Canadian Heritage committee  It's also important to recognize that you're going to have to go into the people's homes. They're not going to be able to do it all the time on their own. There needs to be that part of it that is very grassroots and community-based aspect.

Canadian Heritage committee  Yes.

Canadian Heritage committee  Your point about the service being downloaded to you and your budget is very consistent with people with disabilities and organizations for the disabled, whose budgets are being cut back. They're volunteer, not-for-profit, and charitable organizations, and they just can't do it,

Canadian Heritage committee  What we've actually filed is that there should be a buyer's premium put on top of that $400 million, and that represents 10%. It's consistent with how auctions occur all over the world, and that kind of fund could begin to address these types of issues.

Canadian Heritage committee  The digital signal will include captioning. Industry Canada takes care of those types of standards, the technical standards. The pass-through will be digital. There's still some lag and other issues associated with it, but for the most part, the distribution of the content will a

Canadian Heritage committee  If you take what we found in the U.S., which is that one-third of all households will have someone with a disability, then we're looking at, according to the CRTC estimates, 300,000 households having someone with a disability or being run by someone with a disability. That's a bi

Canadian Heritage committee  Well--

Canadian Heritage committee  What's really sad about that is if there's any Telefilm or CMF money involved, they'll actually pay for the captioning and description if it's in the budget, so it's kind of sad you're saying that and experiencing that. The only research that's been done recently—the beginning o

Canadian Heritage committee  Let's look at what was committed to by Shaw. It was $38 million for this to reach 200,000 households; what does $38 million do if you have a strategic, comprehensive framework through which you are trying reach every Canadian by applying it more strategically than just throwing i

Canadian Heritage committee  I'll add the important point that if you want to use any of that spectrum they're squatting on, you have to partner with them. You're just not going to get that access, so how can anybody ever break into anything? How is there innovation, when you have to partner, inevitably, wit

Canadian Heritage committee  Your question speaks to a very important point, and that is the lack of research. I think that's consistent with many other activities that affect people with disabilities in communication. Again, there needs to be ongoing research in this and many other areas. We communicate re

Canadian Heritage committee  The first real issue, realistically, is whether it is $30 we're talking about. This is a situation of supply and demand. If nobody knows about it in the first place, on September 1 you're going to have lineups at electronics stores. They're not going to be $30--not at all. They'r

Canadian Heritage committee  I think the key lesson and the one that's most in our face is that there was a comprehensive campaign and outreach, and there was recognition that there was economic disparity and that something needed to be done about that. It needed to be addressed and then communicated. I ag

Canadian Heritage committee  I think it's also important to recognize that in a market-driven framework there are always going to be those areas that are not going to be driven by the market. The government needs to step up and accept that and address that aspect in a very proactive way, certainly in this ci

Canadian Heritage committee  Hello, and thank you. Before I begin my prepared statement, I'd like to apologize on behalf of Yves Séguin, who is not joining me here today. He would have presented to you the consumer side of things. Having said that, I'd like to tell you that I am a child of deaf parents, an