Bill C-11 Committee on Feb. 27th, 2012

[The Chair, NDP, Glenn Thibeault]

You have 30 seconds, Mr. Armstrong.

[Scott Armstrong, Conservative, Cumberland—Colchester—Musquodoboit Valley, NS]

Thank you, Mr. Workman.

I'll go back to the photographers for the final 30 seconds.

Assuming that your association across Canada is very much in support of the changes in the bill, you talked about the amendment you're looking to put in. Can you expand on why you want to put that amendment in the legislation?

[André Cornellier]

Yes, but it would be difficult in 10 seconds.

[The Chair, NDP, Glenn Thibeault]

Thank you very much, Mr. Armstrong.

We now go to Mr. Cash for five minutes.

[Andrew Cash, NDP, Davenport, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to all three of you for being here.

Before I became a politician, I spent many years as a composer, songwriter, and musician, and I know how deeply frustrating it is for creators to lose that primary ownership of their work, so I want to speak to that very clearly.

That being said, I wanted to speak first to Mr. Workman, and hopefully if I have enough time I'll get back to you folks.

Mr. Workman, maybe you could give us a sense of what it means to people with perceptual disabilities to not be able to access not just printed material, obviously, but cinematographic works without descriptive video. Can you give us a sense of what that's like for folks?

[Marc Workman]

On a more emotional level, when you talk to older people who have lost their sight, the two things they constantly say they miss the most are driving and being able to read. So not having access to printed material is definitely something that people feel when they lose their vision.

I also want to mention that I'm working on a PhD at the University of Alberta, and as a student, I've seen a lot of students change their programs because they can get access to the materials in a certain program and they can't get it for the program they were originally in. They drop out of school, or they take longer to finish. It has a major impact on a blind person's ability to be educated and to get a job afterwards. We have really abysmal employment rates for blind Canadians.

[Andrew Cash, NDP, Davenport, ON]

So it would be fair to say this is an issue of equity.

[Marc Workman]

Yes, I would absolutely say that.

To put it very bluntly, we have people here producing products that are not accessible, but could be accessible without causing undue hardship. We're being asked to rely on an exemption rather than these products simply becoming more accessible. What I'm pushing for is to make this exemption, on which we're being forced to rely, as open as possible and as effective as possible.

[Andrew Cash, NDP, Davenport, ON]

Based on your experiences so far, do you have faith that the content producers will, perhaps, begin to open up their access for blind people and people with hearing impairments? Do you have faith that the private sector—or the market, if you will—will actually come in and respond to this?

[Marc Workman]

There is some evidence. If you look at Apple, iBooks is totally accessible using the iPod touch, iPads, and these sorts of things. But then if you also look at Amazon, the Kindle is completely inaccessible. They've taken steps backwards. The Kindle Fire, which recently came out, did not include any accessibility, so I'm not really that optimistic.

We're going to need either publishing incentives—subsidies to publishers who produce accessible formats—or some other kind of legislation to require it to happen.

[Andrew Cash, NDP, Davenport, ON]

What would be some of the ramifications—maybe you could just map them out in a general way—if this exemption were to hold? In other words, if amendments weren't made to Bill C-11 to reflect some of the concerns you have, how would that affect your community and other communities in the real world?

[Marc Workman]

It would just perpetuate some of the problems I talked about earlier—the education issues, in particular, which I'm more familiar with, but also the inability to fully participate in your community, to learn, or to engage in lifelong learning, if you end up losing your vision. I think we'd be left with the same situation we have now, which is an extremely small number of works being converted to accessible formats.

[Andrew Cash, NDP, Davenport, ON]

You do, however, suggest there is a business case to be made for for-profit companies to produce works in alternative formats. You say this does exist.

[Marc Workman]

Yes, there are a number of companies that are engaged in this business. However, they can't take advantage of the section 32 exemption, because it's explicitly limited to non-profits. It's another situation where we're trying to break down some of the limitations that prevent the exemption from being used as effectively as it could be.

[Andrew Cash, NDP, Davenport, ON]

So in other words—

[The Chair, NDP, Glenn Thibeault]

Mr. Cash, you had about three seconds, so unfortunately, I really couldn't let you go much further than that.

[Andrew Cash, NDP, Davenport, ON]

Thank you.

[The Chair, NDP, Glenn Thibeault]

Thank you, Mr. Workman and Mr. Cash.

Next, for five minutes, is Mr. Braid.

[Peter Braid, Conservative, Kitchener—Waterloo, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to all our witnesses for being here this afternoon.

Mr. Workman, I'm actually going to continue the same theme of questioning that Mr. Cash started. I wanted to start by asking you to educate the committee a little bit and explain today what tools and technologies exist to create accessible formats.

[Marc Workman]

This is not my area of expertise, but typical alternative formats would be Braille and audio. They're some of the ones that might be more understood. More recently, in the last 20 years or so, e-text has been, potentially, a really revolutionary alternative format. There are screen readers. I'm using one on this Mac right now to access the text I wrote for my presentation. We can access electronic books using these technologies.

The issue occurs when DRM is put on e-books. For Kindle, or in the NOOK store from Barnes & Noble, DRM can limit the ability of screen readers to access the materials, so we become locked out of a potentially accessible book.

[Peter Braid, Conservative, Kitchener—Waterloo, ON]

But Bill C-11 would allow that to occur, correct?

[Marc Workman]

Yes. Bill C-11 would allow us to remove the DRM.

The issue that I raise is that I suspect it will be difficult to find access to those tools. It's not clear that the tools will be accessible, so I believe it will be a right that can't easily be exercised by the average blind Canadian.

[Peter Braid, Conservative, Kitchener—Waterloo, ON]

I'm just trying to get to the root of understanding why currently only about 10% of works, as you explain, are in an accessible format. Is it an issue of business models? Is it an issue of technology?

[Marc Workman]

I think the organizations doing the work are not being funded in the way that they could be, and publishers are not supporting the production of alternative formats in the way that they could be.

We're talking about a fairly small market, and it's just not receiving the attention it deserves.

[Peter Braid, Conservative, Kitchener—Waterloo, ON]

Is it fair to say that not-for-profit agencies in Canada that support those with perceptual abilities and have some expertise in this area have concerns about improving this point?