Madam Speaker, Motion No. 367 presented by the member for Longueuil states:
That, in the opinion of this House, the government should: (a) take all measures necessary to encourage, facilitate and actively support the right to communications of the deaf and hearing impaired; (b) act without delay to set up a real program to fund the research and development of technologies relating to closed captioning; (c) draft a bill to amend the Broadcasting Act to oblige all broadcasters to carry visual programs with closed captioning.
I am very pleased to address the issue in the House for a number of reasons.
I am sure that every member in the House as a member of society comes across people who are hearing impaired. I remember one of my first personal experiences was with a friend who had grown to adulthood with a deaf parent. I was quite intrigued as I observed him using the American sign language as a communication tool. In his family that was the norm. He and his siblings all used sign language to communicate with their father .
The subject today is not about American sign language, it is about closed captioning on television. However it does bear considering the needs and the concerns of the deaf and being sensitive to those who are hearing impaired in our society.
I personally have been very impressed with the American sign language. If I may be allowed, I will go on for a moment about that.
The hearing impaired are able to communicate very well using sign language. On a ferry trip from Nanaimo to Vancouver I remember seeing a group of people who turned out to be constituents communicating using sign language.
I am quite keen to have someone do signing at our town hall meetings. We explored that possibility but were not successful in arranging it. We are still working on it. If there are people out there in my riding who have the skills to do that, I am looking for them.
Communication is a privilege that we enjoy as human beings. We like to think we are intelligent human beings, but even that can be the subject of debate in the House. It is a privilege to be able to paint a picture with words, to be able to discuss a subject such as the one we are debating today that does not involve those of us here who are not hearing impaired but we are able to identify with, that takes us into the lives, the hearts and the minds of people who have a disability that we do not have.
I wonder if we do not take our communication skills for granted sometimes. What a tremendous advantage it is for us to be able to communicate intimate thoughts, our thoughts about beauty and the wonderful world we see around us, to be able to describe what we see when travelling along the coast, a tide pool, a sunset or a wave breaking on the shore.
Communication is such a wonderful tool. It is such a wonderful opportunity that we have to express ourselves and to receive fulfillment in this world.
The issue the motion addresses is about access to information. It is about opportunity to engage in society and understand what is going on in the world. It is about inclusion. It is about personal development.
A few facts were presented by the hon. member for Longueuil and we appreciate that. She mentioned there are about three million people in Canada who are hearing impaired. I have some statistics that include the United States. Approximately 28 million people in the U.S. have some degree of reduced hearing sensitivity. That puts us at about the 10:1 ratio, which seems to be standard in so many issues between Canada and the United States relative to our populations.
Over one million children in the U.S. have a hearing loss. One in 1,000 infants born in the U.S. has a severe or profound hearing loss. In the first instance we are talking about the one in 1,000 infants born with a severe or profound hearing loss, but by the time they are school age children, a severe or profound hearing loss occurs in about nine children out of every 1,000.
Some of the information I was able to glean in trying to enter the world of the deaf and understand it a little better was information I received from Deaf and Mental Health Services in British Columbia. It did a survey recently. It gathered information by reviewing relevant literature on previous reports. It consulted with a community advisory committee and interviewed over 160 community members, family members and service providers individually and in small groups.
The statistics showed that of the target population of British Columbia, 8,000 children and adults from all ethnic and family backgrounds are deaf. I will quote a paragraph from its conclusions:
Although all Deaf people face tremendous communication barriers in a world designed for people who hear, this small population is very diverse in terms of pattern of deafness, communication preferences, signing skills, speaking skills, educational experiences, literacy, and abilities. About two-thirds of the Deaf population (about 5,000 BC residents) communicate primarily through American Sign Language (ASL) and are more or less oriented toward...the Deaf community.
It is important to recognize that it is not just the deaf person that is involved. Family members are also influenced. There are probably four people in an average household who are affected along with the deaf person.
I have just one more set of statistics to offer. About 90% of deaf children are born to parents who can hear and about 90% of children born to deaf parents can hear.
There is another segment of society that is very much influenced by this and it is those who suffer from adult onset hearing impairment. In my riding there are many people with this. There is a huge retirement community on Vancouver Island. Also affected are many of our World War II veterans, Korean war veterans, many of our mill workers who have been exposed to industrial noise, our bush workers, forestry workers and operators of heavy duty equipment.
I spoke with one audiologist in my riding. I was interested to find out that it takes between 80 decibels and 90 decibels for eight hours to create a hearing loss. I was surprised that something as innocuous as a hair blow dryer produces 90 decibels. We have to wonder about other noises we are exposed to in society. Perhaps we should consider having a debate on noise pollution.
I am concerned about the young people that I see driving down the street with boom boxes blaring in their cars that rattle not only their own vehicles but those across the street and perhaps even people in buildings across the street. I remember being in my office in Parksville, a small community on Vancouver Island, and actually feeling the building tremble. I went out to see what was causing it. It was a boom box in a young person's car out in the back lane. The noise was actually shaking the building. My receptionist and I were quite surprised to feel the impact of that.
I understand that the noise level from a boom box is about 140 decibels. At 140 decibels, that puts it right up there with what we might experience if we were standing on the deck of an aircraft carrier or if we were within 25 metres of a jet taking off, which is about 150 decibels. At those levels a person's eardrums can actually rupture.
This is a very serious issue that the member has raised. The issue is very important to members of our society.
I came across some information from the Canadian Hard of Hearing Association. It did a study in June 1999. It identified three main issues associated with closed captioning on television: accessibility; quality of programming available to the hearing impaired; and awareness. Regarding quality, there are still some technical difficulties with closed captioning. Sometimes it works and sometimes it does not. As far as awareness issues, one-third of the Canadian general public cannot describe what closed captioning is and therefore are unaware of the issue.
In closing, any day that we learn something new is a good day. I appreciate that the member has brought this motion forward to raise the awareness of the issues relating to the deaf. The member's motion is about learning and opportunities to learn. It is about inclusion. It is about development. It is about helping people achieve satisfaction in life. It is about relieving a sense of isolation.
If I may be allowed, just in a nutshell, there is another metaphor that I personally have found very fulfilling. It has to do with learning. Being an islander, I relate to this: “The larger the island of knowledge, the longer the shoreline of wonder”.
This is about sharing knowledge and communicating knowledge. It is about helping a segment of our population enter fully with the rest of us into this marvellous experience in life of learning and growing together.
I am pleased to support the motion. I encourage all other members of the House to raise awareness of the deaf and the hearing impaired in our society.