibilities to organizations and ministries,” said Jean, adding they also plan on better regulating training programs.
“The trainers don’t all have the same norms, the same standards,” he said. “There are users who can pay a lot to get a dog that is, in fact, not trained in an optimal way.”
The agency is also looking to establish clearer guidelines for people who do not meet the legal definition of someone living with a disability but who require a therapy dog.
Having volunteered for the Mira foundation, which provides guide dogs and service dogs to people with disabilities, Turcotte-Cloutier said she also “knows there are certain breeds of dogs that cannot be service dogs.”
According to the tribunal documents, Turcotte-Cloutier claimed Raziel, being part American Staffordshire Terrier and therefore “close to a pitbull,” would not qualify to be trained as a service dog.
But Sonia Baillargeon, the founder of Anakim Assistance who trained Raziel herself, believes it’s not the breed of a dog that qualifies them as a service dog – it’s their behaviour.
“I have Labradors that aren’t able to do the job. I have Bernese mountain dogs that find it difficult to do the job,” Baillargeon told Radio-Canada. “Yet these are the dogs typically used. It’s really their temperament that tells us whether or not they can become a service dog.”
Turcotte-Cloutier also claimed to have recently made an exception for someone else with a recognized service dog and said it bit two residents in one month, including one who had to go to the hospital. She said the tenants threatened to leave the building if she accepted other large dogs and that would deprive her of revenue.
The tribunal found there was no evidence of incidents involving another dog, and even if there had been, the judge writes, this would not meet the legal definition of undue hardship for Turcotte-Cloutier, and therefore would not be considered a valid reason to refuse the service dog.
Turcotte-Cloutier declined a request for an interview. In a statement, her lawyer, Guillaume Lavoie, says his client disagrees with several aspects of the ruling, notably the “failure to mention multiple complaints filed by [Desgagné] regarding multiple landlords,” but are choosing not to appeal for financial reasons.
“My clients are of the opinion that, even though the Tribunal concluded they could have acted differently within the parameters established by jurisprudence, their conduct was never a mark of bad faith or a desire to harm Desgagné,” his statement reads, adding Turcotte-Cloutier is sensitive to the issue as she and her father both have physical disabilities.
