Mr. Speaker, every May, I make a point of drawing attention to Speech and Hearing Awareness Month and recognizing the three million Quebeckers and Canadians who have a hearing problem. Yet, year after year, I realize that a great deal remains to be done to ensure that these individuals enjoy equal rights and are full members of our society.
The problem lies more particularly with French captioning, which lags behind. Just imagine: French captioning is not yet available for the proceedings of the House of Commons, even though this service is available in English. This situation is simply unacceptable.
First, we should adequately fund research. Also, all broadcasters should be required to provide closed captioning of their programs in both official languages.
The Bloc Québécois will tackle this issue with a bill to amend the Broadcasting Act to make captioning mandatory. I call on the government to support this bill in order for all individuals to have the same rights in terms of communication and information.