ARCHIVED -  Transcript

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

              TRANSCRIPT OF PROCEEDINGS BEFORE

             THE CANADIAN RADIO‑TELEVISION AND

               TELECOMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION

 

 

 

 

             TRANSCRIPTION DES AUDIENCES DEVANT

              LE CONSEIL DE LA RADIODIFFUSION

           ET DES TÉLÉCOMMUNICATIONS CANADIENNES

 

 

                      SUBJECT / SUJET:

 

 

 

Unresolved issues related to the accessibility of

telecommunications and broadcasting services to

persons with disabilities /

Questions en suspens concernant l'accessibilité des

services de télécommunication et de radiodiffusion pour

les personnes handicapées

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

HELD AT:                              TENUE À:

 

Conference Centre                     Centre de conférences

Outaouais Room                        Salle Outaouais

140 Promenade du Portage              140, Promenade du Portage

Gatineau, Quebec                      Gatineau (Québec)

 

November 19, 2008                     Le 19 novembre 2008

 

 

 

 

 

Transcripts

 

In order to meet the requirements of the Official Languages

Act, transcripts of proceedings before the Commission will be

bilingual as to their covers, the listing of the CRTC members

and staff attending the public hearings, and the Table of

Contents.

 

However, the aforementioned publication is the recorded

verbatim transcript and, as such, is taped and transcribed in

either of the official languages, depending on the language

spoken by the participant at the public hearing.

 

 

 

 

Transcription

 

Afin de rencontrer les exigences de la Loi sur les langues

officielles, les procès‑verbaux pour le Conseil seront

bilingues en ce qui a trait à la page couverture, la liste des

membres et du personnel du CRTC participant à l'audience

publique ainsi que la table des matières.

 

Toutefois, la publication susmentionnée est un compte rendu

textuel des délibérations et, en tant que tel, est enregistrée

et transcrite dans l'une ou l'autre des deux langues

officielles, compte tenu de la langue utilisée par le

participant à l'audience publique.

               Canadian Radio‑television and

               Telecommunications Commission

 

            Conseil de la radiodiffusion et des

               télécommunications canadiennes

 

 

                 Transcript / Transcription

 

 

Unresolved issues related to the accessibility of

telecommunications and broadcasting services to

persons with disabilities /

Questions en suspens concernant l'accessibilité des

services de télécommunication et de radiodiffusion pour

les personnes handicapées

 

 

 

BEFORE / DEVANT:

 

Leonard Katz                      Chairperson / Président

Elizabeth Duncan                  Commissioner / Conseillère

Timothy Denton                    Commissioner / Conseiller

Suzanne Lamarre                   Commissioner / Conseillère

Candice Molnar                    Commissioner / Conseillère

Stephen Simpson                   Commissioner / Conseiller

 

 

ALSO PRESENT / AUSSI PRÉSENTS:

 

Sylvie Bouffard                   Secretary / Secretaire

Kathleen Taylor                   Hearing Manager /

                                  Gérante de l'audience

Martine Vallée                    Director, Social Policy /

                                  Directrice, Politiques

Sheila Perron                     Hearing Officer /

                                  Agente d'audiences

Lori Pope                         Legal Counsel /

Véronique Lehoux                  Conseillères juridiques

 

 

HELD AT:                          TENUE À:

 

Conference Centre                 Centre de conférences

Outaouais Room                    Salle Outaouais

140 Promenade du Portage          140, Promenade du Portage

Gatineau, Quebec                  Gatineau (Québec)

 

November 19, 2008                 Le 19 novembre 2008

- iv -

 

           TABLE DES MATIÈRES / TABLE OF CONTENTS

 

 

                                                 PAGE / PARA

 

PRESENTATION BY / PRÉSENTATION PAR:

 

 

SaskTel                                           618 / 3546

 

Regroupement des aveugles et amblyopes du Québec  700 / 4126

 

Edwin Ross Eadie                                  737 / 4332

 

Canadian Hard of Hearing Association in Hamilton  769 / 4514

 

VRS Consultative Committee of BC                  819 / 4828

 

Ryerson Centre for learning technologies          849 / 5024

 

Canadian Cable Systems Alliance Inc.              865 / 5116

 

Joe Clark                                         913 / 5431

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Gatineau, Quebec / Gatineau (Québec)

‑‑‑ Upon resuming on Wednesday, November 19, 2008

    at 0902 / L'audience reprend le mercredi

    19 November 2008 à 0902

3534             THE CHAIRPERSON:  Order, please.  We are about to start Day Three of this proceeding.  A couple of preliminary matters before we start.

3535             First, we are going to have another first for the CRTC today.  There are a number of videoconferencing linkups that will be taking place today through Vancouver, Winnipeg and Toronto, so we ask for everybody's support in trying to work the process out.  There will be support staff in some of these locations as well, so we will try and time things as best we can with the intent of not disrupting anybody else's evidence or interventions or cross‑examinations.

3536             With that said, I will pass it on to Madam Secretary.

3537             THE SECRETARY:  Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

3538             Good morning.  Bonjour, tout le monde.

3539             Before we begin, I would like to go over a few housekeeping matters.

3540             For the benefit of those who were not in the room yesterday, I would like to remind everyone that when you are in the hearing room we ask that you completely turn off and not only leave on vibration mode your cell phones and Blackberrys as they cause interference on the internal communication systems used by our translators and interpreters.

3541             Please note that ASL and LSQ sign language interpretation services will be available throughout the hearing if needed.  Please advise the Hearing Secretary if you require such services.

3542             Furthermore, English and French captioning of the hearing is available on the screens to my left, as well as on the CRTC's web home page.  If you require assistance during the consultation, our staff members in and outside the hearing room or in the public examination room will be pleased to help you.

3543             Any parties planning to apply for their costs, who are unfamiliar with the application forms or process, are invited to speak with Commission counsel during a break for information.

3544             We will now proceed with our panel No. 12, SaskTel Telecommunications.

3545             Please introduce yourselves and proceed with your 15‑minute presentation.

PRESENTATION / PRÉSENTATION

3546             MR. MELDRUM:  Good morning.  My name is John Meldrum.  I am the Vice‑President and Corporate Counsel of Regulatory Affairs for SaskTel and with me today is Duncan Kroll, Director of Regulatory.

3547             First of all, with respect to last Friday's interrogatories, we do prefer to provide answers at the end of our presentation as we will probably provide some context for some of the Commission's questions.

3548             The exceptions would be questions (g) and (i), which we undertake to respond by November 28th.

3549             We are pleased to have the opportunity to make our presentation and to answer your questions today.

3550             As you may know, SaskTel is celebrating its 100th anniversary as a leading communications provider in the province of Saskatchewan.  Over those years, SaskTel's commitment to Saskatchewan people has been the one constant in a time of change and innovation.  Whether delivering the latest wireless technology or plain old dialtone, SaskTel always keeps Saskatchewan and the particular needs of its communities, families and residents in mind.

3551             We are acutely aware that the communications tools we offer have become critical for Saskatchewan people to fully participate in society and improve their quality of living.  With that awareness comes responsibility and accountability.  As a result of SaskTel's status as a Crown corporation, all Saskatchewan residents, including persons with disabilities, are not only customers but owners of SaskTel.  This generates a keen interest on SaskTel's part to pay close attention to customer services, including accessibility issues.

3552             To use a football analogy in this Grey Cup week, this means the service yardsticks that we are measured by often are different than those experienced across the country.

3553             Consequently, SaskTel has undertaken many activities and initiatives to ensure that these customers have access to telecommunications and broadcasting products and services.

3554             SaskTel is adhering to the many requirements established by the Commission to reduce accessibility obstacles.  At times, often at the request of the Saskatchewan disability community, SaskTel has adopted specific programs or services that exceed national requirements.

3555             I don't want to give you the impression that we believe that we are perfect in our response to the needs of our customers with disabilities.  No one is or ever will be, given the pace of change in our industry.

3556             We try, however, to maintain a diverse range of products and services which improve the accessibility of our communications services.  We concentrate our efforts on building strong, ongoing relationships with the disability community in Saskatchewan.  We continue to strive to be responsive to the communication needs of our customers and to satisfy those needs within the limits of our available resources.

3557             In that regard, our views on the five major services identified by the Commission in its letter of October 6, 2008 are summarized and attached to our comments today.

3558             In the time remaining, we would like to speak to several themes that have emerged from the public proceeding.

3559             Accessibility.  SaskTel agrees that communications products and services should be made accessible to persons with disabilities to the extent that is readily achievable; that is, weighing the benefit to be delivered by a measure against the technological requirements and limitations, associated costs and the impact of the measure on the population at large.

3560             However, most of the issues regarding the accessibility of communications services generally deal with terminal equipment, and it is commonly agreed that accessibility is best accomplished in the initial design and development of products and services rather than attempting to modify specific devices after the fact.

3561             In this regard, SaskTel notes that it does not design or develop the vast majority of the products or services that we offer; rather, we market products and services that have been developed by others.  Nor is SaskTel, as a small communications provider, in a position to influence the design and development of such products and services.

3562             In spite of that, there is a constant appeal that service providers, including SaskTel, take the lead in ensuring that products and services are made accessible to all people with disabilities.  It appears to us that those who voice that appeal fail to understand that a company the size of SaskTel, or the whole Canadian industry for that matter, can exert very little influence upon manufacturers of equipment by which communication services are delivered.  We simply do not have the mass of consumers to match those of Europe and Asia where manufacturers are focusing their attention.

3563             As ARCH has noted in a comments in this proceeding, there are many fronts where accessibility initiatives are being advanced, including Internet and computer technology and telecommunications.

3564             The Neil Squire Society which preceded us reports that its research and development group researches and creates devices, technologies and products to facilitate and improve the quality of life for people with disabilities.  There is an Assistive Devices Industry Office within Industry Canada.  The ADIO website identifies 23 different business organizations in Canada involved in research and development of assistive technology, largely addressing communications services.

3565             Seventeen educational institutions with departments, divisions or programs in assistive technologies are also identified on the ADIO website.  The Center for Learning Technologies at Ryerson University, a participant in this proceeding, and the Adaptive Resource Center at the U of T are but two examples.

3566             Similarly, in Saskatchewan there are long‑standing agencies such as Saskatchewan Abilities Council and the Saskatchewan Association for Community Living which continue to play a prominent role in accessibility issues.  These supporting entities should not be ignored, nor should it be assumed that service providers are the sole source of improving the accessibility of communications services for people with disabilities.

3567             Affordability has also been raised.  We acknowledge that affordability of services affects their availability.  However, disabilities are diverse and varied.  As has been noted in the proceeding, every Canadian is likely to have a disability sometime in their life, some permanent and some temporary.  It is also said that people with disabilities are not a static group but that they vary and grow over time.

3568             Some have suggested that all telecom products and services be fully accessible by all people regardless of disability now and in the future.  This broad perspective on disability and its impact on the accessibility of communications services places a daunting task before service providers to ensure that they have affordable services that aid accessibility.

3569             SaskTel has described a variety of services and other accommodations it makes available to its customers.  Many of these accommodations are made available at no charge or at prices lower than might otherwise be charged.  With very few exceptions, such as the initiatives that SaskTel proposed for the disposal of its deferral account, these services and accommodations were established well before SaskTel came under federal regulation.

3570             But if the boundaries of disability we just described are to be used to guide the development of accommodations for our customers, a serious question arises as to the capability of service providers to make available the required services at prices that are affordable.

3571             In our view, due consideration must be given to the potential and significance of other sources to address affordability of communications services.  Across Canada there are a variety of governmental, nongovernmental and community based organizations and programs devoted to addressing and improving accessibility to communications services.

3572             For example, in Saskatchewan the Ministry of Social Services Social Assistance Program makes provisions for utility allowance which may be available to cover costs for basic telephone service and other utilities.  Funds may also be available to cover the costs of special telephone equipment for a person with a disability.

3573             In its last budget the Government of Saskatchewan announced over $20 million to support the inclusion of people with disabilities, which includes a doubling of tax credits for people with disabilities.

3574             Most recently, in its Throne Speech the provincial government announced the development of a new disability income strategy in order to review and improve income support.

3575             It is our firmly held view that service providers should not continue to be relied upon as the parties with the primary responsibility to address issues of affordability.

3576             In terms of collaboration for solutions, the issues of improved consultation and collaboration on issues of accessibility are the two most broadly addressed themes of this proceeding.  We strongly support the view is better for all parties when solutions are developed through a collaborative and consultative process, creating understanding, mutual trust and commitment between service providers and the affected stakeholders.

3577             The success of such consultation depends greatly upon the framework of the process.  In our experience, the most productive consultations and concrete outcomes arise when they are focused and purposeful.  Successful collaboration among parties also requires respect for priorities and the resources available to address them.

3578             Perhaps most important is the creation of an open door policy where parties directly engage one another and work toward building a shared effort to meet common goals.

3579             In our view, this collective effort is best established through the Saskatchewan disability community, providing SaskTel with their expectations, needs and priorities.  That is why we strongly believe that those consultations are most successful when conducted at a regional rather than a national level.  In our case regional means provincial.

3580             We believe that SaskTel already has an effective working relationship with provincial disabilities groups by focusing its attention on serving the needs of its customers and we take pride in our record of responding to those needs.

3581             Having said that, we do recognize the value in participating in national consultations on specific topics when these topics are of a national nature.

3582             As an example, we think that it is of paramount importance that the issues regarding the establishment and provision of video relay service be addressed at the national level.  This is a service which the deaf and hard of hearing community of Saskatchewan has identified to us as a priority, but which we both understand would not be feasible for SaskTel to provide on its own.

3583             In terms of the need for regulation, many of the participants in this proceeding representing the disability community call for increased or different regulation to improve accessibility of communications services.  SaskTel does not believe this is warranted.

3584             The Commission has correctly forborne from regulating telecommunications terminal equipment.  We support the Commission's conclusion that Industry Canada should be responsible for ensuring accessibility of terminal equipment.

3585             The Commission also retains the ability to address issues of accessibility in telecom and broadcasting through establishing the terms and conditions of any service offering.  Added regulation is inconsistent with the federal government's policy directive which calls upon the Commission to avoid regulating where it is not necessary and to rely upon market forces to the greatest extent possible.

3586             In that regard, SaskTel shares TELUS' view that innovation will drive more accessibility.

3587             The availability of SMART phones with their text messaging capabilities has met the needs of many deaf and hearing impaired persons.  Those phones did not arise as a result of regulatory fiat, they were made available by manufacturers responding to the capabilities of new technology.

3588             Our introduction of voice to text messaging was motivated by the notion of providing our customers with the ability to receive messages without having to access their voice mailbox.  That it also improved accessibility for the hearing impaired is another benefit.  Although SaskTel does not believe that additional regulation is required, if established by the Commission it should be applied to all service providers.

3589             This again would be consistent with the policy direction which directs that regulatory measures that are not of an economic nature should be implemented in a symmetrical and competitively neutral manner.

3590             In closing, SaskTel can assure you that we will continue to make progress on accessibility issues in Saskatchewan.  As has been our tradition, we are committed to directly engaging the disability community and taking our direction for service improvements from those affected groups.  This model has worked well in Saskatchewan.

3591             While SaskTel understands that the Commission has a responsibility to ensure that accessibility issues are adequately addressed across the country, we sincerely hope that the outcomes or determinations of this process not divert SaskTel from devoting the attention to our customers that they deserve and have come to expect.

3592             SaskTel's recent annual report stated:

"With tens of thousands of people having worked for SaskTel over the years and decades of building social capital in Saskatchewan, our record is just as much about people and relationships as it is about getting affordable world‑class communications technologies into our customers' hands." (As read)

3593             Our relationship with the disability community in Saskatchewan is illustrative of this record.

3594             We would like to thank the Commission for the opportunity to appear today.  We are ready to move forward in partnership with Saskatchewan residents with disabilities, their families, community based organizations, the Saskatchewan government and the Commission.

3595             In terms of the interrogatories, first of all, the status of our IP relay project, generally the project at the corporation is not at a state where many of the questions could be answered as we have been concentrating on the entire future of our Operator Services Group.

3596             We do require a major technology change‑out in our Operator Services Group and unfortunately that has distracted us.  We will be continuing with operator services and we are in the process of arranging for that technology change‑out.

3597             That gives you sort of the background as to why we are not quite as far along as we would hope to otherwise be.

3598             In terms of cost per minute of IP relay service, that isn't available yet because we are not as far along as we hoped.

3599             In terms of migration of minutes from MRS to IP relay ‑‑ this would be question (b) ‑‑ we don't have anything specific, but we do certainly expect that there would be some migration.  But we do in general note that there are many other factors that are impacting the volume of MRS already today and those of course are text messages, e‑mail and of course increasing needs for people to be able to communicate.

3600             In terms of monthly cost to users of MRS, IPRS and VRS, our MRS costs are not centralized.  The service is offered by all of our operators as part of an integrated work station.  We would have to do a cost study if we were to provide ‑‑ if we were to be able to provide the cost of MRS.

3601             I should say by background that we do not charge our customers for MRS.  It is not a separate bill line.  The service we believe came into being in about 1987, and when we became regulated in June of 2000 it was embedded in our rates at that time.

3602             With respect to VRS, we do know that we have 300 registered message relay service customers today.  We can easily extrapolate the costs over that base of customers.  We have heard an estimate of perhaps upwards of $50 to $100 million a year for video relay service.  We certainly hope that it is nowhere in the ballpark.

3603             But if you extrapolate that over our registered TTY users, that would be between $5,000 and $10,000 per year per registered user today.  It would strike me that if the costs are that high that that perhaps would be on the other side of the reasonableness line, and certainly we believe that the Commission needs to fully understand these future costs before embarking on VRS service.

3604             Question (d), the date we plan to begin offering IP relay service, we have committed to the Commission to June of 2009.  That is still our target, but we are afraid that that may slip as we get deeper into the analysis.

3605             Hours of availability ‑‑ this would be question (e) ‑‑ we believe it should be 24/7.  Anything else wouldn't make any sense.

3606             Question (f), language availability.  We have not had any demand whatsoever for French message relay service, so today we do only provide an English service for message relay in Saskatchewan.  In the future we would see IPRS as been English only for us.

3607             Territory available, (g), that is an intriguing question.  We think the answer is Canada but we will undertake to provide a formal response on that one.

3608             Compatible devices.  Our expectation would be that if a device can access the Internet, then it should be able to access IP relay service.

3609             And last but not least, question (i), again an intriguing question, and we will file a response by November 28th.

3610             Duncan and I would be pleased to answer any questions of the Commission.

3611             THE CHAIRPERSON:  Thank you very much, Mr. Meldrum.

3612             We will begin the questioning with someone that I think you are very familiar with, Commissioner Molnar.

3613             COMMISSIONER MOLNAR:  Good morning and welcome.

3614             I'm going to address you as Mr. Meldrum and Mr. Kroll and I will address my comments to you, Mr. Meldrum, and you can redirect as you choose.  Okay?

3615             Thank you for your opening remarks.  They are very complete and very inclusive.  So I will apologize right up front if I'm going to ask a question that is half answered here.

3616             I have questions for you related to telecommunications, related to customer service and related to BDUs.

3617             Let's begin with the telecommunications side of this.

3618             You did provide, and we appreciate you providing the answers to the potential undertaking, the questions that were sent out on your IP relay service.

3619             Before we get into IP relay service, I would just like to step back a little bit on message relay service.

3620             You mentioned that you offer it as an integrated platform with your operator services and that you don't have a cost study.  I am very interested, however, in understanding what are the major components, cost components, of providing message relay service.

3621             I understand that SaskTel provides, for example, the TTY units themselves free of charge to users.  Operators are another cost component.

3622             Are you able to discuss here today what are the major cost components of message relay service or would you like to get back to us with that?

3623             MR. MELDRUM:  Yes, we would have to undertake to provide you that.

3624             COMMISSIONER MOLNAR:  Okay.  At this point I don't think we are looking for an actual cost study, but I would like to understand what all is contained.  I mean there is a rate.  I think your rate is what to message relay ‑‑ while you say it is embedded, it is a separate rate.  I know that it is, for example, imputed in your subsidy requirements and so on, so there is a separate rate or separate component of the rate for message relay.

3625             Do you know what that rate is?

3626             MR. MELDRUM:  No.

3627             COMMISSIONER MOLNAR:  No?

3628             MR. MELDRUM:  We will have to undertake that.

3629             COMMISSIONER MOLNAR:  Sorry, I have it, but I have been told not to lift my screen or you won't see me.  I think it's about 25 cents.  So some component of that rate is covering off with the TTY.

3630             Obviously there are operators.  And what are the other cost components?

3631             You also mentioned that there are other technologies and services that are available that have already impacted upon the demand for message relay service: text messaging, instant messaging and so on.

3632             Do you have information that you could provide to us related to the quantity or the demand for message relay over the past ‑‑ I would like five years, if you have that.

3633             MR. MELDRUM:  We do have three years.  We will see if we can get five and we will file it as well.

3634             Certainly 2006 to 2007 the volume dropped by about 10 per cent, and in 2008 we are expecting that drop to be more significant than that.

3635             Again, we are thinking that it is text messaging and e‑mail that is really replacing it.

3636             COMMISSIONER MOLNAR:  Yes.  I think that's a logical conclusion.  It's obvious that some of these new technologies are valuable and useful tools for persons who are deaf.

3637             So yes, if you have that information, I would appreciate it.

3638             As we move into the issue of IP relay service, you mentioned you had not begun because you are doing an overhaul of the operator services.

3639             MR. MELDRUM:  Well, we have done some work but we are not as far along as we would like to.  They have been dealing with the issue of whether we would try and provide it in‑house or whether we would contract it out.

3640             I believe they have reached the conclusion that they want to contract it out and I believe they are now in the process of working with potential vendors.

3641             COMMISSIONER MOLNAR:  Okay.  So if as a result of this proceeding we were to determine that it made sense to have a national IP relay service versus a regional service, would that affect the monies you would need to spend on your trial?

3642             MR. MELDRUM:  Well, we did have the money that was allocated out of the deferral account.

3643             COMMISSIONER MOLNAR:  Right.

3644             MR. MELDRUM:  I guess certainly that would have to be redirected if there is going to be a national service.

3645             COMMISSIONER MOLNAR:  So the majority of that money is still available?

3646             MR. MELDRUM:  Yes, for sure.

3647             COMMISSIONER MOLNAR:  And could be redirected if that determination was made?

3648             MR. MELDRUM:  For sure.

3649             COMMISSIONER MOLNAR:  Would you have information or be able to file information as regards how much of that money would still be available?

