Official Languages committee  I see what you're saying, that it would be...in order for them to access things that are in English in the scientific world. That makes complete sense to me. It's like what you were saying along the lines that there shouldn't be two different systems being used, and I agree with that.

Official Languages committee  They are right now.

Official Languages committee  I would think so, but I'm just presenting what I do know. I use French Braille, but I don't teach it, unfortunately. So I don't deal with that side of it. Sometimes I hear comments along the lines of, oh, students are going to have such a hard time with this, and then I think, I didn't.

Official Languages committee  I guess I would say a couple of things. One, as I said before, I am not a francophone. If this is how francophones feel about the issue, then obviously their opinion is worth more. Since French is their first language, I think their opinion should weigh more. The other thing I want to say is that when I was learning Braille, I didn't find it an extra burden or an extra handicap.

Official Languages committee  Right now I'm in the process of figuring it out. I'm researching. At work we're still using Braille the way it has been used, so I'm in the process of researching what the differences are. Even with the new standardized English code, it isn't that it's incomprehensible to somebody.

Official Languages committee  I studied linguistics as a student.

Official Languages committee  Yes.

Official Languages committee  When I said that I studied linguistics at university, it was simply to inform you that -- my educational background. It's not really connected to my knowledge of Braille. It's just what I studied.

Official Languages committee  It's not so much that it's different, but provinces have their own jurisdiction. Probably the Braille isn't necessarily going to be different. For example, maybe if I had gone to school in New Brunswick as a child I may have had access to abbreviated French Braille, whereas I didn't in Ontario.

Official Languages committee  Honestly, I'm not sure whose role it should be. It's just that it seems at this point that nobody has the authority to do that. I'm not trying to come here and say the government should be doing this and the government should be doing that, because I'm not really sure whose place it would be.

Official Languages committee  Yes.

Official Languages committee  Basically, I'm not really using the math system. I'm reading a text document, and yes, they have numbers in it, but the way Braille works is that when you're using literary Braille, you use numbers in a certain way. If I was reading a math textbook, then I would use a math code, which is part of, again, why they want to standardize it.

Official Languages committee  I know the Nemeth system because that's what I learned in school, and I also know the way numbers are used in literary Braille. You just get a text document or any kind of document that just happens to have some numbers in it. I wouldn't say that I'm overly familiar with Antoine on its own, enough to read a math textbook in French or a science textbook.

Official Languages committee  All right. Thank you. I want to say that while we are involved in the standardization process, we don't have the power to make anybody follow it. Again, the CNIB is obviously one of the major Braille producers in the country, so if they agree to it, then much of the Braille produced will be in the new standardized format.

Official Languages committee  Again, part of the standardization idea is to make it so there aren't several different codes for someone to learn. In English, it is the same thing; there are three or four codes. We have Nemeth. In French, there is the Antoine Code. The idea was to make it so that people don't have to learn the literary, mathematical, and scientific components.