Canadian Heritage committee  Not specifically, because I don't have complaints about journalistic objectivity, as the other members of the panel might, nor do I have complaints about funding mechanisms or which documentary errs and which documentary didn't. I don't have those sorts of complaints. When you get right down to it, discussing accessibility on the CBC is a sort of internal matter.

Canadian Heritage committee  Let's go through those things one after another. Errors: I assume you're referring to real-time captioning, like a newscast, for example?

Canadian Heritage committee  If it's an uncommon proper name, and those things happen every single day, then the real-time captioners do not have that name in their dictionary. They either have to laboriously spell it letter by letter, and that can happen several times in the course of a sentence, or just put in frenetic strokes and hope it gets translated correctly, and that often doesn't work.

Canadian Heritage committee  The human captioner has to hear the audio, think about it, type the right keystrokes or re-voice it, and then that has to be translated by the computer software, sent back over the phone line, and then sent back to you. There is an unavoidable three- to nine-second delay, even in really good real-time captioning, and that will never change.

Canadian Heritage committee  That's pretty simple, actually. The CBC should be a standard bearer for accessibility in Canada. That means on its television networks, for example, 100% captioning and a large quantity of audio description on the web, accessibility for people with disabilities there; and point number two, all that accessibility should be carried out according to independently developed open standards.

Canadian Heritage committee  No, it would be according to standards that were developed openly through independent outside process. The standards are developed openly. They're not closed standards.

Canadian Heritage committee  For the web, there are already existing international independently developed standards that could be adhered to, so that's already in place. For broadcasting, for things like captioning and audio description, my organization wants to write those standards independently.

Canadian Heritage committee  Hi there. Thanks for having me. My name is Joe Clark. I live here in Toronto. This is the third time I've given evidence before this esteemed committee. I was here in 2002 and also in 1990. I hope this will be the time when something actually happens after my appearance. I have a 25-year interest in accessibility for people with disabilities.