3650             MR. MELDRUM:  We can certainly file that, yes.

3651             COMMISSIONER MOLNAR:  Yes?

3652             MR. MELDRUM:  We think it is virtually all the money.

3653             COMMISSIONER MOLNAR:  Virtually all is still remaining?

3654             MR. MELDRUM:  Yes.

3655             COMMISSIONER MOLNAR:  Okay.

3656             MR. MELDRUM:  There would have been some work that would have been done, but it is really internal work.

3657             COMMISSIONER MOLNAR:  Pardon?

3658             MR. MELDRUM:  There would have been some work that would have been done that I suppose ends up getting costed out, but I don't think it's huge.

3659             COMMISSIONER MOLNAR:  Right.

3660             So let me just talk briefly about a national IP relay service, separate from video relay service, a national IP relay service.

3661             You have stated that you believe it's the way to go.

3662             Oh, I'm sorry, you talked about video relay.  What are your views on national IP relay service?

3663             MR. MELDRUM:  I don't think there is anything particular to SaskTel or the province of Saskatchewan that would dictate it being a regional service.  So if it makes the most sense to provide it on a national basis, which it likely does because then you can access economies of scale, I would think we would be supportive of that.

3664             COMMISSIONER MOLNAR:  As it regards service providers, I think you mentioned that you are looking at potentially contracting out if you proceed with your regional.

3665             Would you see any particular issues related to having this contracted out separate and apart from the telecommunications service providers themselves?

‑‑‑ Pause

3666             MR. MELDRUM:  Can I just get you to repeat the question, please?

3667             COMMISSIONER MOLNAR:  Yes.  My question is ‑‑ I mean, message relay has been primarily provided by the telephone service providers themselves.  IP relay service, there are of course companies we know in the States, for example, who provide the service.  It is a separate and unique service and different companies contract their resources.

3668             Would you see that same model working here in Canada?

3669             Is there any reason that it would need to be provided by a telecommunications provider?

3670             MR. MELDRUM:  No, I don't think there is any particular expertise that we have that others wouldn't be able to have.  Our core competency there would really be handling customer inquiries and running a call center, being the operator services group, which isn't a skill that is particular to phone companies.

3671             COMMISSIONER MOLNAR:  Right.

3672             If we were to proceed with a national IP relay service that ‑‑ let's say, we contracted out, looked for, you know, set out the requirements and established this for the most economical ‑‑ in the most economical way we could, obviously, there still is ongoing costs associated or that will entail ongoing costs.  Have you considered how to recover the ongoing costs?

3673             MR. MELDRUM:  And again, we are talking about IP relay?

3674             COMMISSIONER MOLNAR:  We are talking IP relay, not video relay, just IP relay. 

3675             MR. MELDRUM:  Well, certainly in terms of the dollars that were flagged in our deferral account for introduction of an IP relay service, it was to cover the cost of putting the service together and some ongoing operating costs but it would have reached an end point. 

3676             In terms of future costs over and above that, I guess it takes you back to a certain degree to the MRS service and where that is going in terms of volumes, because maybe in total the volumes may not be that much greater.  I know some people think it could be substantially greater.  I am not necessarily convinced of that. 

3677             COMMISSIONER MOLNAR:  So potentially ‑‑ and thank you for that because it is a natural question, I believe ‑‑ I mean, as we make a transition, which is in effect a technology transition from one relay service to another, and we see the users transition from the old technology into the new IP relay technology, it is an obvious question why the existing rate for relay services could not be sufficient to fund the new service, yes?

3678             MR. MELDRUM:  Yes. 

3679             COMMISSIONER MOLNAR:  Thank you.

3680             Let's move on to the issue of national video relay service. 

3681             Could you provide me your comments or perspectives as it relates to establishing a national video relay service in Canada?

3682             MR. MELDRUM:  We certainly ‑‑ as I have followed the proceeding, I came to the conclusion that it certainly is a service that Canada needs to look at and on the face of it would have great benefit to disabled Canadians.

3683             My only reservation is the cost of the service.  A lot of people don't seem to want to talk about the cost of the service but if it approaches anywhere near this $50‑100 million estimate, then I think the Commission and Canada as a country needs to understand if that is the best way to spend $50‑100 million a year. 

3684             So we certainly are quite supportive of it but we certainly want to understand the costs and I think our government would want to understand the costs as well. 

3685             COMMISSIONER MOLNAR:  You mentioned that there's 300 users in ‑‑

3686             MR. MELDRUM:  Right. 

3687             COMMISSIONER MOLNAR:  Do you have any sense as to what number of those registered users ‑‑ I assume all of those registered users are text literate today if they are registered.

3688             Do you have any sense as to the size of the community of users in Saskatchewan who aren't being served today because they aren't able or aren't literate in text?

3689             MR. MELDRUM:  We did ask the Saskatchewan Deaf and Hard of Hearing Society their views and they don't have a number themselves.  They certainly believe there are a number of people that only sign and for which that service would be essential but they don't know the number. 

3690             COMMISSIONER MOLNAR:  Okay, thank you.

3691             I want to move on to the issue of website accessibility.  I understand some of your deferral monies was directed to improving the accessibility of your website. 

3692             MR. MELDRUM:  Correct. 

3693             COMMISSIONER MOLNAR:  And where are you in that process?

3694             MR. MELDRUM:  We recently received back an audit that was done by an outside contractor and are in the process of going through the audit to understand what changes we can make within that envelope of money.

3695             It is not our expectation that there is enough money available or that it makes sense for us to make our entire website compliant today but certainly we believe that it would make sense to focus on the special needs portion of our website.

3696             COMMISSIONER MOLNAR:  And that is what I was going to ask.  So the money in the deferral account is being used to create a special section?

3697             MR. MELDRUM:  Well, it was ‑‑ we haven't made that determination yet.  That is our expectation in terms of the amount of money that is available given what it has cost others to make their entire website compliant with those guidelines. 

3698             But I believe looking at the amount of money available, that that is where we will end up, that we will focus on the special needs portion and whatever other sections that we could do reasonably.

3699             Did you want to add anything, Duncan?

3700             MR. KROLL:  No.

3701             COMMISSIONER MOLNAR:  I know that you have been here for a couple of days and so you have heard some of the parties who have represented disability communities speak about the fact that they want and believe they should have access to all aspects of the website, not a segregated section but all aspects of the website, that all information should be made available to them.

3702             So under what basis would you decide ‑‑ if it is not all and it is not just a section on special needs, how is it you are going to decide what will and won't become accessible?

3703             MR. MELDRUM:  I guess there is that balance in terms of whether it is reasonable for a company the size of SaskTel to spend upwards of a half a million dollars to make its website accessible.  It is that balancing act that I guess occurs all the time in terms of the services that we offer to our customers. 

3704             COMMISSIONER MOLNAR:  Are you in any process where you will be doing any kind of web redesign in the near future where these costs could be incorporated front end?

3705             MR. MELDRUM:  I think it has just been recently redesigned. 

3706             COMMISSIONER MOLNAR:  And not compliant?

3707             MR. MELDRUM:  No. 

3708             COMMISSIONER MOLNAR:  Okay.

3709             I am going to move on from the website to other information.

3710             Another theme we have heard is that persons with disabilities are looking for information in alternative formats and we have heard examples such as manuals for some of the terminal equipment that is provided as an example. 

3711             What today do you provide in alternative formats?

3712             MR. MELDRUM:  That which is mandated by the Commission.  I don't believe we offer anything over and above that.  So that is the opportunity to get your bill in Braille, big print bills, some other promotional material. 

3713             COMMISSIONER MOLNAR:  Would you have any comments as it regards the feasibility of expanding that to other types of information, customer‑related information that your company provides?

3714             MR. MELDRUM:  Again, I think for a company our size, it is a question of balance.  It might make more sense for us to deal directly with the customer involved and help them with the service or the issue that they are having.

3715             We have heard through the course of the proceeding that it sounds like some of the other phone companies have substantially automated their customer service.

3716             We are not on that page.  We continue to have live customer service reps answering the phones and dealing with our customers on a day‑to‑day basis and it could be that continuing to do that with people that are requiring more information would make more sense for a company our size. 

3717             For example, to contact and talk to the special needs manager directly to discuss the issues might make more sense than trying to separately prepare a brochure that might only have 10 or 20 people interested in receiving it.  

3718             We think in terms of the alternative format that ‑‑ in terms of bills, we think at the moment we only have 40 customers out of our province of a million people that actually get bills in alternative formats. 

3719             COMMISSIONER MOLNAR:  A million and growing. 

3720             MR. MELDRUM:  Yes, and growing.

3721             COMMISSIONER MOLNAR:  Sorry, did you say 40?

3722             MR. MELDRUM:  Yes. 

3723             COMMISSIONER MOLNAR:  Okay.

3724             So just maybe as a matter of principle, I understand what you are saying about a company your size.  However, customers should not be limited by the size of the company in addressing their accessibility.

3725             But do you believe it would be important that information be made accessible and it is not necessarily how it is made accessible that we should be focussed on?

3726             MR. MELDRUM:  Yes, I would agree with that. 

3727             COMMISSIONER MOLNAR:  Okay, thank you.

3728             I would like to talk briefly about other customer service. 

3729             You have been identified as a company ‑‑ well, identified ‑‑ I think maybe a proper term is a company that gets it regarding customer service and addressing the needs of the disability communities.

3730             I have looked ‑‑ we have a matrix that just sets out, you know, what the different companies have as it regards servicing different disability groups, you know, whether or not there is a special needs manager, whether or not they have a dedicated access to CSRs or what it might be.

3731             I have to tell you, having looked at the sort of black and white as to what SaskTel provides versus what other telephone companies provide, there is nothing special.  You know, if you just look at the form, there is nothing special.  SaskTel is not the only company to have a special needs manager.  SaskTel is not the only company that has access, you know, to their call centre.

3732             MR. MELDRUM:  Mm‑hmm.

3733             COMMISSIONER MOLNAR:  So what is it that you believe sets you apart as it regards customer service, as it regards serving the needs of these disability communities?

3734             And, Mr. Meldrum, if you say it is because you are a Crown corporation, we are not going to be able to do much with that.

‑‑‑ Laughter / Rires

3735             MR. MELDRUM:  Well, I certainly would say that it is the relationship between us and our customers.  It really is.  They own us and that makes them at times very demanding and makes us very responsive.

3736             We are not in the business of disappointing our customers because we end up hearing about it in the Legislature, reading about it in the newspaper or handling complaints through the Minister's office.  So if you sort of said, why do we focus on it more, that would be, to me, the underlying theme.

3737             Now, in terms of the document that you are looking at, I don't know the extent to which it lays out all the things that we do, because looking at the things at least that are over and above what the Commission has mandated, there is a fair list of things that we understand are beyond that.

3738             COMMISSIONER MOLNAR:  Do you have that list?

3739             MR. MELDRUM:  We do.

3740             Now, again, we didn't compare that to what the other companies do to see whether ‑‑ are we the only ones that do it?

3741             But our own initiatives that we understand would be no charge with respect to speed call, which helps the blind.

3742             We do have an initiative with the Paraplegic Association of Saskatchewan that has a special cellular offering for people that are members of that association.  That is about 750 people that are on that particular directed cellular plan.

3743             We do meet regularly with the disabled groups in Saskatchewan.  We do have the special needs manager, but as you indicate, other people do.  And we do have a large ‑‑ I would say for a company our size, a fairly large amount of special needs equipment that you can see on our website.

3744             We do do the free TTYs to registered users and their principal contact, and we do provide artificial larynxes for people that are no longer able to speak without the assistance of an artificial larynx.

3745             And we do provide ‑‑ I would say that the rates that we charge for those telephone, special needs telephone sets that we sell outright, I would say that it is a subsidized rate that we charge those for.

3746             COMMISSIONER MOLNAR:  Okay, thanks for that.

3747             I will admit I am not sure that I am all that much smarter on, you know, what it is, what is the magic that sets one company apart in having ‑‑ you know, in serving a community where there is obviously a lot of discontent with others.  So if we wanted to take your formula, I am not sure, truthfully, that I understand the formula. 

3748             MR. MELDRUM:  I will get Duncan to add to it.

3749             COMMISSIONER MOLNAR:  Sure.

3750             MR. MELDRUM:  I don't think he can come without saying something.

3751             MR. KROLL:  I don't know if we can give you a formula because it is not something that you can probably write down on a piece of paper and say here are the three or four things that you need to do to ensure that your consultations and your relationship with these folks is going to be a positive one.

3752             And we work hard at it, as John said.

3753             We have had longstanding relationships with a lot of these groups.  It is sometimes the small things that count.

3754             For instance, our relationship with the Saskatchewan Deaf and Hard of Hearing Society, we obviously meet regularly with them but they also come into our facilities and use our facilities for their board meetings and other functions.

3755             We understand that they don't have a great deal of resources and cannot afford sometimes to rent facilities, so we ask them to come in and ‑‑ or they ask us if they can come in and use our facilities and we offer them for them to do so.  So it is hard to describe, I suppose, but other than we pay close attention to it. 

3756             COMMISSIONER MOLNAR:  Thanks for that.

3757             Just, I guess, a couple more questions, one related to the cost.

3758             Would you say that your enhanced relationship with the disability communities is at significant cost or minimal cost?

3759             MR. MELDRUM:  Oh! I definitely wouldn't say significant cost.  It is worth the effort.

3760             COMMISSIONER MOLNAR:  It is worth the effort, you said?

3761             MR. MELDRUM:  For sure. 

3762             COMMISSIONER MOLNAR:  Yes.  And as a business group, for you ‑‑ I mean we have all seen the statistics as to how the disabilities are growing in Canada as we all age ‑‑ have you looked at it from a business perspective to say what is the value of this group or the groups of disability communities?

3763             MR. MELDRUM:  I wouldn't say that it is a major thrust on the Corporation's part but certainly seniors make up a fairly high proportion of Saskatchewan residents, so they are a market that we are attuned to.

3764             But again, we are challenged by the size of the company.  I know there has been a lot of discussion about companies, wireless service providers providing terminals that are specific to the disabled community.

3765             We did look at bringing one in and the minimum order for us was 10,000.  We wouldn't be able to move 10,000 cell terminals in Saskatchewan. Our market, again, is just too small.

3766             So where we would like to focus, again, you run into some of the economic realities really quickly.

3767             COMMISSIONER MOLNAR:  I am going to come back to terminals in a minute, but I would like to finish off on the issue of customer service and consultation.

3768             You were clear in your opening remarks that you believe consultation should be purpose driven, and it should be regional.

3769             I would like to get your views, however, on the proposal put forward by the CNIB that there be an institute established to deal with issues related to disabilities, and that the members would be not just the disability communities and the industry, but also that there needs to be a role for the CRTC in making those consultations effective.

3770             Do you think there needs to be a role for the CRTC in ensuring effective consultation?

3771             MR. MELDRUM:  In terms of national issues and the national industry, I certainly would see the CRTC taking a role in that.

3772             As you have seen from our comments, we are not really thrilled about being mandated to participate in all of the discussions.  Our experience has been that national consultations, from a cost/benefits analysis ‑‑ typically, the cost goes up and the results go down, as opposed to, when we do it regionally, the costs are low and the results are high, in terms of getting somewhere.

3773             COMMISSIONER MOLNAR:  Thank you.

3774             I want to move to the issue of terminal equipment, and you gave an example here about bringing in something and the costs of bringing in a product to serve the disability community ‑‑ cost versus demand.

3775             I hear that, and I have also seen in your remarks your comments as they relate to how the manufacturers ‑‑ really, we don't have control.  SaskTel is not large enough.  Canada is not large enough, necessarily, to influence the design.

3776             Let me ask you about equipment that is available nationally, or, more importantly, internationally, that has been designed for the disability community.

3777             For example, terminal equipment that meets their needs, or adaptive devices.

3778             What happens when one of your customers procures one of these devices outside your jurisdiction?  Do you support it?

3779             MR. MELDRUM:  These would be wireless terminals?

3780             COMMISSIONER MOLNAR:  Let's talk wireless.

3781             MR. MELDRUM:  We asked that question this week, and we would work with a customer to try to get it to work on our network.

3782             But I think you have heard this week that there are a lot of issues as to whether or not a particular device will work.

3783             First of all, it has to be CDMA, in our case, because we are not a GSM provider, so the total number of terminals that are available is a reduced number to start with.

3784             And, then, of course, it has to work on the right frequencies, and we have to be able to adapt it to work on our system.

3785             But we would try to work with a customer, if they came forward with a device that they had sourced elsewhere, to see if we could get it connected to our network.

3786             COMMISSIONER MOLNAR:  When you say that you would try, I assume that there may have been issues in the past where customers have wanted an accessible wireless handset.

3787             Has that happened in the past?

3788             MR. MELDRUM:  A set that they have sourced elsewhere and then brought to us?

3789             COMMISSIONER MOLNAR:  Sourced elsewhere.

3790             As you noted, the economies don't allow you to provide it yourself, so if they are going outside your jurisdiction to obtain or acquire that handset ‑‑

3791             Has that never happened?

3792             MR. MELDRUM:  Not that I am aware of.

3793             We can make further inquiries to see if ‑‑

3794             COMMISSIONER MOLNAR:  It's not important that you undertake to provide that information.  I think it is more important to know what you will do going forward, and on a going forward basis you said that you would support it.

3795             MR. MELDRUM:  We would attempt to get it to be able to connect to our network, yes.

3796             COMMISSIONER MOLNAR:  And, once connected, I guess the issue is ongoing support.

3797             I am not asking you to support a handset any more than you would support any other person's wireless handset if it's an equipment issue, but obviously there are interworkings between a handset and the network that says, "If there is a problem, we are not going to tell them, `It's not our handset,' and ‑‑ "

3798             MR. MELDRUM:  With those limitations we would support it, but there are incredible limitations, as even I, as a consumer, discover when a handset has fallen into a swimming pool.  They are not supported.

3799             COMMISSIONER MOLNAR:  Okay.  Thank you.

3800             I want to move to the issue of your broadcast distribution undertaking.  The first issue relates to closed captioning.  In this proceeding there has been a lot of discussion about the quality of closed captioning.  The CAB has put forward the position that there is a role, and there is a definite role to play for BDUs, as it relates to monitoring and responding to issues related to the quality of closed captioning.

3801             Do you have any comments related to that?

3802             MR. KROLL:  As you know, our requirement is to pass through closed captioning that is available, and we do so.

3803             As you saw from the attachment that we provided to you, when we do have issues regarding closed captioning from our end, we try to address them as quickly as possible.

3804             We have an issue on the closed captioning side with our high-definition programming, for instance, and we are working with our vendor to accommodate or adjust those issues.

3805             If you are asking if we are constantly or formally monitoring the closed captioning that is on our system, I suppose that there is not a formal process, but certainly we periodically make sure that the quality is there, and that is how we are able to address some of the issues that arise.

3806             COMMISSIONER MOLNAR:  Is there any end‑to‑end process?

3807             If a customer has an issue with the closed captioning, it could be caused ‑‑

3808             There is obviously a chain, be it the BDU, the SRDU, the programmer ‑‑ there are many in the chain that get to the end, and it can fall apart anywhere in that chain.

3809             Is there any process for ongoing ‑‑ to work together with the chain of suppliers?

3810             MR. KROLL:  I think that when there are issues our technical people would be in contact with the various parties to see where the issue is, who may be responsible, and what can be done about it.

3811             I think that is probably quite common.

3812             COMMISSIONER MOLNAR:  My last issue relates to described video.

3813             Today, as I understand, you provide described video in an open format for your customers.

3814             MR. KROLL:  We provide it through the duplicate channel method, yes.

3815             COMMISSIONER MOLNAR:  And you will be moving to an embedded basis going forward.

3816             Is that right?

3817             Is that your plan?

3818             MR. KROLL:  That is what we would like to do longer term, yes.

3819             The duplicate channel method, as you know, was an interim measure, given the state of our IPTV technology at the time, and we are updating and modifying our IPTV network as we speak, over the next year or so, and that will allow us to go to a single stream.

3820             COMMISSIONER MOLNAR:  When you say that it will allow you to go to that, the benefits for you are reduced capacity requirements?

3821             MR. KROLL:  Yes.  Some costs, yes.

3822             COMMISSIONER MOLNAR:  Costs.

3823             Would it be possible, to better understand what costs we are speaking of ‑‑

3824             What are the costs of carrying it open source versus embedded?

3825             MR. KROLL:  Commissioner, as you know, I am not a technical person, so I think that I would have to get back to you with that.  I don't have that with me.

3826             MR. MELDRUM:  We did do some work in preparation for the proceeding, and the costs aren't substantive when you are talking a few channels.

3827             Actually, as a company, we would be prepared to continue in the future to have the four Canadian channels as separate described video channels.

3828             The costs are reasonable enough that, in addition to having it embedded in the regular channel, we would be prepared to break it out.

3829             Now, we wouldn't want to do that with all of the channels that we carry, because, essentially, you would be doubling your equipment costs, and perhaps, then, as you get into that doubling, there are some scale issues that would start to affect some of your underlying equipment.

3830             In other words, instead of the equipment necessary for 120 channels, you would have the equipment necessary for 240 channels.

3831             We wouldn't want to get to that point, but certainly to have the four dedicated Canadian channels with separate described video, we believe that would be a reasonable thing for us to do for our customers.

3832             COMMISSIONER MOLNAR:  Thank you.

3833             Today you provide open source for more than the four.  You provide it, as well, for the specialties that have described video.

3834             MR. KROLL:  Yes.

3835             COMMISSIONER MOLNAR:  Would you propose to leave them open source, as well?

3836             What is in the system today ‑‑ I guess that is what I would say.  For the described video that is in the system today, would you be prepared to leave that all open source?

3837             MR. MELDRUM:  I think we would have to understand the full implications of that, as to whether there is a point at which you would get these lumpy costs that arise.

3838             COMMISSIONER MOLNAR:  I am not asking you to do any more than you are doing today, just to be clear.

3839             MR. MELDRUM:  But, of course, the number of channels that we offer will continue to expand, so the fact that we can do those extra ones today doesn't necessarily mean that it would be the same situation that we would encounter two years out or four years out.

3840             I think we would want to understand it more ourselves.

3841             As Duncan says, neither of us is technical, and we wouldn't want to make a commitment that the engineers would ultimately come back and ask us if we had lost our minds.

3842             COMMISSIONER MOLNAR:  Okay.  That's fair.  You can undertake to provide that answer.

3843             Or, in your reply, I think, would probably be efficient, as well.

3844             MR. MELDRUM:  Sure, we will address it in our reply.

3845             COMMISSIONER MOLNAR:  I would like to understand the embedded format that you are proposing to move to.

3846             Yesterday, TELUS told us that the process for a person who is blind to access described video is a six‑step process.

