Family denied rescue dog because son has autism files Ontario human rights complaint
CBC
Erin Doan of Listowell, Ont., was told in March that her family wouldn't be able to adopt a dog from Kismutt Rescue because her nine-year-old son has autism.
On Wednesday, the family filed a Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario complaint against the non-profit.
"It's not just a complaint on my son's behalf, but it's a complaint on behalf of the entire autism community as well as their families," said Doan, who was disheartened to learn the St. Marys-area dog rescue has a blanket policy that bans families with autism from adopting dogs.
Erin's son, Henry, is non-verbal and recently started communicating with the help of special software installed on an iPad. One of the first things he asked for was a dog, she said.
"Making a blanket policy ... in general is not appropriate," she said. "[People with autism] deserve the love of an animal just as anyone else does."
At the time, Kismutt Rescue wrote a lengthy Facebook post about its policy, detailing two separate occasions where the organization adopted a dog out to a family who had a child with autism: In one case, a child bit a dog. In the other, a child hit a dog with a fan.
"After the second incident with the second dog, I made a policy that NO dog will be adopted into homes with Autistic children," the post says.
It goes on to suggest 99 per cent of students with autism "have outbursts and can be aggressive and violent."
Read the whole post from Kismutt Rescue:
"That's not only incorrect, but it's based on junk science," Michael Cnudde of Autism Ontario said about the comment in the non-profit's post.
"The reality of the situation is that the risk of violent behaviour of folks on the spectrum is no different than the general population."
Cnudde is happy Doan has filed the human rights complaint, and called Kismutt's policy discriminatory and ableist (amounting to prejudice against people with disabilities).
Doan's lawyer, Christopher Achkar of Toronto, also commented on the role of the human rights tribunal.
"The tribunal's job is to ... evaluate if Erin and her son were treated adversely because of her son's disability or perceived disability."
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