3847             Do you know what process will be involved for consumers when you move from the open format to the embedded?

3848             MR. KROLL:  I'm sorry, I wouldn't know that, although I would hazard to guess that it could be similar to the TELUS situation.

3849             COMMISSIONER MOLNAR:  I would hazard a similar guess, actually, that it would be similar to TELUS, and that it would be a six‑step process.

3850             I am going to leave you with the same question I asked them.  Are you working with your manufacturers to develop a simplified process?

3851             MR. MELDRUM:  That is a bit of a challenge, because most of the new middleware folks that we are looking at are from the States, and, actually, described video is something that they are not all that familiar with.  It's not mandated in the United States.

3852             We are just hopeful that their middleware will support it.

3853             Our actual Request for Proposals did not address the issue of access itself ‑‑ how many clicks, so to speak.

3854             COMMISSIONER MOLNAR:  Okay.  I will let that go, but I think it's hard to imagine going from open format today to six clicks to get somewhere tomorrow.

3855             Do you know what I mean?

3856             That's the difference between what is being offered and what you are moving toward.

3857             MR. MELDRUM:  Certainly, we haven't yet acquired our middleware, and we will keep this in mind as we work with the potential vendors to understand what their system is capable of.

3858             COMMISSIONER MOLNAR:  You are saying that you don't have any potential influence in setting out requirements for that middleware, where you could look at reducing ‑‑ or making that content more accessible, simplifying it for the end users.

3859             MR. MELDRUM:  I think it will be a challenge.

3860             COMMISSIONER MOLNAR:  Okay.  The last thing I want to talk about is the electronic programming guide.

3861             I understand that today there is a visual indicator for described video programming.

3862             Is that correct?

3863             MR. KROLL:  We do a couple of things.  We voiceprint, and all of our described programming services are grouped together in the sequence of channels.  In our case, they are channels 555 through 567 or 568, I believe.

3864             Those described video channels also have an identifier, if you will, on the interactive guide.

3865             For instance, CTV would be "CTV/DV".  That would come up on the guide.

3866             COMMISSIONER MOLNAR:  But there is no indicator in your electronic guide itself to indicate that a program is described.

3867             MR. KROLL:  No.

3868             COMMISSIONER MOLNAR:  Is that something that you could see making available, assuming that broadcasters provided you the information that the program is described?

3869             Because I have heard some comments here that BDUs aren't always aware that described video is even being provided.

3870             If you were provided with that information, could it be easily added to your electronic program guide?

3871             MR. KROLL:  I think we would explore that, yes.

3872             COMMISSIONER MOLNAR:  What about any opportunities for audio announcement, or other means of simplifying access for persons who are blind?

3873             MR. KROLL:  I believe, as John mentioned, in terms of discussions with middleware vendors, that is a functionality that we have flagged.

3874             Now, I am not exactly sure what is out there, as John indicated, but certainly it is something that we have pointed out.

3875             MR. MELDRUM:  And the people responsible for our service are going to look to see if there is something they can do on an interim basis.

3876             We hadn't really looked at it before we heard it discussed at the proceeding this week.

3877             So we will have a look to see if there is something we can do today.

3878             COMMISSIONER MOLNAR:  Will you have a look and be able to provide us some information on whether that is possible by the time reply comments are due?

3879             MR. MELDRUM:  We will try.

3880             COMMISSIONER MOLNAR:  Okay.  It is interesting that the IPTV application is a bit unique in its integration with internet websites, and so on, so I just wondered, with that technology, if there also might be other ways of information related to what is or is not ‑‑ you know, what is described video, what is accessible programming available for those people.

3881             You know, a separate website that could flash up or something.

3882             It seems to me that the technology would provide some opportunities.

3883             MR. MELDRUM:  For sure it would.  When you think of how it actually works, the opportunity to have a section right on your television that was devoted to special needs and/or focused on this, yes.

3884             COMMISSIONER MOLNAR:  Right.  If any of those opportunities are available, it would be very interesting to hear about them, as well.

3885             MR. MELDRUM:  Certainly.

3886             COMMISSIONER MOLNAR:  Those are my questions.  Thank you.

3887             THE CHAIRPERSON:  Thank you, Commissioner Molnar.

3888             I think that some of us have some questions, as well.  I am going to start.

3889             I want to go back to something you said a few minutes ago with regard to middleware being done in the United States, and, as a result, your manufacturers or suppliers may not have the expertise on described video, because it's not something that is done in the United States today.

3890             I don't know who you are using, but described video was a standard that was being used several years ago in the United States.  It may have had a bit of a hiatus, but I still believe that described video is being offered by the Public Broadcasting System, PBS, and some other channels, as well.

3891             So I cannot believe that, unless you have gone with some relatively new, unknown middleware supplier, they haven't got the expertise to know what is required in described video, nor what has been the standard in the U.S. in the past.

3892             It leaves me to believe that the reason it is not being incorporated is because it wasn't part of the RFP process and identified as a need right upfront.

3893             Is that true?

3894             MR. MELDRUM:  No, our RFP definitely is asking for described video.

3895             THE CHAIRPERSON:  It is.

3896             MR. MELDRUM:  In terms of your views, I can only report what I have been advised, that some of the middleware providers were surprised about described video and didn't really know that much about it.

3897             Certainly, our current middleware provider is Canadian, and knows all about it, and has worked with us to try to make it work as best we can.

3898             THE CHAIRPERSON:  When you look at your response to your RFP, how much weight do you put on the fact that one supplier may not have the expertise to do something that is for a segment of the population, as opposed to costs or other technical parameters?

3899             MR. MELDRUM:  If they couldn't support the Commission's requirements, then we wouldn't go with them.

3900             THE CHAIRPERSON:  I want to come back to MRS, and you are going to have to help me here.  My math may be wrong, so I am going to take you through a mathematical exercise.

3901             Do you have your tariff with you for MRS, or is there a tariff today?

3902             I should ask the first question.

3903             Do you have a tariff for MRS?

3904             MR. MELDRUM:  I don't believe there is a tariff, no.

3905             THE CHAIRPERSON:  Okay.  Commissioner Molnar mentioned, I think, that the rate was 25 cents.  My records say that it's 26.  It doesn't matter.

3906             I want to take you through a mathematical exercise, and tell me if I am correct or not.

3907             There are roughly a million people in Saskatchewan.  The average number of people per family is somewhere between 3.5 and 4.  So you have about a quarter of a million homes in Saskatchewan.

3908             If I take that number and multiply it by 25 cents per MRS customer, times 12 months, my math comes up with, roughly, three-quarters of a million dollars of revenue generated by the cost recovery for MRS services from the residential side.

3909             Business was also mandated to subscribe, pay for, and contribute to MRS, so I just doubled it and got $1.5 million.

3910             It may be less than that.  Competition may have caused you to lose some market share ‑‑ and I don't want to get into proprietary numbers.

3911             So I am at $1.5 million, give or take a bit.

3912             You were saying that there are 300 registered users for MRS services ‑‑ TTI services ‑‑ I believe.  So if I divided 300 by $1.5 million, I would get $5,000 per person utilizing MRS as what you would be recovering through the passthrough charges of what was approved by the CRTC, in whatever year it was approved.

3913             That's my math.

3914             Does the math sound logically correct, give or take the number of customers?

3915             MR. MELDRUM:  The back‑of‑the‑envelope math sounds reasonable, yes.

3916             THE CHAIRPERSON:  So you are recovering, roughly, $5,000 per person utilizing this technology, per year, and I guess the question is, how much cost are you actually incurring to serve 300 people with TTI?

3917             I guess I would put it to you that there may be a contribution there that may be useful in developing additional services through this recovery mechanism, because my math tells me that the $5,000 per person using TTI per month is quite a high amount of cost to have to recover.  In this case there is a major contribution.

3918             MR. MELDRUM:  That possibility exists, yes.

3919             THE CHAIRPERSON:  Okay.

3920             You said you incorporated the rate into the monthly service fee.  So there's not an individual line item on the customers' bill for MRS services?

3921             MR. MELDRUM:  There is no individual line item, no.

3922             THE CHAIRPERSON:  Okay.

3923             MR. MELDRUM:  It's in the $22 a month.

3924             THE CHAIRPERSON:  This is the antithesis of system access fees, where you have put it in as opposed to leaving it out.

3925             Why did you do that?

3926             MR. MELDRUM:  Why?

3927             THE CHAIRPERSON:  Because at one time it was a tariffed item, I mean you were fully regulated, and, as far as I know, this service is still a regulated service and ‑‑

3928             MR. MELDRUM:  Well, there was a period of time during which we weren't formally regulated at all.  I know for phone companies that's Nirvana and probably not for regulators, but there was a period of time and that might have been the period of time at which we introduced MRS.

3929             THE CHAIRPERSON:  Okay.  Because again, I mean, my math would tell me if you incorporate it into the rate and just bundled it in, then, as you increase your telephony rates by inflation or whatever, 2 percent, 3 percent, you are bumping that number up, as well.

3930             And again, if it was a tariffed item by the CRTC, embedding it and then bumping it up by the cost of inflation may not be something that we contemplated or approved either.

3931             So I just leave that thought with you and maybe you can look into the history behind the rate, and how it became bundled into the services, and maybe file something with us at an appropriate time explaining it.

3932             MR. MELDRUM:  We can certainly undertake to see what we can find in our records.

3933             THE CHAIRPERSON:  Great.

3934             MR. MELDRUM:  Unfortunately, I have been around forever and I can't recall the specifics as to how it was that occurred.

3935             THE CHAIRPERSON:  Yes.  Neither do I, for that matter, but ‑‑

3936             MR. MELDRUM:  I think it probably was during that unregulated era.

3937             THE CHAIRPERSON:  Was there anything else you did during that unregulated era that you want to share with us?

‑‑- Laughter / Rires

3938             THE CHAIRPERSON:  Okay.

3939             MR. MELDRUM:  I'm sure they are all good.

3940             THE CHAIRPERSON:  I'm sure they are.

3941             Someone mentioned the other day -- and we keep using the term Jitterbug -- I think TELUS said they had an alternative phone to Jitterbug, as well.  And I think I heard you say that the order levels, in order to bring in product, was a minimum of 10,000 units, and therefore it didn't support the business proposition.

3942             I guess I question to the extent that you have 300 TTY customers and you were able to equip them with product and you didn't buy 10,000, I would believe that one could get smaller numbers if they wanted to.  And if they couldn't, I would tend to think you can still buy them off the shelf if you had to subsidize them, which is maybe what you are doing on TTY, I don't know.

3943             MR. MELDRUM:  Well, certainly we have a number of wireline terminals that we are able to source quite easily and I think it's probably more the nature of the cellular terminal industry.

3944             I had occasion to meet with a manufacturer is Southeast Asia within the last year, and it's a country that's renown for their politeness, and when we met with them they essentially asked us why we were there and told us that we were so small that they couldn't waste their time to talk to us, and we carried a number of lines of their phone.

3945             So I had the firsthand opportunity to hear from a large international manufacturer that they didn't want to talk to us.

3946             THE CHAIRPERSON:  No, and I have no doubt that it's difficult to deal with large manufacturers who have production runs that are in the tens of thousands, if not even more than that, but that doesn't mean you can't get them through a distributor and perhaps pay a higher margin, a higher price for it.  But I'm sure people are bringing them into the United States, for example.

3947             And I guess I heard TELUS say that they have an alternative product to this Jitterbug product.  Why you couldn't call them up and say, Can you sell us a hundred of these things?, at whatever price they will pass it through to you.  To me it would be a logical thing to do if there's a need for it or a demand for it by your citizens, your customers.

3948             MR. MELDRUM:  And again, from what I understand, a wireline terminal just sort of works on the end of the line and with a cellular terminal it has to integrate with your network and work with your network and be supported and meet your requirements and be locked onto your network, and all those various things.  So, again, it's hard to do small batches.

3949             THE CHAIRPERSON:  You are all CDMA.  If TELUS can do it, you can do it.  You are all roaming on TELUS network so your products are perfectly interchangeable across the CDMA platform.

3950             MR. MELDRUM:  If they would let us have a look at it, we would.

3951             THE CHAIRPERSON:  Okay.  Well, it's something that you might want to think about, I guess.

3952             You mention in your submission that one alternative for people who have got issues is to deal with the Commissioner of Complaints that was set up about a year ago.

3953             Do you know if there's been any complaints by the disability community to the commissioner for telecommunications complaints, whatever they are called.  CCTS, I think it's called.

3954             MR. MELDRUM:  Concerning SaskTel?

3955             THE CHAIRPERSON:  Yes.

3956             MR. MELDRUM:  No.  There have been four complaint since it's set up and I guess I can't address it without saying that comes out to $15,000 a complaint for us for the first year.

3957             THE CHAIRPERSON:  Okay.  It's on the record, Mr. Meldrum.

3958             Value of service pricing:  some of the parties came before us saying they buy product, because you sell them off the shelf and so they have got to take what you sell them, and some of the services, whether you are disabled through hard of hearing or visibility impaired, the services are there and yet they pull full price for the service even though the utilization may be lower.  I know you mentioned earlier that there is some discretion where you actually reduce the price of some services, as well.

3959             Have you thought about, particularly on the wireless side, looking at whether, if the value of the product to people with disabilities is lower simply because they can't utilize some of those services, rather than trying to get them a product which we know is not available that you would find some way of creating a discount for their utilization?

3960             MR. MELDRUM:  Our pay‑per‑use service actually doesn't require you to spend any money at all on voice.  You can actually get our pay‑per‑use service, and then subscribe to a text messaging plan, and either pay per use on text messaging or pay $10 month...or I guess it's $13 a month now, to get unlimited text messaging.

3961             So essentially we do have a plan that would be text only or the opportunity to put a plan together that would give you that.

3962             THE CHAIRPERSON:  Okay.

3963             Those are all my questions, Mr. Meldrum.

3964             Commissioner Lamarre?  No?  Yes.

3965             Commissioner Lamarre.

3966             COMMISSIONER LAMARRE:  Merci, monsieur le président.

3967             In your presentation you have mentioned that you do not intend to offer the IP relay service in French because there's no demand for the service in French.

3968             How did you come to that conclusion that there was no demand?

3969             MR. MELDRUM:  None of the 300 registered TTY users have indicated a need for French.

3970             COMMISSIONER LAMARRE:  Aren't you going to plan for the possibility that there may be new people coming to Saskatchewan and that there could be a demand in the future for it?

3971             MR. MELDRUM:  Well, we certainly would look at it if one of the registered users came forward and said that they could only communicate in French.  We would certainly try and deal with that.

3972             COMMISSIONER LAMARRE:  Okay, but that's from the end of the users.  Now, people that live in Saskatchewan surely don't communicate only with people in Saskatchewan.  Some of them probably communicate with people outside of Saskatchewan.

3973             How would one of your...actually, I hesitate between using the word "customers" or "citizens" given that you have mentioned that your customers own you and that you are a Crown corporation, but I think it's going to be easier if I say "customers".

3974             If one of your customers wants to communicate with somebody who only speaks French at the other end, how would they do that?

3975             MR. MELDRUM:  Well, I think we would see if any of the operators on duty were bilingual and get them to handle the call.

3976             COMMISSIONER LAMARRE:  Okay.

3977             MR. MELDRUM:  We would have some bilingual operators.

3978             Unfortunately, though, bilingualism in Saskatchewan is fairly limited.  We just don't get an opportunity to use our French, so we learn French and then lose it, unfortunately.  But if there were bilingual operators on duty, then they would handle that particular call.

3979             I'm sure today we must get calls from some customers that end up in our operator services that are French‑only.

3980             COMMISSIONER LAMARRE:  And couldn't you extend that to the IP relay service, then?

3981             MR. MELDRUM:  The extent to which we are able to handle it today and the extent to which those calls arise in the future, yes.  But in terms of actually setting ourselves up to ensure that we would be able to provide bilingual IP relay service, we just haven't had a need yet to undertake that.

3982             And again, it's a bit of a struggle for a call centre the size of which we operate to be able to meet all the needs of everybody at all hours.

3983             COMMISSIONER LAMARRE:  Have you considered the possibility of contracting it out in that case?

3984             MR. MELDRUM:  And that certainly is one of the things we are looking at for IP relay is to contract it out.  And again, this would be another consideration as to why a national service would make more sense:  to be able to provide a higher level of service to Saskatchewan customers who wanted to communicate in French.

3985             COMMISSIONER LAMARRE:  What about VRS?  Because for VRS you have it in your presentation, and, actually, in your undertaking at the end of your presentation, that you do agree that it should be set up as a national service.  And then you mention that you are only going to offer VRS in English.

3986             So are you saying that, if there is a national VRS service, then in Saskatchewan it should be only in English?

3987             MR. MELDRUM:  No, I don't think we did say that, that we would only offer it in English, VRS.

3988             COMMISSIONER LAMARRE:  You did not say ‑‑

3989             MR. MELDRUM:  No.

3990             COMMISSIONER LAMARRE:  ‑‑ that VRS would be offered only in English?

3991             MR. MELDRUM:  I think the question that I was answering was in relation to IP relay.

3992             COMMISSIONER LAMARRE:  Oh, okay.  So VRS, you will also offer in French?

3993             MR. MELDRUM:  Well, again, our view is that it should be a national service, and we certainly would support that it should be an English and French service, yes.

3994             COMMISSIONER LAMARRE:  If it doesn't become a national service, if it becomes regional services, will you be offering it in French, as well?

3995             MR. MELDRUM:  Oh, I would think we would really struggle with that ‑‑

3996             COMMISSIONER LAMARRE:  Why would you struggle with that?

3997             MR. MELDRUM:  ‑‑ in terms of being able to deliver it.

3998             COMMISSIONER LAMARRE:  Why?

3999             MR. MELDRUM:  Well, I guess we could contract to somebody that would have that expertise, because we certainly wouldn't.

4000             COMMISSIONER LAMARRE:  Okay, so you ‑‑

4001             MR. MELDRUM:  Yes, so we would contract, and I guess we would certainly look to see if that was available and possible, and try and understand the costs of obtaining that.  But if it was a call centre that offered both English and French, then I would certainly think it would come with the service that we would contract.

4002             COMMISSIONER LAMARRE:  So, basically, correct me if I'm wrong, what I understand you to say is that you have not made any specific cost analysis as to what it would amount to to offer IP relay service or VRS regional service in French, as well as in English, once you implement it.

4003             MR. MELDRUM:  Right, we wouldn't have any costs at all.  We are not far enough along on our IP relay service to know the additional costs ‑‑

4004             COMMISSIONER LAMARRE:  Okay.

4005             MR. MELDRUM:  ‑‑ and whether there even are any additional costs if we are contracting it out.  And in terms of video relay, we wouldn't be anywhere along that continuum of understanding of costs.

4006             COMMISSIONER LAMARRE:  Will you make those comparative costs when you get there?

4007             MR. MELDRUM:  I would think so.

4008             COMMISSIONER LAMARRE:  Can you commit to it?  I'm just asking you if you will make the cost analysis to see what it would cost to offer it in both French and English, either in‑house or contracting out.

4009             MR. MELDRUM:  Yes, we would certainly commit to do that.

4010             COMMISSIONER LAMARRE:  Okay, thank you.

4011             Now, I do take Mr. Kroll's point that he's not a technical person, but I still have technical questions anyway.  And it's regarding, really, your IP technology.

4012             Now, currently, your infrastructure for IPTV, does it rely on cable or on fibre?

4013             MR. MELDRUM:  I will maybe try that.

4014             COMMISSIONER LAMARRE:  Yes.

4015             MR. MELDRUM:  It's fibre to within 900 metres of the homes or less ‑‑

4016             COMMISSIONER LAMARRE:  Okay.

4017             MR. MELDRUM:  ‑‑ and then from there it's copper‑delivered.

4018             COMMISSIONER LAMARRE:  And then it's copper, okay.

4019             MR. MELDRUM:  Yes.

4020             COMMISSIONER LAMARRE:  With regards to your electronic program guide, we were under the impression that at one point SaskTel had asked for a quote to get a voice sensitizer device to connect to that program guide so that the program could be heard.

4021             Am I wrong?  Did I...?

4022             MR. KROLL:  I'm sorry, Commissioner, I'm not sure what you are referring to.

4023             COMMISSIONER LAMARRE:  Well, currently, the guide is only visual ‑‑

4024             MR. KROLL:  That's right.

4025             COMMISSIONER LAMARRE:  ‑‑ and you have mentioned in the notes that I have from this morning that you are not aware of any EPG or IPG which would provide,

"...audio cues accompanying the graphic information at this time.  Should one appear, SaskTel will assess the feasibility of incorporating audio cues to its IPG."  (As read)

4026             Some of our technical staff was under the impression that you have already started looking into that.

4027             MR. KROLL:  As I indicated earlier, it was one of the functionalities that we flag in the RFP that we have put out the middleware vendors, but we are certainly not at the point where we have been able to determine whether that's even possible.

4028             COMMISSIONER LAMARRE:  Okay.  Did you get the reply for that RFP?

4029             MR. KROLL:  My understanding is that the responses have come in and that they will begin reviewing them shortly.

4030             COMMISSIONER LAMARRE:  Okay.  Can you keep us informed whether or not your supplier was able to provide you with a positive answer or not?

4031             MR. KROLL:  Yes, we will do that.

4032             COMMISSIONER LAMARRE:  Thank you.

4033             Those are all my questions, thank you.

4034             THE CHAIRPERSON:  Thank you, Commissioner Lamarre.

4035             We will start from the far east coast. Have you got any questions, Commissioner Duncan?  One?

4036             Go ahead.

4037             COMMISSIONER DUNCAN:  I have just a simple question, I think.

4038             I would like to understand the open versus embedded.  If I'm a customer of SaskTel's, how do I access the open signal now?  Is it just a single button?

4039             MR. KROLL:  Yes, you would get your remote, you would select "Guide", and then you would have to scroll to the described video programming channels.

4040             COMMISSIONER DUNCAN:  So then, as compared to the six steps, still a few steps, is that the idea?

4041             MR. KROLL:  A few steps, yes.

4042             COMMISSIONER DUNCAN:  Half as many?

4043             MR. KROLL:  And as I said earlier, we have tried to make it more user friendly by grouping the channels together.

4044             And, of course, as TELUS mentioned yesterday, too, we do have, as part of the menu option, a favourites option, as well, where they could customize the guide to be tailored to described video or closed captioning.

4045             COMMISSIONER DUNCAN:  Do you have staff that would go to a customer's home and help them set that up?  I'm just imagining it would be complicated initially to set up.  Not any moreso there than anywhere else, but....

4046             MR. KROLL:  I think we give as much support as we can.  When the installer goes into the home to install the equipment, they would probably lend some assistance if they could, and certainly there are avenues available for the customer to call back if they were having troubles.

4047             COMMISSIONER DUNCAN:  So I'm taking that most of it would be done by phoning into the office, then?

4048             MR. KROLL:  I would think so.

4049             MR. MELDRUM:  That would be our first attempt: to try and support it over the phone.

4050             COMMISSIONER DUNCAN:  Okay.  Thank you very much.  That's good.

4051             Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

4052             THE CHAIRPERSON:  Thank you, Commissioner Duncan.

4053             Commissioner Denton, any questions?

4054             COMMISSIONER DENTON:  No questions.

4055             THE CHAIRPERSON:  Thank you.

4056             Over to the far west coast, Commissioner Simpson.

4057             COMMISSIONER SIMPSON:  The left coast.  Thank you very much.

‑‑- Laughter / Rires

4058             COMMISSIONER SIMPSON:  Good morning, gentlemen.

4059             I would like to be very brief, first of all, but just deal with a few issues from your presentation that I would like to take not exception but challenge you on with respect to accessibility in general.

4060             While I'm extremely cognisant of the issues that you have brought out with respect to the scale of your business and how that plays with respect to the supplier community globally, you know, it's noted and well received that is a reality.  But still on points 16 and 17, on page 2 of your presentation, you had indicated that it seemed to be of your belief that accessibility issues largely rested with technological issues and you had said:

"However, most of the issues regarding accessibility of communication services generally deal with terminal equipment and it's commonly agreed that accessibility is best accomplished in the initial design and development of products and services."  (As read)

4061             Where I'm going with this is I would like to have a very brief discussion about the range of disability.

4062             I think, to a certain extent, from what I have seen from service providers, they take a rather compartmentalized view to the issue of disability, that you are either disabled or you are not, and if you are able‑bodied you fit into one category of service provision, including products and services, and if you fall into the disabled category.  It's a hard wall that divides the two and that puts you in another framework of thinking, in terms of what you can and can't do given the size of your organization.

4063             But one of the things that has impacted me in the preparation for these hearings was the very slippery slope we seem to be on, as an aging population, where individuals of my age, as the elder, I think, at this table, are finding ourselves going more and more from what I would call totally abled to somewhat disabled.

4064             And the degree of difficulty that I ran into was in my years in the advertising business, finding 25‑year‑old designers designing business cards in 6 point type that I could read when I was their age and I can't read today.

4065             I would like to ask you if you believe that there's some movability in your position that there is nothing you can do for individuals with disabilities of varying types with respect to the other soft services, such as the manner in which you engage your customers in a non‑technical area, such as the provisioning of your billing services, your website services and so on.

4066             I'm trying to divide your perspective on hard, technical issues that you can't control from those that you can, and I would like you to discourse a bit as to whether you actually have some elasticity in your position, in terms of the stuff that you can control that's within your financial means.

4067             MR. MELDRUM:  Well, certainly the phones that we do carry and that we do offer for sale on the wireline side are not simply designed and aimed at those that are completely disabled, they are to get at people who are hard of hearing.  And, of course, certainly as I'm discovering as well as I get older, the hearing starts to slip.

4068             So we do, through our special needs manager and the special needs products and services, attempt to address that broader description of the disabled in Canada that I think makes up the 15 percent that is disabled.

4069             I don't know if that answers ‑‑

4070             COMMISSIONER SIMPSON:  Well, I guess I was reacting somewhat to what I felt was a little bit of a defeatist attitude towards your ability to address the issues before this hearing.  So I'm hearing you say that you do have sensitivity and are making efforts in the areas you can make.

4071             MR. MELDRUM:  We do have a number of products and services that we provide.  Perhaps the frustration is really more on the wireless side than on the wireline side.

4072             And again, our special needs manager will actually try and help special needs people to source products that we don't have, again on the wireline side being much easier than making inroads on the wireless side, unfortunately.

4073             COMMISSIONER SIMPSON:  Is there, for providers such as yourself, which I'm sure globally there are many that are in your scale ‑‑ are you aware of any working groups or organizations of telecom providers that have workgroups that deal specifically with the mandate of bringing disability requirements to the equipment manufacturers?

4074             MR. MELDRUM:  No, we are not aware of any.

4075             I should mention we do have some products that are fairly new that are actually directed I think to that senior category to a certain degree.  Actually the Office of Disabilities of the Province of Saskatchewan has asked us to use that smaller amount of our deferral account to actually focus on seeing whether we can adapt these products to aid cognitively disabled individuals to be able to live more independently.

4076             Of those two products, one is a medical alert service that we offer through our security company, SecureTech Monitoring Solutions.  It is a 100 per cent owned entity.

4077             That provides sort of a work alone medical alert thing that in the case of seniors could be quite helpful and aid them with independent living.

4078             And then there is a product called LifeStat, that we actually have a joint venture with Alcatel, that provides remote monitoring for serious illnesses.  Two that are today monitored remotely would be blood pressure and blood sugar levels, which of course diabetes leads to so many other disabilities.

4079             So we are focused in that marketplace trying to see what we can develop, and certainly we would be addressing much more than Saskatchewan to the extent that we are successful with those particular products and services.

4080             COMMISSIONER SIMPSON:  Thank you.

4081             I just would like to end with a statement of sharing what we are learning, because it goes both ways.  With respect to the business model of any service provider, again we are seeing at this end that scale of aging population and the percentage of moving into what could be considered some form of disability.  As an individual reaches 75 years of age, we are being told that between 65 and 75 per cent of the population of that age group will be considered as having some form of disability.

4082             I bring this up to all of the providers, that it perhaps is time to start thinking about that with respect to disability becoming a much broader category that they have to put into their focus.

4083             Thank you.

4084             THE CHAIRPERSON:  Thank you, Commissioner Simpson.

4085             I believe Commissioner Molnar has a couple of follow‑up questions.

4086             COMMISSIONER MOLNAR:  Yes, thank you.  Just a couple of things.

4087             First of all, I would like to go back to the whole issue of national IPRS service and the natural transition that exists with existing message relay service.

4088             If we were to implement a national IPRS, would it make sense that message relay service also be provided on a national basis and potentially by that same service provider?

4089             MR. MELDRUM:  I think intuitively I think it would make sense.  I think you would want to understand the specifics, but intuitively I think it would make sense.

4090             Get the economies of scale that would be available to offer it in French and English on a national basis.

4091             COMMISSIONER MOLNAR:  Right.  So would your company have any concerns if we move to a national message relay service?

4092             MR. MELDRUM:  No, I don't think we would have any concerns.

4093             COMMISSIONER MOLNAR:  Okay.

4094             I need to move back to the issue of website compatibility.

4095             You mentioned that the deferral account funds were being used specifically to create a special needs section of your website.

4096             Could you tell me how much funds was approved for that purpose?

4097             MR. MELDRUM:  Just to be clear, we haven't decided that we would only do special needs.  It's just that we think that the amount of money available may only permit us to do special needs.  We are still trying to understand the audit.

4098             And the extent to which there are other relatively easy things to do that would provide benefits in terms of the accessibility of our website, we would certainly do that for sure.

4099             It's $103,000 set aside out of our deferral account.

4100             COMMISSIONER MOLNAR:  If the Commission were to make a determination that the full website should be accessible, would you undertake to provide us with an estimate of what the costs would be to expand accessibility to incorporate all the information available on your website?

4101             MR. MELDRUM:  We would have to do an estimate because we wouldn't know for sure, but I think we would have an idea.

4102             COMMISSIONER MOLNAR:  Okay.  If you could provide that and any other information you would have related to requirements, benefits, challenges or so on, you know, in expanding the requirement to be all information.

4103             I would also be interested in that same undertaking, if you could undertake to provide this with the other information we spoke about, if you could look at it relative to maybe a requirement to make it accessible in the near term, let's say the next sort of two to three years, versus the requirement if it was part of your next Web redesign and how the costs would be different if it was imposed upon the website you have today versus incorporated into the next version or the next redesign.

4104             MR. MELDRUM:  We will see what we can do.

4105             COMMISSIONER MOLNAR:  Thank you.

4106             I didn't provide a date related to undertakings.  The end of next week, is that reasonable?

4107             MR. MELDRUM:  With some of them it would be reasonable.  That last one I would be very surprised if we could provide anything meaningful within a week.

4108             COMMISSIONER MOLNAR:  Maybe I will just check with our legal counsel.

4109             In two weeks is that what ‑‑ two weeks?  I guess I shouldn't have said the end of next week.

4110             In two weeks if you can provide us the best information you have available.

4111             MS LEHOUX:  And we will be laying all the undertakings and tomorrow we will provide the list.

4112             COMMISSIONER MOLNAR:  Okay.

4113             MR. MELDRUM:  Great.

4114             COMMISSIONER MOLNAR:  Thank you.

4115             MR. MELDRUM:  It seems to be a long list.

4116             THE CHAIRPERSON:  Does legal have any legal questions at all?  I see heads shaking no.

4117             Thank you very much, Mr. Meldrum, Mr. Kroll, for appearing before us.

4118             We will take a five‑minute break for a change of speakers and parties and we will reconvene in five to seven minutes.

4119             Thank you.

‑‑‑ Upon recessing at 1044 / Suspension à 1044

‑‑‑ Upon resuming at 1056 / Reprise à 1056

4120             THE CHAIRPERSON:  Order, please.

4121             THE SECRETARY:  Please be seated.  Veuillez prendre vos places, s'il vous plaît.

4122             Nous allons maintenant procéder avec le Regroupement des aveugles et amblyopes du Québec.

4123             Mais avant, je vais faire une annonce qu'il y a possibilité que nous arrêtions entre 11 h 15 et 11 h 30 pour procéder avec le participant qui vient en vidéoconférence, puis si nous n'avons pas terminé, nous allons revenir avec votre présentation.

4124             I would just like to announce that we will probably be stopping between 11:15 and 11:30 for our videoconference and we will continue with the presentation by le Regroupement des aveugles et amblyopes du Québec.

4125             Vous pouvez maintenant procéder avec votre présentation de 15 minutes.

PRÉSENTATION / PRESENTATION

4126             M. DUBOIS : Alors, bonjour.  Je vais vous présenter ma collègue Florence Pardo.  Elle est directrice générale du Regroupement des aveugles et amblyopes du Québec.  Je suis André Dubois, président de ce regroupement.

4127             Alors, nous vous remercions, nous remercions le Conseil de nous avoir invités aujourd'hui à venir nous présenter à votre audience.

4128             Je voudrais juste expliquer brièvement le regroupement.

4129             Nous autres, on a 12 affiliations à travers le Québec.  On couvre tout le Québec.  Notre organisme existe depuis 32 ans, et nous avons fait cheminer plusieurs dossiers pour favoriser l'intégration des personnes handicapées visuelles au Québec.

4130             Le mot " amblyope ", souvent, on me demande ce que ça veut dire.  C'est un mot qui a une racine grecque, qui vient de " ambly ", faible, et " ope ", vision.  Alors, c'est pour ceux que ça ne paraît dans les yeux, au niveau des yeux, mais c'est à un autre niveau.

4131             Alors, voilà pour la présentation.

4132             Juste une petite seconde.  Je vais juste vérifier là, j'avais... juste vérifier dans mon ordinateur parce que je ne veux pas m'égarer dans ma partie.  On va le faire de façon alternative.

‑‑‑ Pause

4133             M. DUBOIS : O.K.

4134             Alors, nous, nous ne sommes pas... bien sûr, nous ne sommes pas des professionnels au niveau des médias électroniques et tout, mais sur le plan humain, sur le plan de la déficience visuelle, ça, on connaît.

4135             Alors, sans plus tarder, je vais laisser Florence faire sa première partie.  Merci.

4136             MME PARDO : Bonjour, mesdames et messieurs.  Je vais vous entretenir sur nos besoins en vidéodescription, et, par la suite, monsieur Dubois prendra le relais pour parler du service à la clientèle, du service et du soutien à la clientèle.

4137             Pour la période de licence qui doit débuter en août 2009, nous souhaitons que les télédiffuseurs, par exigence du CRTC, fournissent le quart de leur programmation avec vidéodescription, c'est‑à‑dire 42 heures par semaine, 6 heures par jour.

4138             Cette mesure devrait être appliquée de façon graduelle.  Ce que nous proposons, c'est au début de la deuxième année, 2 heures par jour, au début de la quatrième année, 4 heures par jour, et au début de la sixième année, 6 heures par jour.

4139             Cette mesure devrait s'appliquer à tous les télédiffuseurs de langue anglaise et française et concerne les émissions préenregistrées ainsi que ‑‑ pardonnez mon Braille parce que ça, je sais que c'était très important ‑‑ ah, oui! aux heures de grande écoute parce qu'on n'aimerait pas que ce soit enterré à 2 heures du matin.

4140             Cette augmentation significative des heures de vidéodescription, pour nous, est nécessaire parce que, actuellement, les besoins des téléspectateurs handicapés visuels est pratiquement ignoré, et ce, malgré le fait que nous sommes des citoyens à part entière, que nous payons des taxes, que nous achetons les appareils, nous payons pour les services de câble, et les solutions aux problèmes d'accessibilité sont maintenant disponibles.

4141             Bien sûr, la vidéodescription a un prix.  Sur le site d'AudioVision Canada, on cite une moyenne de 1 600 dollars pour produire la vidéodescription d'une émission d'une heure.  Par contre, ce prix est un pourcentage peu élevé des coûts des émissions elles‑mêmes.

4142             Par exemple, l'émission québécoise " Minuit, le soir ", dans sa première saison coûtait $260 000 environ par épisode de 30 minutes.  Une partie de ce prix peut être assumé par des instances gouvernementales qui financent les producteurs, ainsi que par une contribution des abonnés au câble.

4143             Une autre raison pour augmenter les exigences, c'est que l'histoire nous a clairement démontré que c'est par les exigences du CRTC qu'on voit l'augmentation du service de vidéodescription, c'est‑à‑dire les compagnies semblent avoir une bonne volonté et de comprendre, mais elles attendent les exigences du CRTC pour aller de l'avant.

4144             Il y a aussi un avantage financier pour les compagnies d'ouvrir leur auditoire, d'agrandir leur auditoire, parce que les personnes que nous représentons, nous sommes 600 000, disons des centaines de milliers de personnes handicapées visuelles et on sait qu'avec le vieillissement de la population, notre nombre est en hausse.

4145             Tantôt, j'ai mentionné, pour la vidéodescription, que nous proposions qu'elle soit appliquée aux émissions préenregistrées.

4146             En ce qui a trait aux émissions en direct, ce que nous proposons, pour l'instant, c'est qu'une attention soit portée lors de la période de pré‑production aux besoins des personnes handicapées visuelles.  C'est‑à‑dire que, en fait, c'est un peu un retour à la parole parce que nos membres mentionnent beaucoup qu'autrefois, il ne fallait pas ignorer la température ou c'est qui la personne qui est à l'écran dans un bulletin de nouvelles et qu'il y a tout à fait moyen qu'il y ait une attention portée à ce besoin‑là.

4147             Et le fait d'accorder une importance à l'accès à l'information lors de la pré‑production correspond au principe d'accessibilité universelle qu'on défend.  C'est‑à‑dire qu'au début d'un projet, c'est là qu'on tient compte des besoins de toute la clientèle, et ça peut, par la suite, réduire les efforts à mettre dans l'adaptation des services.

4148             Pour terminer ce volet sur la vidéodescription, nous aimerions que le CRTC encourage et facilite tout projet qui vise à transférer le précédent qui a été créé par The Accessible Channel, un poste qui permet d'avoir la vidéodescription en clair dans toute la programmation.

4149             Maintenant, mon collègue va vous entretenir sur le service à la clientèle, équitable.

4150             M. DUBOIS : Merci.

4151             Pardonnez ma digression, mais lorsque vous écoutez... bien souvent, un bulletin de nouvelles est toujours accompagné d'un bulletin météo, et puis, lorsque vous entendez, bon, voici la météo pour les 24 prochaines heures, et que vous entendez une petite musique presque d'ascenseur là, vous vous ennuyez de l'éloquence de Jocelyne Blouin ou encore des explications claires du professeur Lebrun.

4152             Pour la vidéodescriptive, on disait qu'on connaît le proverbe : La parole est d'argent, mais le silence est d'or.  Et, dans notre cas, c'est l'inverse, c'est la parole qui est d'or.

4153             Alors, voilà.  Pour le service, maintenant, à la clientèle, nous, on demande au CRTC d'obtenir... de faire en sorte qu'on puisse obtenir un service à la clientèle équitable.  En fait, ça signifie que toute la clientèle va recevoir la même information, et ce, de façon à faire des choix éclairés.

4154             Bon!  Donc, c'est primordial que toutes les entreprises sous la juridiction du CRTC puissent fournir à sa clientèle, sur demande, en différents médias substituts, les dépliants, la facturation, que ce soit un gros caractère, en Braille, en texte électronique ou en audio.

4155             On demande aussi à ce que tous les sites web de ces fournisseurs respectent aussi les normes W3C, qui sont les normes en cours pour l'accessibilité du web.

4156             D'ailleurs, au RAAQ, on avait monté un projet, les Ambassadeurs du web, justement pour sensibiliser différentes entreprises.  Il y a plusieurs choses qui existent pour venir en aide aux compagnies comme ça qui veulent leur site web accessible.

4157             On parlait aussi de l'assistance annuaire.  Il y a plusieurs fournisseurs qui offrent les services d'assistance annuaire gratuits, mais c'est différent d'une compagnie à l'autre.  C'est différent aussi, d'une région, je vous dirais, à l'autre. 

4158             Par exemple, on peut... moi, je suis de Drummondville, j'ai accès à l'assistance gratuite, mais dès que je suis ailleurs dans un territoire qui n'est pas couvert par Bell Canada, c'est toute une histoire, ce n'est pas couvert, puis on a souvent des mauvaises expériences quand on fait la demande d'obtenir l'assistance annuaire.

4159             Donc, on aimerait que le CRTC se penche là‑dessus pour, en fait, rendre uniforme l'assistance annuaire gratuite, peu importe le fournisseur ou la région.

4160             Je m'excuse, je fais juste regarder mes notes.

4161             Oui, on disait que la solution doit refléter l'époque que nous vivons.

4162             Excusez‑moi.

‑‑‑ Pause

4163             M. DUBOIS : Ah, oui!  Toujours dans le but d'avoir un service équitable, lorsqu'on fait appel aux services à la clientèle, on devrait être informé qu'il existe un service à la clientèle qui peut recevoir les demandes particulières, non seulement pour les personnes handicapées visuelles, mais pour toute personne handicapée.

4164             Les gens devraient avoir une formation.  Tout l'ensemble du service à la clientèle devrait avoir une formation minimale et être en mesure d'adresser la personne handicapée à la bonne personne ou au bon service à l'intérieur du service à la clientèle.

4165             En fait, on demande aussi qu'il y ait une particularité dans le service à la clientèle pour recevoir toutes ces demandes‑là.

4166             On demandait aussi pour le service à la clientèle d'avoir accessible en différents médias substituts toute l'information.

4167             Ah, oui!  On aimerait... oui, oui, oui.  Ça, vraiment, on aimerait souligner un grand obstacle que toute notre clientèle rencontre, c'est l'inaccessibilité des appareils.

4168             Par exemple, on sait qu'on peut avoir... à travers le SAP, on peut avoir parfois de l'audiodescription sur différentes chaînes quand c'est possible, mais seulement se promener dans les menus là, se déplacer dans les menus, c'est déjà très laborieux.  On doit toujours mémoriser une séquence de quatre fois flèche bas, une flèche droite, un entrer.  Et puis, les télécommandes aujourd'hui, ce n'est pas ça qui manque dans les maisons.  Alors, ça devient presque impossible de tout mémoriser ces télécommandes‑là.

4169             Alors, nous, ce qu'on demanderait au CRTC, c'est que le CRTC puisse faire appel soit à Industrie Canada ou à l'ACNOR, à l'Agence canadienne de normalisation, pour tenter de trouver des solutions pour résoudre ce problème‑là.

4170             De même, les fameuses entreprises de radiodiffusion et de télécommunication, elles‑mêmes ont des plans de développement.  Alors, ce serait peut‑être bon qu'une partie de leur investissement dans le développement consiste à l'adaptation de leurs appareils.

4171             Par exemple, tantôt, j'entendais ce serait bien qu'on puisse avoir des menus avec une synthèse vocale, non seulement affichés, mais aussi en synthèse vocale, ça serait... ça serait vraiment une belle accessibilité.

4172             Alors, voilà, je repasse maintenant la parole à Florence.  Merci.

4173             Mme PARDON:   J'aimerais apporter une précision par rapport à la formation du personnel.  Deux choses doivent se passer.

4174             D'une part, le personnel en général doit être formé sur les besoins des personnes handicapées et ça, de façon récurrente parce que, comme on sait, le personnel change, donc ça ne peut pas être chaque cinq ans.

4175             Mais, d'autre part, il faudrait que toutes les compagnies suivent l'exemple de certaines compagnies qui ont des services d'assistance spécialisés.

4176             Et puis, dans l'information dont on a besoin pour faire les choix éclairés, il y a l'information générale et on a le droit à cette information générale.  Donc, c'est pour ça que la solution d'avoir un petit coin d'une site web, on est moins d'accord avec ça.

4177             Donc, il y a le fait d'avoir l'information générale et aussi l'information particulière.  Par exemple, des fois, il va y avoir certains services particuliers comme la vidéo description et l'assistance annuaire gratuit, site web accessible, et caetera, les documents en média substitut, mais on ne retrouve pas cette information-là.

4178             Donc, cette information particulière devrait être incluse dans les sites web et devrait être incluse aussi dans les canaux dédiés au Service à la clientèle où Vidéotron explique comment on fait Illico et qu'on peut acheter Illico.  Donc, il faut avoir de l'information sur la vidéo description et on suggère aussi les lignes téléphones interactives qui puissent avoir de l'information sur les besoins particuliers.

4179             Alors, ça, c'est des...

4180             LA SECRÉTAIRE:  Excusez-moi; il vous reste une minute.

4181             Mme PARDO:  Une minute?  Eh! bien, c'est parfait parce que je conclus.

4182             Alors, juste avant de conclure, nous aimerions quand même, parce que c'est une grande opportunité aujourd'hui, sans élaborer, mais très brièvement de dire que les services d'urgence et la représentation et l'emploi des personnes handicapées, c'est quelque chose qui a une grande importance pour nous et, à cet égard, je crois que de mettre sur pied des comités consultatifs avec les personnes handicapées, ce serait de bonne augure, à cet égard, mais aussi pour les autres points qu'on a nommés plus haut.

4183             Alors, les propositions que nous vous faisons, nous pensons que ça va assurer... aider à assurer un réel exercice de nos droits, mais nous croyons aussi qu'elles sont parfaitement réalisables parce que les stratégies existent, la technologie existe et il y a même des solutions sur le plan financier.

4184             Et pour nous, l'autonomie des personnes que nous représentons, c'est toute la société canadienne qui va gagner avec ça. 

4185             Alors, merci beaucoup pour cette opportunité parce que ce sujet est de très grande importance pour nous et nos membres. 

4186             Merci.

4187             LE PRÉSIDENT:  Merci beaucoup.  Je demanderais au conseillère Lamarre de commencer les questions.

4188             CONSEILLÈRE LAMARRE:  Merci, monsieur le président.  Bonjour, monsieur Dubois, madame Pardo.  Merci d'être ici aujourd'hui.

4189             Les questions que j'aimerais vous poser portent principalement sur les trois sujets que vous avez abordés : la vidéo description, le service à la clientèle et les modes de consultation dont vous avez parlés dans votre soumission et aussi un peu ce matin.

4190             Alors, on va plonger immédiatement dans le vif du sujet.  Je note, premièrement, que dans votre soumission du 16 juillet, vous proposez qu'on modifie les exigences en matière de quantité de programmation vidéo décrite au moment du renouvellement des licences de radiodiffusion.

4191             Est-ce que je me trompe, mais vous avez changé le quantum entre votre soumission et votre présentation de ce matin?

4192             Dans votre présentation du mois de juillet, vous faisiez état d'une modification pour qu'on accroisse jusqu'à 28 heures d'heures par semaine alors que ce matin vous nous dites 42?

4193             Mme PARDO:  D'accord.  Ce que nous avons fait depuis juillet, c'est poursuivre la consultation et l'analyse du sujet et nous savons... nous avons très bien entendu qu'il fallait présenter des arguments et être collé à la réalité, collé au faisable.

4194             Mais nous avons vu que cette audience-ci, en tout cas, pour nous en ce qui a trait au RAAQ, c'est historique.  Ce n'est pas tout le temps qu'on a l'opportunité de venir présenter à un organisme du Gouvernement nos besoins.  Donc, on a décidé de se concentrer sur les besoins et à ce niveau-là, c'est sûr que, bon, si on obtient quelques heures en moins de ce qu'on a demandé, on pourra vivre avec, mais c'est sûr que moins que les 28 heures que nous avons proposées, ça ne ferait pas l'affaire.

4195             Mais le nombre 42 que vous voyez là, c'est après mûre réflexion on voulait vraiment montrer c'est quoi le besoin, dans le sens que, comme on a mentionné dans les observations initiales, on veut qu'il y ait un réel changement parce que, bon, on parle d'une période de licence de sept ans, mais sept ans peut être 10 ans, peut être 14 ans, donc on n'aimerait pas que d'ici 15 ans que les choses soient encore minces.  Donc, on voulait clairement exprimer c'est quoi les besoins de nos membres.

4196             M. DUBOIS:  Moi, je voudrais juste ajouter, madame Lamarre, que suite à la réunion du Comité de l'information parce qu'au regroupement il y a un comité, après avoir discuté on se disait qu'après trois ans, s'il y avait six heures par jour de vidéo descriptive, ça pourrait toucher tout l'ensemble de la clientèle, en fait, qu'on pourrait avoir de la vidéo description.

4197             Il faut dire aussi que le comité avait mené un sondage, ça fait déjà...

4198             Mme PARDO:  En 2006.

4199             M. DUBOIS:   En 2006 on avait mené un sondage auprès des membres du RAAQ à travers le Québec pour voir en fait quels étaient les besoins, quelles étaient les attentes.

4200             Alors, nous, on a considéré que c'était réaliste de faire cette demande-là.  Alors, c'est ce qui explique pourquoi le quantum a été changé.  Merci.

4201             CONSEILLÈRE LAMARRE:  Et, justement, votre sondage de 2005-2006 auquel vous faites allusion dans votre soumission de juillet, est-ce que vous pourriez le déposer auprès du Conseil ce sondage-là?

4202             Mme PARDO:  Bien sûr.

4203             CONSEILLÈRE LAMARRE:   Merci beaucoup.  Dans votre soumission de ce matin, quand vous faites référence aux heures de vidéo description et à l'augmentation graduelle jusqu'à six heures d'émissions vidéo décrites, vous précisez *aux heures de grande écoute+.?

4204             Mme PARDO:  Hum-hum!

4205             CONSEILLÈRE LAMARRE:   Pouvez-vous me dire c'est quoi, pour vous, la définition des heures de grande écoute?

4206             Mme PARDO:   C'est entre 7 h 00 et 10 h 00 du soir.  C'est... ce qu'on aimerait c'est avoir l'information qui est utile à toute la population et il y a des émissions qui sont plus écoutées, qui sont plus d'intérêt et ce serait important qu'on concentre sur le fait que, comme j'ai dit tantôt, que ça ne soit pas, je ne sais pas, moi, quelque chose à 2 h 00 du matin qui est moins écouté, que ce soit des émissions vraiment d'intérêt et qui offrent une variété de types d'émissions aussi.

4207             CONSEILLÈRE LAMARRE:   Parce que de 7 h 00 à 10 h 00, ça fait trois heures par jour.  Alors, les trois autres heures, réalistement, vous considérez que ça devrait aller où, à ce moment-là?

4208             Mme PARDO:   Bien, une fois qu'une attention est portée aux heures de grande écoute pour qu'on ait accès aux émissions qui intéressent vraiment la population, on peut ajouter des émissions à d'autres plages.

4209             CONSEILLÈRE LAMARRE:   Donc, ce que vous nous dites au fond, c'est d'accorder la priorité à cette plage horaire-là de grande écoute en premier dans nos exigences ou nos attentes vis-à-vis des radiodiffuseurs ultimement s'il y en a et, après ça, de diriger le restant du quantum dans d'autres émissions prioritaires?

4210             Mme PARDO:   C'est ça.

4211             CONSEILLÈRE LAMARRE:   Et pourriez-vous me dire qu'est-ce que, vous, vous identifieriez comme émissions prioritaires?  Je vous donne le contexte.

4212             Présentement, la majorité... en fait, pas la majorité, mais les attentes et les exigences du Conseil en matière de vidéo décrite vise les émissions dramatiques, les documentaires et les émissions pour enfants.

4213             Certaines entreprises de programmation et de radiodiffusion nous ont fait valoir qu'ils trouvaient que c'était trop limitatif et qu'il y aurait d'autres types d'émissions qui se prêteraient à la vidéo description.

4214             Vous, qu'est-ce que vous verriez en premier?

4215             Mme PARDO:   En fait, nous, ce qui nous intéresse, c'est une variété de types d'émissions.  Donc, ça peut être des documentaires, des dramatiques, des comédies.  Il peut y avoir une grande variété au niveau du type d'émission.

4216             CONSEILLÈRE LAMARRE:   Monsieur Dubois, voulez-vous ajouter quelque chose?  Oui?

4217             M. DUBOIS:  Oui.  Je rappelais que lors du Comité d'information, nous autres on avait discuté aussi à propos de l'information.  Même si la vidéo description ce n'est pas quelque chose qui puisse s'appliquer comme, par exemple, raconter une trame dans un film, il y a quand même des choses intéressantes à ce qu'on sache au fur et à mesure que ça défile.

4218             Donc, l'information, ça avait été aussi soulevé, ça.

4219             Mme PARDO:   Si je peux ajouter quelque chose.  Dans le but d'essayer de trouver une solution, ce qu'on a fait c'est qu'on a séparé les émissions pré-enregistrées et les émissions en direct.  Donc, on a un intérêt à toutes ces émissions-là, mais on s'est plus penché comme solution pour la description sonore, pour une attention lors de la pré-production, pour ces émissions-là.

4220             CONSEILLÈRE LAMARRE:   Et dans votre proposition, vous mentionnez justement que, bon, vous la faites la distinction entre le direct et ce qui est pré-enregistré, ce qui est tout à fait valable, là, évidemment. 

4221             Et, du même souffle, vous demandez à ce que les exigences s'appliquent à toutes les entreprises de radiodiffusion.

4222             Maintenant, est-ce que vous croyez que ce serait peut-être nécessaire ou non de faire des exceptions au cas par cas parce que, justement, il y a des entreprises de radiodiffusion qui sont des entreprises, par exemple, de nouvelles en continu ou qui n'auront pas autant le matériel de programmation qui se prête aussi bien à la vidéo description?

4223             Mme PARDO:   Oui, on a pensé à ça.  Ce qui était très important pour nous, c'est de vraiment faire... d'essayer de résoudre le problème du déséquilibre entre les télédiffuseurs anglais et français parce qu'au niveau francophone il n'y a pas grand-chose.

4224             Nous avons mentionné tous les télédiffuseurs, mais c'est sûr que c'est très complexe.  Il y a une différence entre, je ne sais pas, moi, le canal Météo et Global Television, quelque chose de ce genre, donc, on serait ouvert.

4225             Mais ce qu'on aimerait, c'est que maintenant ce qui se passe c'est que, bon, on peut trouver trois heures chez untel, quatre heures chez l'autre.  On aimerait que ce soit pour commencer au moins, les télédiffuseurs majeurs, mais vraiment dans les deux langues qui offrent cette programmation avec vidéo description, mais il peut y avoir des nuances.

4226             Par exemple;  bon, là, je reviens encore à la différence entre le pré-enregistré et en direct, je peux voir des solutions, par exemple, au niveau du Canal Météo où au cours d'une heure il y a plusieurs... il y a des choses qui reviennent à chaque heure, n'est-ce pas?  Ça peut être la route, les informations régionales, les informations locales. 

4227             Donc, ce serait très simple de porter une attention et qu'il y ait, je ne sais pas, moi, dans une heure de temps au moins un dix minutes ou, au lieu que ce soit, comme disait André, la petite musique puis rien que le visuel, qu'il y ait une information qui est dite.

4228             Donc, c'est juste une question de trouver... de trouver les solutions, en fait, du cas par cas, comme vous dites.

4229             CONSEILLÈRE LAMARRE:   Et, justement, au niveau de la description auditive de matériel visuel qui est à l'écran, comment est-ce que vous proposeriez qu'on encourage ou qu'on incite les radiodiffuseurs à employer cette manière-là de façon plus répandue parce que je ne sais pas si vous réalisez la difficulté qu'on touche ici, c'est le matériel éditorial, c'est le matériel de créativité des producteurs.

4230             Alors, comment vous proposeriez qu'on approche ça?

4231             Mme PARDO:   Oui, en effet, c'est sûr que c'est toujours un équilibre et je crois que cet équilibre-là est quand même réussi.  La difficulté existe aussi avec les films de vidéo description qui sont déjà faits parce qu'il doit y avoir un équilibre entre, justement, transmettre l'information visuelle et ne pas toucher à l'art et au niveau des émissions d'information, ce serait, comme vous dites, le matériel éditorial.

4232             C'est sûr qu'on n'a pas eu le temps d'élaborer là-dessus et de voir pratico pratique, mais je sais que ce qui peut aider, c'est de se servir de matériel qui est déjà fait de vidéo description parce que c'est quand même une industrie qui fonctionne très bien et qui a une bonne expertise et il se développe une façon... des types d'information qu'on a tendance à retrouver, qu'on a tendance à donner.

4233             Ça peut être, par exemple, la personne qui est à l'écran.  Si c'est le psychologue qui est en train de donner son opinion, le lieu, l'action.  Donc, il peut avoir... on peut recenser un type de matériel qui pourrait faire en sorte que les producteurs puissent prévoir les besoins.

4234             Donc, c'est sûr que, bon, c'est plus complexe que de juste dire 42 heures par semaine.  On rentre dans le qualitatif, mais je pense que ça demande une certaine analyse des besoins pour pouvoir, par la suite, aller au-devant du besoin.

4235             CONSEILLÈRE LAMARRE:   Avant que je passe à la prochaine question, je vais vérifier avec mon président.

--- Pause

4236             THE CHAIRPERSON:  Madam Secretary, do you want to -- are we on time now to link in with Winnipeg?  Do we know?   So, I think it might be appropriate to take a break now with this panel and link in so that we can utilize the video comfortably.  You need ten minutes? 

4237             I think Commissioner Lamarre needs about ten minutes to finish.  Maybe we can do that and, in that way, we can avoid -- we're going to continue.

4238             CONSEILLÈRE LAMARRE:   Merci.  Excusez-moi pour l'interruption étant donné qu'on doit connecter avec Winnipeg, vu que ce n'est pas moi qui décide.  On peut continuer, on me dit qu'on a encore un peu de temps pour pouvoir continuer.  Alors, plutôt que de reprendre par la suite.

4239             Alors, pour parler un peu plus précisément du Accessible Channel auquel vous faites allusion dans votre présentation, vous mentionnez que vous croyez que le CRTC devrait encourager une initiative semblable pour que ça développe du côté français.

4240             Alors, outre accorder une licence qui nous serait demandée et prévoir même éventuellement peut-être une distribution obligatoire, comme c'est le cas pour the Accessible Channel, qu'est-ce que vous croyez qu'on pourrait faire de plus pour que l'effet d'entraînement se fasse sentir dans le marché francophone?

4241             Mme PARDO:   Eh! bien, c'est ce que j'avais en tête.  C'est à part au niveau de la sensibilisation des acteurs, des différents acteurs gouvernementaux et privés, je ne peux pas penser à autre chose.  André, est-ce que tu as une réponse à ça?

4242             M. DUBOIS:  Mais, moi, peut-être... madame Lamarre, peut-être que votre question, on pourrait peut-être en discuter avec notre Comité d'information et vous retourner une réponse plus... parce qu'à brûle-pourpoint comme ça, je m'excuse, c'est...

4243             CONSEILLÈRE LAMARRE:   Oui, oui, c'est parfait.  C'est parfait.  Et pensez-vous que the accessible channel va être distribué obligatoirement autant dans les marchés francophones qu'anglophones, croyez-vous que, ça, en soi, ça va aussi participer à la sensibilisation, là, de l'utilité d'une telle programmation?

4244             Mme PARDO:   Oui, je pense que oui.  Déjà on a... nous avons diffusé de l'information sur the accessible channel à nos membres qui sont en grande majorité francophones et puis ce qui se produit au début, c'est un emballement incroyable puis quand on dit, bon, c'est... l'obligation, c'est au moins quatre heures puis ils ne sont pas obligés d'en faire plus en français par semaine, puis, là, il y a une grande déception par rapport à ça.

4245             Donc, c'est vrai qu'une fois que ça va être en onde, les personnes pourront utiliser ça pour apprendre plus c'est quoi la vidéo description.  Donc, l'existence de the accessible channel, en effet, même au niveau du marché francophone, sert de sensibilisation, mais la barrière de la langue, elle est là.

4246             Donc, c'est... nos membres nous ont vraiment manifesté que ce serait beaucoup plus intéressant s'il y avait quelque chose comme ça en français avec les avantages que ça porte; c'est-à-dire pour l'instant, il n'y a pas de problème avec le SAP et puis tout ça là, pour naviguer dans les menus.

4247             Donc, c'est quelque chose qui est intéressant pour que ce soit développé au niveau francophone.

4248             CONSEILLÈRE LAMARRE:   Au niveau de votre présentation et même de votre soumission, vous faites référence à un fournisseur producteur de vidéo description, Audiovision Canada.  À votre connaissance, est-ce qu'il y a d'autres fournisseurs qui produisent la vidéo description en français?

4249             Mme PARDO:   L'autre fournisseur qu'on connaît c'est la SETTE, S-E-T-T-E, qui fait déjà de la vidéo description.  Il y a une émission... quelques émissions à Teletoon et puis VRAK-TV et, à ma connaissance, cette compagnie a une expertise dans le sous-titrage, je crois, qu'elle transfère à la vidéo description.  Donc, ça c'est quelque chose qui est en train de grandir.

4250             Et au niveau du CRIM qui est le Centre de recherches en informatique de Montréal, il y a un développement intéressant qui se fait.  Ils travaillent sur un logiciel de reconnaissance d'écran, mais pas le texte comme jaws mais vraiment d'éléments visuels comme l'action, et caetera, ils collaborent avec la SETTE là-dessus pour voir à éventuellement réduire le coût de la vidéo description.

4251             M. DUBOIS:  Il y a aussi en France, à l'Association Valentin Haüy, là où on produit de la vidéo descriptive.

4252             CONSEILLÈRE LAMARRE:   Pouvez-vous me répéter le nom, monsieur Dubois, s'il vous plaît?

4253             M. DUBOIS:  C'est l'Association Valentin Haüy, H-A-Ü-Y.

4254             Mme PARDO:   Mais le problème avec la vidéo descriptive là-bas, c'est qu'il y a des problèmes de droits de producteur et puis là encore, les personnes sont très intéressées à voir ces films avec vidéo description français, mais, en tout cas, on ne peut pas les avoir au Québec pour l'instant.

4255             CONSEILLÈRE LAMARRE:   Mais ce qui me rassure, c'est de savoir qu'au moins la technologie, là, vous dites, existe et qu'il y a quelque chose qui se fait dans une autre juridiction francophone, là. 

4256             Je vous remercie pour cette information-là parce que je ne crois pas que ça en est une qu'on avait au dossier.

4257             Au sujet du service et du soutien à la clientèle, j'avais une question à vous poser et très franchement vous y avez tellement bien répondu dans votre présentation que je ne vous ferai pas répéter.  Mais si vous avez quelque chose à ajouter, là, j'ai quand même très bien compris que vous disiez que c'était nécessaire, en ce qui concerne les sites web, que le site web principal, les fournisseurs soient disponibles, tout autant qu'une section dédiée aux produits spécialisés pour les gens que vous représentez.

4258             Mme PARDO:   Hum-hum!

4259             M. DUBOIS:   Oui.

4260             Mme PARDO:   Absolument.  Parce que quand on va sur un site web, on y va comme n'importe quel client.  On a les mêmes besoins en fait.  Ce n'est pas juste des besoins particuliers.

4261             M. DUBOIS:  Quand un site web, quand on sent qu'il y a de l'accessibilité sur un site web, on est... en tant que personne handicapée, on se sent le bienvenu.  On sait qu'il y a quelque chose, là, qui a été préparé à notre intention. 

4262             Ce sont des touches de raccourci, ce sont des textes alternatifs pour expliquer une image qui se trouve sur le site web, ça, c'est quelque chose d'assez intéressant.

4263             Pour l'intégration, c'est quelque chose de fantastique.

4264             Mme PARDO:   C'est ça.  Et je voulais ajouter aussi à la fin de notre présentation, lorsqu'on a dit que c'est la Société canadienne en entier qui a à gagner, ce n'est pas juste de belles paroles en l'air.

4265             C'est que l'accès à l'information, ça peut permettre à quelqu'un de devenir un travailleur autonome, de développer par le web des expertises et puis cette expertise-là non seulement peut aider la personne de pourvoir à ses besoins, mais aussi de contribuer à la communauté. 

4266             Donc, lorsqu'on utilise un site web, que ce soit pour des raisons récréatives ou pour des raisons professionnelles puis, tout à coup, tu as besoin de telle information puis, tout à coup, tu ne l'as pas, c'est très... bon, c'est malheureux.

4267             CONSEILLÈRE LAMARRE:   Et au niveau du service à la clientèle plus spécifiquement, quand on a à appeler soi-même avec... contacter le fournisseur soi-même pour un problème particulier, quel constat est-ce que vous feriez de la qualité du service que vous obtenez, de manière générale?

4268             Mme PARDO:   Bien, au niveau de la... bon, de la bonne volonté et puis la courtoisie et tout ça, il n'y a pas de problème à ce niveau-là, mais ce qui arrive, c'est que le personnel ne savent pas que les services existent.

4269             Par exemple, on va appeler même un télédiffuseur qui fournit la vidéo description puis on pose des questions, par exemple, à quelle heure, quelle émission... la personne ne sera pas au courant.  Donc, la grande amélioration, ça doit se faire au niveau de l'information et l'assistance que le personnel peut offrir.

4270             C'est pour ça que l'idée d'avoir un personnel spécialisé aussi, c'est très intéressant comme solution.

4271             CONSEILLÈRE LAMARRE:   Au niveau des consultations entre les fournisseurs de service et les clients et les personnes qui ont des déficiences visuelles, de manière générale, certains membres de l'industrie proposent des groupes de consultation séparés pour traiter des questions de télécommunications, d'une part, et des questions de radiodiffusion, d'autre part, il y a d'autres participants qui, eux, préfèrent l'instauration de groupes consultatifs, au sein desquels le personnel du CRTC serait présent.

4272             Et, finalement, Bell Canada préconise l'établissement de groupe Ad Hoc dont les objectifs et les échéanciers sont clairement établis.

4273             Quelle méthode est-ce que, vous, vous préconiseriez et qui vous sembleraient plus appropriées pour améliorer l'accessibilité aux personnes ayant une déficience visuelle qui est une méthode qui est différente de celle que j'ai énumérée, là? 

4274             Je vous ai juste fait un résumé de ce qu'on a au dossier jusqu'à présent.

4275             Mme PARDO:   Okay.  Pour l'instant, notre réflexion n'est pas allée dans tous ces détails-là.  Ce qu'on préconisait, c'est qu'après cette consultation publique et après les décisions qui seront faites par le CRTC, que la consultation doit être continue.

4276             On a un exemple précis où notre groupement avait collaboré très bien avec la Fédération des caisses Desjardins pour l'accessibilité de leurs guichets automatiques et la Fédération des caisses, c'est la seule institution financière qui offre, pour l'instant, tous ses guichets automatiques avec assistance vocale.

4277             Mais cette collaboration-là, elle se poursuit jusqu'à présent; c'est-à-dire, on est en contact.  À chaque fois qu'il y a des changements à apporter, des nouveautés, ils se tournent vers nous pour qu'on le teste et à chaque fois qu'on pense qu'ils sont rendus bons puis ils connaissent ça très bien, nos besoins, on remarque que, justement, cette consultation continue est nécessaire.

4278             Et quand on parle de radiodiffusion et de télécommunications, l'analyse qu'on a fait, c'est que pour la mise en oeuvre des mesures, c'est quand même complexe et il faut rester collé à la réalité et aux besoins. 

4279             Donc, c'est pour ça qu'on a mentionné l'importance d'un comité consultatif, mais on peut retourner auprès de nos membres pour voir si ça doit se faire, si les sujets doivent être séparés ou bien s'il doit y avoir quelque chose de global.

4280             Mais pour l'instant, je verrais une place pour les deux, hein! parce qu'il y a des choses qui se solutionnent lorsqu'on regarde de façon spécifique, mais en même temps, il y a des enjeux qui sont globaux aussi.  Donc, je ne sais pas, André, si tu as quelque chose à dire à ce sujet?

4281             M. DUBOIS:   Ça mérite réflexion.  Madame Lamarre, pourriez-vous juste ré-expliquer la deuxième, là où le CRTC avait une implication parce que, en fait, moi, je verrais...

4282             CONSEILLÈRE LAMARRE:   Oui.  C'est qu'il y a certains participants qui préféreraient justement voir l'instauration de groupes consultatifs et au sein de ces groupes-là le CRTC serait représenté.

4283             CONSEILLÈRE LAMARRE:   Hum-hum!

4284             M. DUBOIS:  Moi, là, je... sans hésiter, je voudrais voir le CRTC là parce que, je pense, en fait, le CRTC représente déjà... c'est un organisme qui représente le bien, je dirais, des citoyens de l'ensemble du pays.  Donc, le CRTC devrait être là, les personnes handicapées devraient être là, bien sûr l'industrie.  Et je pense qu'à trois on devrait... on devrait trouver des solutions, là.

4285             CONSEILLÈRE LAMARRE:   Et, finalement, j'ai une question qui déborde un petit peu plus... Oui?  J'ai une question qui est d'ordre un petit peu plus administratif.

4286             Vous mentionnez là, et vous expliquez très très bien, là, en quoi consiste votre regroupement et qu'il est formé, là, des regroupements d'associations régionales au Québec.

4287             Est-ce que vous avez des contacts avec des organisations hors Québec qui représentent des personnes francophones, qui ont des déficiences visuelles?

4288             Mme PARDO:   On a... pardon?

4289             M. DUBOIS:   Avec la France, oui.

4290             Mme PARDO:   Non.  Hors du Québec, vous parlez...

4291             M. DUBOIS:  À l'intérieur du Canada?

4292             CONSEILLÈRE LAMARRE:   À l'intérieur du Canada, oui, oui.

4293             Mme PARDO:   Vous parlez des groupes un peu comme le CCD puis le Alliance for Blind Canadians.  C'est tout ça, c'est ça?

4294             CONSEILLÈRE LAMARRE:   Oui, mais qui représentent précisément des personnes francophones?

4295             CONSEILLÈRE LAMARRE:   Les personnes francophones.

4296             CONSEILLÈRE LAMARRE:   Oui, hors Québec?

4297             Mme PARDO:   On ne les connaît pas.

4298             CONSEILLÈRE LAMARRE:   Vous ne les connaissez pas.

4299             Mme PARDO:   Non.

4300             M. DUBOIS:  Malheureusement.

4301             CONSEILLÈRE LAMARRE:   Et est-ce qu'il y a des gens...

4302             Mme PARDO:   C'est pour ça qu'on parle pour les québécois, mais si on peut aider tous les francophones à travers le Canada, on est heureux de le faire aussi.

4303             CONSEILLÈRE LAMARRE:   Est-ce qu'il arrive que vous recevez des demandes de renseignements justement, et d'aide de la part de francophones hors Québec?  Est-ce que ça arrive, de mémoire?

4304             Mme PARDO:   Très rarement, mais ça arrive parce que, bon, au regroupement on reçoit toutes sortes d'appels et, en général, lorsqu'on n'a pas l'expertise, on est là pour référer les gens.  On leur explique comment ça fonctionne avec les centres de réadaptation puis l'INCA et tout ça, mais ça n'arrive pas souvent.

4305             M. DUBOIS:  C'est un très bon point que vous soulevez parce que je me dis, là, nous autres, je pense qu'on aurait peut-être un travail à faire aussi en tant que regroupement.

4306             Moi, dans l'industrie dans laquelle je travaille, on a affaire à des gens un peu partout au Canada puis en Amérique du Nord puis les francophones, on est dans les technologies pour les personnes handicapées visuelles, je les connais, mais c'est drôle, je n'ai jamais entendu une organisation, tu sais. 

4307             Je ne peux pas dire le regroupement des personnes francophones du Nouveau-Brunswick ou... il y a quelque chose à faire là.

4308             CONSEILLÈRE LAMARRE:   Et je me permets, pour clore, un commentaire éditorial.  Monsieur Dubois, vous avez bien fait de préciser la définition du mot *amblyope+, mais j'avais déjà trouvé la définition exacte dans un grand dictionnaire terminologique de l'Office de la langue française.

4309             Mais je pense que pour le bénéfice de tous les participants, ça a été apprécié.

4310             Je n'ai plus d'autres questions, monsieur le président.  Merci beaucoup.

4311             M. DUBOIS:  Merci.

4312             Mme PARDO:   Merci.

4313             LE PRÉSIDENT:   Merci.  Est-ce qu'il y a des autres questions du panel?  Non?  Conseiller juridique?

4314             Mme LEHOUX:  Merci.  Je suis Véronique Lehoux, je suis une des avocates du Conseil.  J'ai juste une petite question de procédure.  Vous avez pris deux engagements ce matin, dont, un, de fournir le sondage de 2006 et, le deuxième engagement était de répondre à la question de madame Lamarre, là, qui est la suivante :  Outre accorder une licence qui serait demandée au Conseil avec, possiblement, une distribution obligatoire comme le Accessibility Channel, que pourrait faire le Conseil.

4315             Donc, est-ce que vous vous engagez à répondre à ces... est-ce que c'est possible pour vous de répondre à ces questions-là d'ici vendredi prochain?

4316             M. DUBOIS:  On peut faire une consultation téléphonique, oui.

4317             Mme PARDO:   Qu'entendez-vous par *vendredi prochain+?

4318             Mme LEHOUX:  Le 28.

4319             Mme PARDO:   Le 28, oui.

4320             Mme LEHOUX:  Oui.  Merci.  J'ai fini mes questions, monsieur le président.

4321             LE PRÉSIDENT:  Merci beaucoup.  On prend dix minutes.

‑‑‑ Upon recessing at 1148 / Suspension à 1148

‑‑‑ Upon resuming at 1158 / Reprise à 1158

4322             THE CHAIRPERSON:  We are going to start again.  Please, be seated.

4323             Madam Secretary, if you can introduce the panel.

4324             THE SECRETARY:  We will now proceed with our next participant, Mr. Edwin Ross Eadie who is joining us via videoconference from our Winnipeg office.

4325             Mr. Eadie, can you hear us?

4326             MR. EADIE:  I certainly can.

4327             THE SECRETARY:  Okay.  I will present for you ‑‑

4328             MR. EADIE:  Can you hear me?

4329             THE SECRETARY:  I am Sylvie Bouffard, the Hearing Secretary.

4330             I will present the panel members in order they are seated from left to right:  Elizabeth Duncan, Timothy Denton, Suzanne Lamarre, Leonard Katz, Candice Molnar and Stephen Simpson.

4331             You may begin your 15‑minute presentation.

PRESENTATION / PRÉSENTATION

4332             MR. EADIE:  Great!  Thank you for allowing me to step in a bit earlier here as I have a job interview this afternoon, I would really hate to miss that.  It is tough being poor, although I have a nice suit today.

4333             You can call me Ross Eadie.  I put my full name just ‑‑ I can't remember why but my name is ‑‑ you can call me Ross.

4334             I brought with me today ‑‑ I wanted to bring the attention of the CRTC the difficulty that people with disabilities have in participating at this regulatory level, trying to advocate for what I would call appropriate services to customers who are paying for the services.

4335             One of the people I invited with me today ‑‑ she won't be speaking but I brought with me a woman by the name of Jane Sayer.  She is with the Resource Centre for Manitobans who are Deaf‑Blind.

4336             When I called her up to find out from her what her perspective was on the issues that we are talking about today and throughout the week, she was unaware that these hearings and these interventions were possible.

4337             I can in no way represent what the needs are for people who are deaf‑blind but I just wanted to point out that it is hard ‑‑ we need to find a way to reach out and allow people to participate more, I think, in the ideas of how to bring solutions to our systems that are covered by the CRTC:  the telephone systems and the broadcasting system.

4338             For me, I think that it has been a very difficult process.  I have tried to intervene in a number of situations and produced some lengthy papers over the years but it is very frustrating not being able to have participated right in Gatineau, for example, for the new ‑‑ I call it the Unaccessible Channel ‑‑ but the Accessibility Channel that was established.  I think it was last year a decision was finally made by Stephen Harper, I think.

4339             I found it very frustrating doing this and having to do all the research to make sure that I understand what is going on, to make sure that I understand decisions that have been made.  I believe that there needs to be a universal design approach to any system of providing culture to us in this country because the special segregated ways of dealing with these things can only achieve a minimal percentage of access.

4340             For example, I heard somebody mention DAISY and the publishing of books.  At best right now, using the special segregated methods with exemptions and so on, the best they can do is tell us that 15‑20 percent of published books are accessible.

4341             We need to do better.  Why can't we get to 90 percent, as we have, let's say, in captioning for people who are deaf in our broadcasting system.  I am not sure of the exact percentages but why can't we achieve that?  We need to be able to do that. 

4342             How can we do that?  We need to hear ideas from Canadians who are not immersed in what I would call segregated services. 

4343             They are wonderful people, the CNIB, the NBRS services.  They have a good will, they want to try to solve problems but what they end up usually doing is they come up with segregated service ideas in how to deal with things because after all they have to make sure that their organizations are viable.  They want to try to make sure their so‑called clients receive a service.

4344             However, we are just immersed ‑‑ we can't achieve universal design if we continue to use that kind of approach though because there is the law of limited resources.  I mean I listen to Global, a billion‑dollar loss. 

4345             Now, not all of that is related to the broadcasting that they do but certainly a large portion of it has to do with that because the models in which we deliver our broadcasting system have to be looked at and they need to be ‑‑ I think of convergences here, and maybe Global missed that bit, I don't know.  I mean YouTube is out there and people are advertising there now and we have to deal with those situations.

4346             So if we look at things from a universal design situation though, maybe we can minimize some of the extra costs.

4347             I am proposing a fund that would allow us to implement a more universal design approach but I want to point out how utilizing the limited resources, and in the Broadcasting Act, it mentions itself, it talks about when resources become available.

4348             Well, what we have done now, I think, is we have used 20 cents per subscriber to pay for what I call a segregated service, this open‑access channel, which created a separate overhead, a different administration to run a channel when, say, CTV, who is providing a good portion of that programming, they already have an administration in place to provide services.  Why do we have to duplicate cost?  That is an extra cost that we shouldn't need.

4349             We heard about a $1,500‑an‑hour cost for descriptive video services to produce that.  Not long ago it was probably double that price and it is coming down because more is being done.  But what you have is an after‑market effect here, with a special cottage industry that has come up, where they have added administrative costs to produce this stuff.

4350             When I mentioned the Canadian ‑‑ I don't know the right name for it but there are two funds that are established for producing programming of Canadian content.  Why not have them, through their production processes, produce the descriptive video? There are writers and directors and producers on these shows and actually the writers know what they are trying to depict when there is no verbalization happening.  I spoke to somebody who works in the business and this is about creative rights as well.

4351             Why can't we have them do it?  Why do we have to have a separate cottage industry where you pay somebody else to write the descriptive video service?  And this is for preprogrammed stuff, this isn't real time DVS that people are trying to consider, which is much more difficult to do. 

4352             But I think you are probably getting my point here, that there is this added extra cost that is built into providing special segregated services that we need to get away from.

4353             And the problem is here, I heard that if the Accessibility Channel is no longer needed because we now have the ability to change the DVS.  On my set‑top box, on my controller, I am able to get to the menuing system and all that sort of thing.

4354             Once that is accessible, I still don't think that you are going to remove the licensing of the Accessibility Channel because what will happen is you have built up a user base, you have people who are disabled working for this organization, you have people who have gotten used to this service, and there is no politician and no commissioner who is going to say, let's pull the plug on what people with disabilities say they need.

4355             Believe me, once you have a loyal client base, you are not going to be able to get rid of it.  Like I say, no politician is going to want to be known as the person who hurt those poor cripples, you know.  I am sorry to say it that way but that is kind of how society kind of looks at things sometimes and that is the reality.

4356             So that is why I find it sometimes frustrating that we need to have more people who can talk about universal design involved.

4357             And I heard some great ideas being presented, the idea of having a committee that can look at an approach when the technology is there to provide advice and direction on how to do things.  And maybe the fund that I am talking about establishing or the money that I am trying to ‑‑ resources put in place, maybe that could be utilized to have that kind of system.

4358             Because I know you as commissioners can't know and understand everything.  You often hear from the people who provide the segregated services but you don't get to hear the people who have the universal design ideas, the way to maybe achieve a much bigger access to the systems.

4359             I wanted to point out SaskTel.  I was listening with great interest.  I am glad that they were still presenting today.  They were talking about only having four network channels with open description.  That points out the problem with open description.

4360             My television wants ‑‑ I won't call them needs, although I have a need to ‑‑ I am often involved in politics, I have a need to know the news.

4361             But I wanted to point out though, I listen to CBC, I listen to CBC Newsworld.  BookTV is one of my main suppliers of listening pleasure ‑‑ well, television pleasure.  The Documentary Channel, I just love it.  The Independent Film Channel is something I listen to through the MTS Allstream services.

4362             In other words, I have a different television ‑‑ well, I am just like any other Canadian because this is the wave of the future, right?

4363             The so‑called specialty channels are the designated channels and these channels do run programming that come from the networks as well.

4364             Like the Documentary Channel will run a documentary that, for example, was run on CBC Newsworld, and if somebody does the descriptive video for it, it can be used on all these different channels.

4365             But my point being, though, that the Accessibility Channel that was established, it is never going to meet my need.  Do I have to listen at three o'clock in the morning to listen to any programming content that I want to listen to?

4366             The CNIB's library service does not produce the books I want to listen to in audio format.  So what am I left to? 

4367             We need to achieve a better access.  So I wanted to just quickly mention, if I could, it is too bad that we could not ‑‑ this is kind of a political statement but $4 billion of revenue was received in the public interest, the sale to cell phone companies. 

4368             Why couldn't we have used that money to pay for the audio portion of my Pocket PC which I had to pay an extra $600 for just so I could have voice access to my cell phone?  It is available but I had to pay an extra $600.  I don't have it, it is on my credit card, I am still paying it.  But not only that, I am paying the regular fee that I had to pay for this Pocket PC to MTS, and it is not a cheap contract, I have to say.  But you know what?  This is a great thing to have.

4369             Why couldn't we have used some of that money ‑‑ because I know that businesses are trying to make money and that is what they do and I think that is a good thing because businesses employ people.  Why couldn't we have used some of that money to pay for the audio system so I don't have to pay for it? 

4370             I shouldn't have to pay an extra fee for access and I think you really need to consider when dealing with these issues that that is the way we have to go.  So how do we find the money to do that?

4371             I also wanted to point out that some people say that there was an overcharge of access fees here on the Prairies when it came to wireless thing, and I know it is in the courts.  But you know what?  When I heard access, I thought, well, if there is all this money there and people want it back, why can't we actually use that and use it for access?  Because there are many people with disabilities who don't have access to this.

4372             There is going to be a decision made that doesn't even consider the needs of people with disabilities in that and I think that is wrong.  We need to be able to reflect and utilize some of those resources maybe.

4373             So there's other ways.  The 20 cents a month, I hope you will ask me questions about that. I heard people worried about administrating the fund sort of things but I have ideas on that.

4374             I think we really need to go with the idea that the channels themselves varied in their own signal.  Even though I might have to get my son or somebody else to turn the DVS on for the time being but if we establish this fund, we can get people to design the software and hardware that we can use. 

4375             And believe me, it can be done because you know what?  They told us they couldn't put a voice on these things.  They told us they couldn't do it.  It is impossible, they said.  That was how many years ago, right?  They can do it now. 

4376             You know why they can do it?  Because there is a whole bunch of people ‑‑ there's very good blind programmers.

4377             There is a fellow by the name of T.V. Raman.  He has been working on this stuff.  He knows how to design software, how to tweak stuff to make it accessible.  There's Matt Campbell.  There's all these people around the world that can do programming.

4378             These businesses need to consult with programmers who know how to do it.  It can be done.  It is just a matter of putting a focus in on how to do it.

4379             I am going to ‑‑ there is a lot more I would really like to say but I am just going to probably end with an example.

4380             In 1989 I was at Red River Community College and they were trying to provide accessible services to people who were deaf as well as blind, but there was a problem in terms of people who were deaf learning computers because they had these sort of online learning programs to learn how to use software, but there was no ASL for them.

4381             There is a fellow named Dave Gurney.  What he did was he went to ‑‑ I think it was Hitachi or whoever was making the VHS player and he got the machine code from the industry, from that company, that set the switches so he could turn it off and on through software.  And he designed a software program on the computer that sent the signal over a data cable and whenever somebody who is deaf needed extra help, they could click on this button and automatically would run over to this VHS player, pull up somebody doing ASL on the television and they could watch and learn and find out what to do.

4382             This was designed in 1989‑1990.  It can be done.  It just requires a focus.

4383             So we need to keep that kind of stuff in mind and try to move away from ‑‑ now, I must point out, because Jane is here and others.  I do believe that we need to support the video relay service because that in itself is a different language.  Sometimes we have to figure out ways to accommodate, but I think that we need to be putting resources into that.

4384             There are many other issues that we need to consider as well, and I hope that when we do consider them and when you are listening to people talking about what they think we need, try to ‑‑ universal design is about thinking.

4385             I forgot, there is one last point I wanted to make.

4386             The CRTC just came out with some new policies related to the new digital broadcasting system and two things I wanted to point out.  For local digital production there is 60 million new dollars being put into the programming fund to help local ‑‑ for local programming in the digital world.

4387             That is one of the problems I think I heard Global talk about; that the production and that sort of stuff, there is less money now for that.  We need to support that.  I think that's an important thing.

4388             But I didn't hear anybody say well, shouldn't we have some DVS involved with that as well for that local programming.

4389             So we have the funds there set aside.

4390             Another thing I wanted to point out, we are not having licensing for BDUs that are supplying to ‑‑ I think it's 20,000 or less consumers.  Now, if we take away that licensing, is there a mechanism that we can ensure that they will still consider the needs of the people with disabilities who live in those small markets?

4391             I would point out that many of those small markets involve First Nations people, and what you need to understand about First Nations people is the level of disabilities is much higher.  Blindness, for example, is much higher in the aboriginal population than it is, say, in the population ‑‑ the ethnic population I come from.

4392             So you need to consider this stuff.  It's a way of thinking.  We need to make sure that we can think about these things.

4393             I thank you for listening to my presentation.  I hope to answer a number of questions and I really appreciate that I have been involved this way over the television.  I would never have been able to afford to go to Gatineau.

4394             Thank you.

4395             THE CHAIRPERSON:  Thank you very much, Mr. Eadie.

4396             It is Mr. Katz here, Presiding Chairman.

4397             I am going to pass the microphone over to the Regional Commissioner for Manitoba and Saskatchewan to begin some of the questions or follow‑up.

4398             MR. EADIE:  Excellent.

4399             COMMISSIONER MOLNAR:  Thank you.

4400             It's Candice Molnar here.  Welcome, Mr. Eadie.

4401             MR. EADIE:  Thank you.

4402             COMMISSIONER MOLNAR:  I appreciate your comments and I want to say that you can be assured that we are taking into consideration your comments, both what you have spoken about today as well as what you placed on the record in your initial comments.

4403             I know in your initial comments, for example, you also spoke about some issues related to access to telecommunications services as well.  That has been noted.

4404             I would just note before I go on to my questions, one area that I thought was well addressed, if you will, or at least was noted, is that in your comments, your comments began with a situation with your star 69 call return, that I note.  And you may have noted that MTS in their reply comments, or in their comments of October 6th they address that issue, and in case it ‑‑

4405             MR. EADIE:  Oh, did they?

4406             COMMISSIONER MOLNAR:  Yes.  I would just ‑‑

4407             MR. EADIE:  I was just going to say I didn't have time to read it all, yes.

4408             COMMISSIONER MOLNAR:  Yes.  I will let you know that they said in their comments of October 6th related to your issue with star 69, they said:

"MTS will look into the possibility of providing access to the feature or service option at a reduced rate or free of charge to Mr. Eadie and other customers in similar situations."  (As read)

4409             So certainly your comments are noted not just by the Commission but by the industry and service providers in your region.

4410             I would like to focus my questions today on the issues related to described video.

4411             MR. EADIE:  Yes.

4412             COMMISSIONER MOLNAR:  Just to be clear as it relates to your proposal on this 20 cents per subscriber put into a fund, when I read your comments I understood them to say that the 20 cents that has been earmarked to support the accessibility channel should be redirected.

4413             Is that what you have proposed?

4414             MR. EADIE:  Well, here is the ‑‑ you know, in the original intervention that I made I was trying to bring across the point that people get very upset when you increase their bills and the BDUs and the networks will tell you that.  They know that.

4415             The problem now is I hear The Accessibility Channel will be coming online December 3rd.  It is already established.  I don't know how you can hold back there, I think it was 20 cents on digital subscribers under whatever class.

4416             I tried to find out a lot of detail in terms of class and how many potential people are going to be charged for that and that sort of thing and so in my paper you notice I make estimates.

4417             But I do think it needs to be redirected honestly.  I really ‑‑ like in their original proposal they said they did a consultation across the country.  I didn't participate in it, but they only provided one option.  There was no other alternative ideas presented for people to consider.

4418             So they did this so‑called study, but it was based on finding the evidence that they wanted, not on finding out how to best achieve something.

4419             So maybe redirected.  But you know what, if you can't redirect the 20 cents, then what I'm saying is then, please, we need to establish this fund.  There is no way that I can see us getting to a universal design approach without establishing a fund.

4420             And ultimately, you know, I noticed that the BDUs are being asked to not pass on the cost of the money that they provide to the programming production funds, the two of them, the independent one and the other one.  But, you know, they are in business.  They need to pass on costs and businesses do that all the time.

4421             There are all kinds of features and people's equipment and services that they don't use but we pay for it anyway.  So we need to charge that 20 cents, I think.

4422             On one hand I'm saying there are limited resources and we should be redirecting the 20 cents, which is going to add up to a lot more money than what was originally proposed because we are fully digital in 2009, right.  I think that 20 cents was based on past ‑‑ like according to my calculations, maybe we could end up with anywhere from 20 to $26 million a year.  How much money does it cost to run?

4423             But anyway, I think I answered your question.  If you can't switch over to 20 cents, then we need to charge a new 20 cents.

4424             COMMISSIONER MOLNAR:  Okay.  I'm not going to get into the details of the fund, but I would like to address some of the issues you thought needed to be addressed by such a fund.

4425             I understand your position to increase the programming and I will talk about that in a minute.  But you also talked about issues related to set‑top boxes and so on.

4426             That's an issue, if you have been following this proceeding, you have perhaps heard me ask others about.  And that is how easily consumers who are blind are able to access the described video programming that is in the system today.

4427             You are experienced.  What are your views as to how easy it is for you to access the system and what are the more significant barriers?

4428             Just to expand on what I mean by barriers, is it because the service isn't being promoted, you don't know what programs are described?  Is it issues with electronic program guides?  Is it issues with the many steps you need to go through or at least it's apparent some consumers would need to go through to actually access that second audio channel, the alternative audio feed through the digital systems?

4429             We heard, you know, the TELUS and SaskTel folks talk about a six‑step process to get to the described video feed.

4430             So what are your thoughts as to what are the key issues related to access to the video that is described today?

4431             MR. EADIE:  Great, okay.  I would just quickly mention ‑‑ because I am not going to talk about it in detail.  There could be more information about what programming will be in described video.

4432             I know if I went to that schedule to find out described video, I know it is not going to be the programs that I listen to because I know that ‑‑ well, I shouldn't say that.  PBS has some described video which, if it gets passed through, I would listen to.  Nova often has described video and various programs.

4433             But the ‑‑ so scheduling is good.

4434             I also want to mention, I really want to thank MTS Allstream.  They are now passing through ‑‑ as far as I know, they are passing through all described video service that is available on whatever channel.

4435             Like you say, the access to turn that on or off is the issue now, I think.

4436             And because MTS I think has found a way to do it without a separate channel or whatever, it is encoded within, the way they are passing it through as I think I understand it, the real issue then is more programming needs to be done then because it is being passed through at least by MTS Allstream.

4437             I think ‑‑ well I shouldn't ‑‑ I don't really want to comment, but I think that some of the BDUs have made decisions based on utilizing bandwidth for other types of services without consideration for people with disabilities.

4438             Like the old SAP, I think that Shaw wanted to save its bandwidth so that it could compete in the telephone market.

4439             But there are technology issues which they brought up which ‑‑ solving technology issues like hardware, software, firmware, those things, if the human mind is put to it, they can fix it.  That's not the issue.  We know that the human mind can come up with many things.

4440             So what I do at my home, just so you know right now, I don't like to be defined as some poor helpless person who heaven forbid I can't turn on a DVS because it's a hardware switch, and I have to push a button and I've got to go through a menu ‑‑ and actually with MTS you can have three television services in your home, which is a great idea.  So for each one you would need to turn DVS on or off if you wanted to listen to whatever is being passed through.

4441             Now, I can't access that but what I have done in my home is the television ‑‑ our main family television does not have DVS turned on because, frankly, my kids don't like to be interrupted with voice and stuff sometimes.  They like the visual experience without too many words often, as well as my wife.

4442             So upstairs we have another television.  I am lucky enough to have a second television and lucky enough to afford to pay for the telephone service.  But the one upstairs we have it just permanently set to do DVS.  So MTS Allstream is passing through all DVS.  So if a program comes on with DVS, I can listen to it.

4443             Now, there have been issues in the past and I haven't checked out The History Channel lately.  But The History Channel, if they were passing through DVS and you have DVS on, you couldn't hear the regular programming because it was a separate channel of information.

4444             Well, you definitely couldn't hear the commercials, which I think if you are paying to have advertisements people should hear it anyway ‑‑ not that I was unhappy that I didn't have to listen to advertisements.

4445             Anyway, as I understand, advertisements are getting quite artistic now, though.  Sometimes I'm missing some.  But anyway, I digress.

4446             So the difficulty there, also using menus.  MTS Allstream has this wonderful system.  You call up a menu, you can order a movie on demand, you can check the weather, you can do all these things through software.  That's not accessible but you don't really have to ‑‑ in order to hear anything that is being passed through on DVS, you don't have to do that.

4447             On that in‑home terminal equipment it is a matter of setting that DVS on.  And once it's on and something is being passed through, you can hear it.

4448             The thing is, though, I can't turn it on and off downstairs, so maybe it is inconvenient for me to try to listen to a television when somebody else is trying to sleep, because the other television is in our bedroom.

4449             I mean, there are those issues.  But again, I think that these things are solvable in the not‑too‑distant future.  You know, if we had looked at this back in I think 2006 when NBRS first put in their thing, and if we started charging the 20 cents and we put out some R&D money for the equipment companies to come up with ways of doing this, it would be done, because it's not coming out of their profit line; right?

4450             And maybe we could point them to the T.V. Ramins and the Matt Campbells of the world who, you know, people designed ‑‑ iPods are not accessible with voice menus.  You know what they did?  Somebody designed a Linux fix for that and now I can, on an iPod, listen to the menus and use an iPod.  But I can't use the Apple software because they protected the software and wouldn't let the programmers in to trying to solve that situation, right, because that's kind of a proprietary thing.

4451             I think that in order for us to get access we need them to sort of uncover some of this stuff for people with the ability to have real solutions for access to programming.

4452             I guess just to summarize on DVS, I know it is a problem but I don't think we should depict that it is a hopeless situation because I couldn't switch that over.  I mean, there are options.  I don't think that we needed to move ahead so quickly with The Accessible Channel based on that research that they did.

4453             Thanks.

4454             COMMISSIONER MOLNAR:  Okay.

4455             MR. EADIE:  I mean access ‑‑ if I could just mention, though, like ‑‑ well, I guess somebody will ask me about what kind of programming to do and stuff like that.  But you know, like I say, I listen to CBC for the most part, CBC Newsworld.  I don't listen to CTV.  I listen to APTN sometimes.  I understand they are doing some programming.  That's a good thing.

4456             Sorry, the camera is there, right.

4457             There needs to be a way to get more programming done than is available now.  So I just wanted to make that point.

4458             COMMISSIONER MOLNAR:  Okay.  Thank you.

4459             You mentioned somebody will ask you about programming and I will do that.

4460             If we were to increase the amount of described video programming that was required in the system, I would be interested in knowing what you view to be the priorities as it regards the type of programming or the genres of programming that you feel should be priorities to be described.

4461             MR. EADIE:  Okay.  So prerecorded programming of any type I think should be a priority.

4462             I heard somebody mention on Monday, I think it was, they mentioned the concept about who is picking the priority of what gets done first, and so on.

4463             In terms of priority, I think that ‑‑ like I talked about establishing a fund, but I'm not saying that you have to have separate administration.  Let's put some extra money into the independent fund and the other fund that provides for Canadian programming content and let's give them some additional money so that they can produce it with DVS.  And whatever they are producing they will supply DVS if it is possible to do.

4464             I do believe ‑‑ I don't believe there needs to be any priority for sports programs to be described in DVS, frankly.  If you really want such a detailed play‑by‑play of sports, listen to the radio.  It's there.

4465             I mean, we are in Manitoba here and I can listen to the game in detail.  Actually, when the Jets were here, I used to attend a game and I would listen to CJOB on the radio while I was at the arena to get that real feel of the hockey game, you know, the excitement and all that.  But I was listening to the play‑by‑play.

4466             So the sports program, like I listen to baseball and yes, I guess I do listen to CTV once in a while.  I like to listen to the Blue Jays play a baseball game or two.

4467             But the people who are describing the game do quite a good job.  So I don't think it is a priority.

4468             I think that many items on the news ‑‑ like I would really like to know the stock quotes but, you know, I listened to Paul Kangas first when they had this specialty finance channel and then he moved over to PBS and he has this finance program, and he is reading off the stock quotes.  And I mean that guy is moving fast and he's really good at it, although he is slowing down; he's getting older.  But he can move fast.

4469             But there is no way that he could read off as fast as that stuff scrolls across the screen.  There is no way he could give us that stuff.

4470             There are other methods.  I can get stock quotes on the web.  I can go to the Free Press.  I listen to the Free Press online, and I can go to the Free Press website and I can get stock quotes for free.  I just need to go there and I can get them.

4471             So I don't know that that needs to be a priority.

4472             I heard some people asking about that.  I don't think that needs to be.

4473             Movies, dramas, sitcoms, you know, the worst thing ‑‑ I mean, this is American production, but Jerry Seinfeld always had that sight joke, you know, and I never got it.  I hear the laughing at the end.  You know, Kramer is doing I don't know what.  Some kind of sight joke is happening.  It certainly would be great to know what that sight joke was.

4474             So in terms of priority programming, I think that we need to look at the foreign content that comes because, frankly, in Canada there is a lot of American content that comes and it's actually kind of Canadian culture starting to be now too, right.

4475             I just wanted to point out if Canada makes a progressive decision to create the kind of fund I'm talking about, I don't know that we have to pick priorities.  I think that if the Americans see that we have come up with an idea that works, why not follow it.

4476             So that's my perspective on priority.

4477             I have a priority perspective.  I want more stuff on Documentary Channel, the Independent Film Channel.  APTN would be great.  CBC, any programming on there.  That's my priorities.

4478             The priorities are the channels that I listen to, not ‑‑ you know, like ‑‑ I also listen to Global as well.  It has some good news, it is important to listen to and they have some good programming, too.

4479             So I think that we should be looking at how can we ‑‑ SaskTel said potential for 200 channels.  Now, often those channels are running the same programming, at different times mind you, but they are running the same programming.  If it's described, that is a good thing, but we need to focus in on making some of the content on those channels accessible as well.

4480             The Discovery Channel, man what a great channel that is, all the programming that is on there.  We need more described video on that, too.

4481             So thanks.

4482             COMMISSIONER MOLNAR:  Thank you for your answers.  Just one follow‑up.

4483             Would you agree that we should be focused on Canadian content within the Canadian system?

4484             MR. EADIE:  Well, I do believe ‑‑ yes, and that's why I talked about the programming funds, right.  There are those two funds and maybe there are other ways like the film ‑‑ there are other grants that are given by the government to create films and documentaries as well, and Canadian content that way, too.

4485             I don't know how these independent fund and that other fund actually work, but there are Canadian films that need to be done too.  So if some of that money could be used for Canadian.

4486             So I mean there is a priority for Canadian content, I have to say.  I truly believe that we need to do that.

4487             Actually, I do believe Canada has a different culture and we need to promote that, and in the Broadcasting Act ‑‑ and I would like to bring up the Broadcasting Act because there are a lot of things in there.

4488             Actually I'm saying that I actually filed a human rights complaint because I think it's discrimination to have The Accessibility Channel because I don't get to participate in the same cultural milieu that is being spoken about in that Act.  It is a great achievement that we are trying to do.

4489             So yes, we have to put priority on Canadian content.

4490             But again, like I say, if we demonstrate a model for people, maybe Americans will pick up on that.

4491             COMMISSIONER MOLNAR:  Thank you, Mr. Eadie.  Those are my questions.

4492             Before I sign off, I would just like to say good luck this afternoon.  I hope everything turns out.  Bye‑bye.

4493             MR. EADIE:  Thank you very much.

4494             THE CHAIRPERSON:  It's Len Katz again.

4495             I will just poll the Panel and see if there are any other questions from Eastern Canada out.  No.  No.  No.  No.

4496             How about legal counsel?  No.

4497             Thank you very much, Mr. Eadie.  We appreciate your appearance here today.

4498             Do you have a final comment?

4499             MR. EADIE:  Can I make one final statement?

4500             THE CHAIRPERSON:  You certainly can.

4501             MR. EADIE:  Can I make one final comment?

4502             THE CHAIRPERSON:  Please do.

4503             MR. EADIE:  I often listen to the BDUs and they often have sage advice.  I just wanted to reiterate that if we can establish this money, there is no need to set up a new separate administration unless you are going to have, like I said, a universal design consideration committee.

4504             There is no need to set up new administration for this money.  The administration is already there.  Just utilize what's there.

4505             That's my final comment.  Thank you very much.

4506             THE CHAIRPERSON:  Thank you very much.  We appreciate your involvement.

4507             We will now take a break for lunch and reconvene at 2 o'clock.

‑‑‑ Upon recessing at 1238 / Suspension à 1238

‑‑‑ Upon resuming at 1400 / Reprise à 1400

4508             THE CHAIRPERSON:  Good afternoon.  We will resume with this afternoon's session.

4509             Madam Secretary, are there any preliminary remarks that you wish to make?

4510             THE SECRETARY:  Not at this moment.

4511             THE CHAIRPERSON:  Do you want to perhaps inform the people listening on the web that there might be a little shift in the schedule?

4512             THE SECRETARY:  Yes.  We will proceed with our presentation from the Canadian Hard of Hearing Association in Hamilton, and then we will move to presentation No. 17, which is the VRS Consultative Committee of BC, and we will do that by videoconference from Vancouver and come back to No. 16.

4513             Mr. Rendall, you may introduce your panel and begin your presentation.

PRESENTATION / PRÉSENTATION

4514             MR. RENDALL:  Hi.  This is the first time I have done something like this so bear with me a little bit.

4515             I wasn't actually born deaf.  I come to the hard of hearing community, deaf community in 2002 when I went deaf.  That's when I realized that there was a lot of services that I was used to as a hearing person that were not in the deaf community.

4516             One of the most essential services, as far as I was concerned, was emergency services and that is what I want to produce today.

4517             We want to present to you a perception of a better communication service for the hearing disabled community for emergency services, an essential service that everybody needs.

4518             What emergency service means to the hearing disabled is police, fire and ambulance; the same as 911 would be in the hearing world.

4519             In today's world the most popular communication device is the mobile wireless handheld device.  They are flexible for telephone, text and e‑mail whilst on the go pretty well anywhere in the world.

4520             In 2006 there were 18.75 million subscribers with $12.6 billion in revenue here in Canada.  These devices are globally universal because they can access many services by associated carriers/providers and in most part this relates to all services previously mentioned:  phone, text and e‑mail.

4521             The exception would be e‑mail where in some countries carriers have regulation and regional restrictions.  Canada is covered with a network of associated carriers to provide all of the services coast‑to‑coast and within our country's boundaries.

4522             The hearing disabled, being both deaf, hard of hearing and Cochlear implanted persons need an effective service to reach the services of police, fire ambulance in times of need.  These times are not necessarily only for ourselves, but also for our loved ones, friends and the general public.

4523             Hearing disabled are both young and old, but we are all human beings and need to communicate effectively for our emergency service needs.

4524             If text is the most effective tool to carry the service, then our Canadian communications system should be adapted to carry such services nationally within our borders.  It is obvious on reading into the bureaucracy for this to happen, the CRTC must mandate regulations and target dates for it to effectively take place with our Canadian telecommunication carriers.

4525             We, the hearing disabled, are not the only ones that can benefit from this new service.  The hearing can also greatly benefit and this has already been documented.

4526             As we have been saying for a while, it will save lives.  The first was well documented by the two survivors in a light plane crash off Port Hardy, B.C. in August 2008.  The person texted a friend and advised his battery was low and to text him.  The RCMP did that and eventually located a plane in dense forests.  Lives were saved.

4527             Another instance that is documented was the London, England transport bombings.  The telephone system was knocked out during this attack and the police and rescue services communicated by text.  Lives again were saved.

4528             I'm sure there are many instances that I am not aware of, but these two prove that there is a real need, not only for emergency services but also for our Canadian national security through police contact.

4529             Many deaf and hearing disabled carry mobile devices.  We travel, work and live like most of the general society.  We see things but cannot communicate them to the required party because of the inaccessible situation of the Canadian telecommunications services presently offered.

4530             We too need to be part of the general hearing society and be recognized with text emergency services to communicate any type of emergency to the necessary service.

4531             In July 2008 the Canadian Hard of Hearing Association held an international congress conference with the International Federation of Hard of Hearing in Vancouver.  Twenty‑seven countries were represented and over 550 registered delegates.  We heard many stories and new ideas for our hearing disabled community, which number 272 million around the world that we know of and 4.4 right here in Canada and another 17 million south of the border.

4532             From this congress conference a new system emerged known as real‑time text.  It is a European idea and the company, 4C Telecom, are now selling their service to telecommunications carriers there in Europe.  Holland has several hundred subscribers already using the system.

4533             I will briefly advise you how it works as per their work and information sent to me.

4534             Real‑time text is the open standard RFC 5194 for the provision of text‑based telephony service; in essence to provide the unique benefit of voice calling but in a text form:

4535             (a) a data connection is established between the device and the service application provider;

4536             (b) information flows in real time so the person receiving the message can actually see it being typed; and

4537             (c) participants can barge in or interject as they read the message being sent so there is no time wasted.

4538             This service would be like buying a software application for your device from your wireless application service provider just as you do for iPhone and others for downloading to your device.  The service is fully hosted, managed and supported 24/7.  The availability for wireless communications is well over 99.5 per cent.  RTT can be deployed quickly with little investment in training on equipment.

4539             Obviously this real‑time text system needs more thorough information exchange between our Canadian carriers and its service providers to fully qualify the applicability for the use in Canada.  The deaf and hard of hearing could only take advantage of the solution if supported by our wireless service providers in Canada.

4540             Admittedly, emergency services by text, whether SMS or IM, would not allow a text to be traced as a hearing 911 system is set up to do by landline.  However, Bell Mobility recently announced to its customers they are perfecting a way that we will be able to detect which tower the text caller is closest to and triangulate their closest position.

4541             The initial package of texting for emergency service requirement would not be perfect, but neither are we perfect at hearing disabled.  This will however give us an opportunity to get closer to a real service for emergency and possibly even an alternative for future communications with business and government.

4542             As we know, all mobile wireless service plans at present have a fee applied to the communication carrier for 911 services, yet only those that can hear use it.  What we are proposing is that these carriers also allow text emergency services for their 911 fee.

4543             If we take 18.75 million subscribers and multiply by say 50 cents, that gives these carriers $112.5 million a year to carry an equal service for all subscribers.  Initially for the mobile cell phones, they would carry across centres and communicate the 911 call.  These centres, then by phone line that was only known to those mobile carriers, connected them by voice to police, fire or ambulance.  This is commonly known as basic 911.

4544             Since basic 911 is still available from 911 service providers, it would be just as effective in this very same format for emergency services for our community.  But for us to use text, the relay center receives a text, then by voice relays the need to the service required.

4545             This relay service center could either be provincial or national and located at a telephone number in our address directory on our wireless device.

4546             As previously stated, this relay service center cost should already be covered in a 911 service service plan.

4547             We also feel that there is a more effective way to let a hearing disabled have a better cost effective service via mobile handheld devices.  This would be in the form of a specific format location number and a telephone number issued to a hearing disabled person; for example, 905‑416‑519.  This is for a wireless device, not landline.  Therefore a provincial number could be made available for all.

4548             The Canadian Hard of Hearing Association produced a universal design barrier free access booklet for hearing disabled that was funded by the Federal Government of Canada.  The experts that produced this document, both doctors and hearing specialists, said under communications section 6.12 that hearing disabled do not depend on a telephone.  The organization should not rely on telephone as their primary communications tool with hearing disabled since they cannot hear or have difficulty understanding when using telephones.

4549             This means we as hearing disabled should have the same benefits for special low cost services as our hearing counterparts in our general society when used in a mobile communications device.  This distinct number system would also distinguish a hearing disabled person from making an emergency service text message call to a receiving operator.

4550             In order to provide emergency services via a relay service center, the CRTC needs to put in place new mandated regulations and target dates that are not more than reasonably expected for implementing any new system service being handled by a telecommunications carrier.

4551             Emergency services, however, should be priority.

4552             Regulations need Bell, TELUS to form emergency service relay center nationally or provincially and issue a telephone number to be associated with these call centres.  These numbers would be recorded by a person in an address directory on their mobile device on a speed dial.

4553             Current fee structures for 911 needs to also apply to SMS or IM messaging for emergency services.

4554             Guideline of questions to be asked by a call center such as are you disabled and what is your disability.

4555             Specific expectation for text emergency call center, remember we are not perfect and we cannot expect a perfect call center and service either.

4556             A period of no more than 12 months for implementation for text messaging service to emergency services within the Canadian borders.

4557             Lastly our federal government needs to review our age old policy on TTY as a form of communication with our hearing disabled community.  It is also known and documented that many public institutions' TTY equipment are either broken or have no one fully trained to understand how to use them.

4558             It is time to bring us into the 21st century and allow us to communicate by e‑mail or text.

4559             In Canada RIM, which is Blackberry, developed a unique piece of technology.  They have worked with us and have listened to our needs.  Many of their devices carry all services needed by the hearing disabled community.  When will the federal government give us an alternative choice or choices and the monetary assistance for other devices rather than just a TTY?

4560             Give us all a chance to have flexible communications wherever we are and be accessible to emergency services text relay service.  We have great difficulty when communicating with police, hospital, doctors and other government services, both federally and provincially.  It's time this changed.

4561             It's time that our federal government also addressed the need of updating the disability definition to include all those who have disabilities, not just physical or mental.  The general public needs to understand the word disability.  We need the identifiable wireless numbers.

4562             A distinct hearing disabled community needs effective communication tools to look after ourselves, our family and feel good about ourselves being able to be independent and a true part of the Canadian society.

4563             Thank you for listening.

4564             THE CHAIRPERSON:  Thank you very much, Mr. Rendall.

4565             We will pass the baton over to Commissioner Denton to start the questioning.

4566             COMMISSIONER DENTON:  Good afternoon. I'm Tim Denton.

4567             I have a few questions for you arising from your text and a few more arising from the general concerns that we have for the hard of hearing in this proceeding.

4568             Starting with your speech, you mentioned real‑time text as an open standard RFC 5194, and I would like to know more about this for my own curiosity.

4569             You say that:

"The service would be like buying a software application for your device from your wireless application service provider."  (As read)

4570             So is this service still theoretical or does it exist anywhere?

4571             MR. RENDALL:  I did say in my speech that this particular piece of equipment or application is actually in use in the country of Holland.  The company 4C Telecom do have a website.  You can communicate on that website directly via e‑mail for more information and they would, I'm sure, be glad to assist you in anything that you need to know about application.

4572             I am not a technical person, but I know that it's actually in working order at this present time.

4573             COMMISSIONER DENTON:  Thank you.  Did you supply us anywhere with that website?

4574             Have you already supplied it or is it something ‑‑

4575             MR. RENDALL:  No, I didn't.  I did not supply you with the website but I can do that without any problem.

4576             COMMISSIONER DENTON:  We would be very interested in knowing more.

4577             MR. RENDALL:  Okay.

4578             COMMISSIONER DENTON:  Now, forgive me for not having completely absorbed everything you were saying immediately, but I noticed that you were talking about a different kind of numbering plan for the hearing disabled.

4579             Is that correct?

4580             MR. RENDALL:  Yes, that's correct.  I believe that on listening to one of the things that was said by SaskTel this morning, when asked a question how many disabled people do you have in your vicinity, they didn't fully understand what they had and they couldn't understand how the TTY was diminishing where it was going.

4581             If we had a specific number that could identify hard of hearing disabled people, then all that information would be readily available to the CRTC or a carrier in this country.

4582             You would be able to ask them how many people in your vicinity do you have that are hearing disabled and they would give you a number.

4583             As we know, there are 4.4 million Canadians that have a hearing disability.  How many of those actually have a device, we don't know because there is no way of tracking it.

4584             If we have an identical telephone number that could track that, we would have all that information available at your fingertips.

4585             COMMISSIONER DENTON:  Do you conceive it as a sort of equivalent of a 1‑800, 1‑600 or is it just to be a series of ‑‑ how do you envisage this?

4586             MR. RENDALL:  Yes, it could be.

4587             However, a 1‑800, 1‑600 number I believe are a national type situation.  I'm not really sure whether the individual carriers want a national situation or whether they want a provincial situation.

4588             Again, I'm not a technical person and I don't have information about the carrier's services so I can't really answer that question fully.

4589             COMMISSIONER DENTON:  Fair enough.

4590             My next question relates to basically the growing obsolescence of TTY and what you see as the next logical successor to it.

4591             Would you sort of talk some more about where you think the technology needs to go?

4592             MR. RENDALL:  Okay.  When I mentioned that we had an international conference in Vancouver, the majority of people that were either deaf or hard of hearing, they had a cellular wireless device, either a Blackberry or another form of device where they can communicate.

4593             To me, I was also asked well, what about the older people that do not want to get involved with a piece of equipment like that?  When you research the Internet and ask them who are the biggest users of Internet, it's older people.

4594             The other thing is, when people get older they also have other disabilities.  In other words, they lose some of their eyesight as well as their hearing.

4595             I fully understand what is going on right now in the technology industry manufacturing is they are coming up with different touch keypads which are a bigger, what do you call it, keypad for the letters so that the older people can see them more clearly.

4596             I believe that the TTY will die eventually, whether it dies with the government's approval or not, and the new technology will take over, which is mobile.  People do not sit at home waiting for a TTY call.  We are in hotels, we are here at conferences.

4597             I was asked specifically by someone here, "How do I reach you?"  I said, "My BlackBerry.  Here is my BlackBerry address.  That's how you reach me."

4598             I can be anywhere in the world and be reached.

4599             So I believe that the service of the future will be a wireless, hand‑held device, and you will be able to be reached anywhere in the world.

4600             Also, you will be able to tune in to wherever you are going, to other services within other countries.

4601             COMMISSIONER DENTON:  So then, clearly, you would think that the subsidy mechanisms that we use for TTY need to migrate to appropriate newer technologies.

4602             MR. RENDALL:  Absolutely.  I believe that a person should have the choice of what particular device they want to use.

4603             Like I said, there are many different hand‑held devices on the market right now, and it's whatever a person in our community feels comfortable with.

4604             Some of them are more technical than others.

4605             It also depends on the job, or the volume of travelling, what device they are going to choose.

4606             COMMISSIONER DENTON:  Should the subsidy be invariant, or should it vary with the level of calling?

4607             How would you imagine it to work?

4608             MR. RENDALL:  I believe that, right now, we should have a set package, much the same as if we have a hearing assistive device.

4609             You are given X amount of dollars by the Ontario government, for instance, for a device every so many years, and you go out and buy your assistive device with that, plus you add money to that.

4610             I believe that we need a set amount to be put aside for what packages can be given to the hard‑of‑hearing community or the deaf community by government, and allow the person to buy whatever device they feel comfortable with.

4611             Some people, for instance, may be in a very high profile job, making thousands of dollars a year, while another person may be on disability benefits.  So they need to have accessibility to everything, but they also need to be able to choose what device they want to purchase.

4612             COMMISSIONER DENTON:  Fair enough.

4613             I note that the IP relay service is not yet available in Canada.  Are you aware that it is available elsewhere, such as in the United States?

4614             MR. RENDALL:  Yes, I have been told in a number of situations that the IP service is available in the U.S.

4615             But I believe, when I attended a conference in Vancouver, that the Americans at that conference said that the Europeans are so far in advance of the Americans, and the Americans are taking notes of what the Europeans are doing.

4616             So, if Canada really wanted to work on a platform of what to do, we should be looking at Europe, not south of the border.  The Americans are following the Europeans.

4617             COMMISSIONER DENTON:  Is this a European‑wide standard, or is it in particular countries?

4618             MR. RENDALL:  Actually, what is happening in Europe, on a country‑by‑country basis, is that they are looking further and further into an IP situation of communication.

4619             However, again, I am not fully aware of how dramatic that is.  We can only go on the stories told to us at that conference in July of this year.

4620             The one incident that I brought to your attention, which is in Holland, is an application that has already been approved.  It is working, and it is being sold to other countries in Europe.

4621             COMMISSIONER DENTON:  Is the record of that conference on a website anywhere?

4622             MR. RENDALL:  That I'm not sure of, but I am sure that CHHA, my national office, does have some notetaking, so I am sure that there is dialogue from that conference of all the different levels and all the different things that were presented, which you could have access to.

4623             COMMISSIONER DENTON:  I think we would probably want to know more about this.  If you could send all of the information you have on that, that would be very good.

4624             MR. RENDALL:  Okay, will do.

4625             COMMISSIONER DENTON:  Thank you.

4626             The question arises for us as to whether gaining access to 911 services through IP relay ‑‑ would this, if available, address some of your concerns?

4627             MR. RENDALL:  I have sat down with many carriers, and an IP system is not really what we are looking for at the present time.

4628             I specifically said text messaging.  A text message is outside of a 911‑related service.  A 911‑related service goes through a very complex system, I am told, and text messaging would have to be a stand‑alone system.

4629             An IP system would also take far too long to integrate, and it would probably cost a lot more money to integrate at the present time.

4630             I believe that what we need at the present time is a service where we can communicate with emergency services.

4631             An IP system will come as technology progresses and it becomes easier to integrate the information into the 911 that we presently know.

4632             COMMISSIONER DENTON:  So it is your position, then, that any IP‑based technology is not yet able to be integrated with current 911 service technologies.

4633             MR. RENDALL:  That's correct.  That is what I am told, and, like I said, the costing would be very high, and the complexity would be extremely long in trying to work the IP system into our present 911 system.

4634             Therefore, I am not looking ‑‑ or the hard‑of‑hearing and deaf communities are not looking for service 10 or 15 years down the road.  We would like to have a service now, and the only way to have that service is to have a service that can effectively give us communication capabilities to emergency services.

4635             As I said in my presentation, it won't be perfect, but neither are we.

4636             Right now we have zero.

4637             As you can fully understand, we can see, but the sight impaired can't.  We have no way to communicate with any service, to advise that service that there is something happening where we are.

4638             We could see a fire, we could see an act of violence, we could see an accident ‑‑ there are all kinds of things that we could see, and we are not necessarily sitting at home when we see these things.  Therefore, we need some way of communicating what we see.

4639             And, like I said, it's not just for us, it could be for anybody in society.

4640             The text messaging service could give us that capability right now.  All of the basic situations are there.  There is nothing that has to be developed, it's there.  It's existing.

4641             COMMISSIONER DENTON:  Thank you.

4642             I am going to switch my questions to a set that we have prepared for several intervenors, so we are going to leave the subject of 911 for a moment and move on to other issues related to accessibility.

4643             One of those issues, of course, is equipment ‑‑ handsets, telephones, various devices.

4644             I would like you to address the issue of the inaccessibility of equipment that you deal with, handsets or otherwise.  In particular, if you can, I would like you to describe such barriers as you may encounter in dealing with telecommunications equipment.

4645             MR. RENDALL:  I am not too sure what the question is, whether it is the accessibility of the equipment, or whether it is the barriers of having the equipment and the carriers.

4646             To me, the availability of the equipment seems to be adequate.  The thing is the barriers that we have with the carriers of having that equipment to service our needs.

4647             For instance, most carriers out there have cheap services for the hearing, but they don't seem to have any cheap services for the hearing disabled.

4648             They can't identify "Here we are" for one thing.

4649             For instance, the Hon. Prentice actually had an article in the Globe and Mail about text messaging to his children, and why should he have to pay for these text messages.

4650             We don't have that type of free ability to have a $19.95 telephone for all the numbers we want to call, for any hours we want, for the month.  We don't have that type of service available to us by a carrier.

4651             However, if we could be identified as being disabled with a certain specific number, that carrier might be a bit more lenient in giving us some different services, and different price ranges for the services we require.

4652             COMMISSIONER DENTON:  I just want to say that all of your answers are perfectly adequate, and you can answer the questions in any way you would like.  Anything that gets your views down on paper is helpful to us.

4653             Some of the questions may not exactly fit your situation.  I would just encourage you to answer in a way that makes sense to you, so that you get across your point.

4654             So, in that sense, your answers are just fine.  Thank you.

4655             In this situation, what I hear you saying is that, though some equipment may be suitable, it's the service you get out of that equipment which is your barrier, and that seems to be, largely, economic in nature ‑‑ price.

4656             MR. RENDALL:  That's correct.

4657             For instance, right now, or at least last month anyway, Rogers was doing a situation where they were offering a BlackBerry for zero, and a communication package for $43 a month.

4658             I told my membership in CHHA in Hamilton, and they all went in saying, "What type of service can we get?"

4659             But it wasn't necessarily for a text messaging service, it was for a hearing service.

4660             You can have a BlackBerry, but the text messaging on it was going to be a different type of package.

4661             That is what I am trying to get across to you.

4662             If it was $40 a month for hearing, why can't we have $40 a month for texting, period? Unlimited text messaging.

4663             COMMISSIONER DENTON:  Thank you.

4664             The second question:  Are there solutions to problems of access that would not require regulatory solutions?

4665             MR. RENDALL:  When I first joined Emergency Services in 2007, I was told by Bell, the only company that supposedly carries the 911 emergency services in Canada ‑‑ by the CRTC ‑‑ that it would be 10 light‑years away before we have a system that we can actually access for emergency services for the hearing disabled.

4666             So I put my ideas on the table, and I sat back and listened, and then they started to open up, and they said, "If this is a stand‑alone service, we simply aren't able to do something here."

4667             What we need is not necessarily what you call 911.  We have to make it crystal clear, it's emergency services by a relay system.

4668             COMMISSIONER DENTON:  Thank you.

4669             I am going to set up for your consideration three different ways of going about increasing access.  There might be increasing access by means of accessible information, such as operator guides and user information; there might be improved customer support to assist in understanding how the machinery works; or specific technology that gets around the problem created by inaccessible equipment, or a component which is inaccessible.

4670             What I am asking you to consider is the degree to which, in your opinion, changes might be made either to getting better information into the hands of the disabled, customer support, with assistance in how to operate, or a specific technology.

4671             It's a bit of an essay question, but I leave you to answer, as best you can, where you think the balance might be in terms of customer support, better equipment, which are work-arounds, or better information.

4672             MR. RENDALL:  If we are talking about wireless technology, I believe that if a carrier did as much advertising as they do for the hearing community, the hearing disabled would pick up on the advertising.

4673             After all, Bell, TELUS, Rogers ‑‑ they all do a lot of TV advertising, newspaper advertising ‑‑ all kinds of advertising to tell us about the specific packages that they have to offer.

4674             People with hearing disabilities would definitely pick that up if it was advertised on what was available to them, and they would definitely take advantage of those packages.

4675             Like I said, my membership in Hamilton immediately responded to what I said about a specific situation with a BlackBerry for zero and $40 a month.  They all went out, and some of them got them.

4676             The other thing is, I believe, also, that some of the carriers could provide a little service assistance to the hearing disabled community, especially the elderly, in regards to giving them a demonstration, within their facility, of how to activate and follow certain procedures to make that communication device effective for accessibility in the community.

4677             Accessibility, like I said, doesn't have to be just emergency services, it can be people that they are related to, community services, government services, et cetera.

4678             A lot of e‑mail is being used today, and on most websites they have "info@" whatever the website address is, and you can send in your information, you can send in questions, you can ask them all kinds of things, and they get back to you.

4679             That is a customer service capability.

4680             When it comes down to a communication device, you can read about it, but you can't necessarily follow the instructions that easily, especially when you are an older person.  Sometimes you need a little bit of assistance to understand fully how it operates.

4681             I have, on a number of occasions, gone into Rogers and said, "I have done this, and I can't seem to get it to work," and they sit there and explain it to me, and it works fine.

4682             So those are the things ‑‑ I think, if it was advertised effectively by the carriers, the hearing disabled community would respond and take advantage of the situations offered to them.

4683             COMMISSIONER DENTON:  Noted.

4684             I also hear you saying that, essentially, e‑mail has provided, in some sense, a technological work-around.  You can now get information in print from organizations that you were not able to get before.

4685             MR. RENDALL:  That's correct.

4686             For instance, on websites, as you read through the website and you have questions on what the website might be asking you, you can go through the info e‑mail access and ask them a question, and, like I said, most times they get back to you straight away, particularly the government now, provincially and federally.

4687             I have had fabulous response from governments.  When I ask them a question, they usually get back to me within 24 or 48 hours, with a response by e‑mail.

4688             COMMISSIONER DENTON:  One of the questions we are trying to probe concerns where the disabled get their information, where it is useful to get their information.

4689             You have pointed out how you get some information from relevant websites of companies.  Do you find that you can also obtain useful information from specialized sources, such as ‑‑ I mention here the CNIB for the blind, but are there other specialized sources of information coming from the disabled community that allow you to distribute useful information, find out useful things?

4690             Tell me more, if there is something to be found out there.

4691             MR. RENDALL:  If your question, what I am reading here, means how do I get information on disability access in the community ‑‑

4692             I sit on a city accessibility committee, and I am having a wonderful time with my city.  They don't really understand accessibility for the disabled.

4693             And when I am talking about the disabled, I am not just talking about the hearing disabled, I am talking about all disabilities.

4694             COMMISSIONER DENTON:  Who are these people?  What place are you talking about?

4695             MR. RENDALL:  I am from the City of Burlington.

4696             I have asked them to do a needs assessment for the accessibilities required by the disabled in the community.

4697             First of all, they didn't even understand what questions they should be asking.  They do now.  We have a needs assessment set up.

4698             But governments, whether they be provincial or federal, should have specific websites, I believe, designed for the disabled, and in those websites they should give all of the things that are available to the disabled in any community across Canada, and how to get more information on those particular situations or devices for that disability.

4699             If we had a specific website set up for the disabled, then I believe there would be a lot more openness, not just for the disabled, but also for provincial and municipal governments to access.

4700             A lot of these people, who can hear, and who have never experienced a disability before in their life, don't fully understand what the disability is.

4701             Like I said, I was sitting on your side of the table up until 2002.  I now find myself in a disabled‑type situation, and it is very restrictive on my lifestyle.  You become very frustrated.

4702             And when you try to get your frustration and your restrictiveness across to a person who lives a normal lifestyle, they do not understand those restrictions.  They do not understand the frustration you go through.

4703             I believe that, in general, if there were a specific, like I say, federal or provincial website with all of the disabilities listed, and all of the availability of either assistive devices or avenues or channels of where to look for certain things, the disabled community would be able to function far easier and better, and they would understand where to search for whatever they require.

4704             COMMISSIONER DENTON:  Thank you.

4705             So far we have been talking about service providers and governments.  In your experience, have you found that the actual manufacturers of equipment provide useful information to you to assist in overcoming problems of access?

4706             Say, Erickson, Nokia ‑‑ the makers of equipment.

4707             MR. RENDALL:  In some instances, yes.

4708             Again, they usually have a website where you can have e-mail access and ask questions.  That is about the only thing they do on their website.

4709             They don't specifically mention assistive devices for the disabled, and I am not just talking about telecommunications, I am talking about any type of manufacturer that does any kind of assistive device for any disability.

4710             You can always ask them a question.  For instance, my mother had a disability, and I went into a certain website that dealt with her disability, and I was able to find information through access of e‑mail, and I finally made a conclusion of what she required for her disability.

4711             Those things are available on nearly every website now, but they don't specifically mention all of the things that they do for the disabled community.

4712             COMMISSIONER DENTON:  Noted.

4713             And is there any group, body, person, organization that collects such information and makes it more easily available?

4714             MR. RENDALL:  I have not actually found one particular body or group that collects all the information on any one particular disability to provide access on statistics, for instance, in Canada.  The only statistical information I usually get is from Statistics Canada and that can only be done from what the local constituents write in on their census about where they are disabled, what disability they have got, et cetera, et cetera.

4715             I have not come up with any particular avenue where I can put my finger on any particular numbers which are either hearing impaired, deaf, CI, et cetera.

4716             COMMISSIONER DENTON:  We have spoken earlier about access to 911 emergency services being, you know, more advanced in Europe than here.

4717             Are you aware of any other jurisdictions where better, more advanced, either equipment or services, are currently available, and should we know about them?

4718             MR. RENDALL:  Yes.  Sweden seemed to stand on top of nearly all other countries represented in our conference, in July, in Vancouver.  The Swedish government provided our particular disabled community with a lot of funding and different ways to provide services for our disability.

4719             The other jurisdictions, the other countries, they were somewhat moving along, but not as far as Sweden.  Sweden stood head and shoulders above everybody else.

4720             COMMISSIONER DENTON:  If you have more information on that, I hope you will be sending it to us, along with your reports from that conference.

4721             MR. RENDALL:  I can make that information and contact available to you.  I have the person's name.

4722             COMMISSIONER DENTON:  Good man.  Thank you very much.

4723             I'm going to switch the topic on you.  We are going to talk a bit about universal design.

4724             Has your association had any contact with organizations within Industry Canada that can assist with standards development in relation to accessibility?

4725             MR. RENDALL:  I have not had any access to any person of that nature.  I don't know whether CHHA National has, but I'm sure if they have they can pass the information on to you.

4726             COMMISSIONER DENTON:  Okay.

4727             And generally, from where you are coming, you have not had experience in standards development and implementation that you could tell us about?

4728             MR. RENDALL:  The only standard and implementation I have been involved in so far is at my city level, where we are building a new performing arts building and the universal design was supposedly put in by the contracted architects.

4729             After talking about bathrooms, walkways, ramps and everything else, they kind of closed their books and said, "Well, we are finished".  And I said, "No, you haven't finished yet".  And they said, "What do you mean?".  I said, "Well, there's other disabilities other than wheelchair accessibility".  So we went over the hearing.

4730             And then he thought he was finished again and somebody else jumped in and said, "Well, the colours that you have just presented are not very good for sight impaired.  They are going to think there's all kinds of holes all over the floor with these big black squares everywhere".  So before he really understood what accessibility was about.  He just thought it was purely wheelchair accessibility.  It wasn't.

4731             There is a lot more disabilities out there that you have to think about.  He didn't think that the sight impaired would ever go to the theatre.  He didn't think that a hearing impaired would ever go to the theatre.  Why not?

4732             We heard today that the sight impaired like to hear things, so they get as much from it as what we do.  I can't hear very much when I go.  I watch a performance.  So I can see things that they can't, but they can hear things that I can't.

4733             We get something from being out there in society.  We get enjoyment from different things.

4734             COMMISSIONER DENTON:  Yes, I'm in complete agreement.

4735             I'm going to ask you to give us the three biggest issues, as you see them, and I want you to tell us, roughly in order, what are the biggest issues that we need to address.

4736             MR. RENDALL:  For my disability?

4737             COMMISSIONER DENTON:  In any way, in any order, in any type you want to give them, what are the three biggest issues?

4738             MR. RENDALL:  Okay.

4739             The first biggest issue for me is the frustration of communication industry with the hearing world.  I believe with today's technology advancements, we definitely need building blocks of a better communication system for the hearing disabled.

4740             The second thing, we need to make all people in Canada and around the world understand what disabilities really mean.  We do not want to pick up disability benefits, we want to go out to work, we want to enjoy life just like everybody else does.  We want to be accepted, that a disability doesn't mean that we are restricted in how we live.

4741             We want more accessibility, obviously, but we want the general public to accept that a disability has as much right in any place, whether it be workplace, play place or just lifestyle, as theirs.

4742             The third thing is we need to make the accessibility of different things for the disabled readily available, as we have already brought up and talked about today.  We need to have an accessibility to the general information of what government will do for certain disabilities, and also the assertive devices available.

4743             They can have links to the different manufacturers, for instance, that assertive devices.  Manufacturers are always trying to push their wares.  The government could have links directly to those assertive devices so that the disabled person could go straight to the link, look at what device they want to purchase and go that route.

4744             COMMISSIONER DENTON:  Thank you.

4745             Now, the first of your points were basically general issues, the third one was a tool to a solution.  I would like you now to describe, focusing now on solutions, as the three most important organizational or technical solutions that need to be found or realized to get where you want to go.

4746             What are the solutions, the three most important solutions you would see?

4747             MR. RENDALL:  Okay.

4748             In regards to emergency services, first of all, we need accessibility to emergency services in a format that will actually give us accessibility immediately, and that is a technical issue of text messaging.  It's all readily available.

4749             The second thing is this solution of text messaging has to go through a relay system.  The relay systems are already in place.  They still exist.  Basic 911.  It's not an issue.

4750             As far as the costing currently, like I said before in my presentation, that issue has already been covered and the fees are already charged by the carriers.

4751             I think if a carrier or carriers in Canada charged $112.6 million a year for 911 service, then I can't understand why text message call centres can't be instituted into that costing.

4752             Secondly, I just want to say that in the City of Hamilton, where my branch is located, there's approximately 450,000 people.  Last year, they had 260,000 emergency calls of 911.  Out of that, 31,000 come from cellphones.

4753             So when you look at 31,000 as a part of 260,000, I can't understand, if we are getting charged $112 million a year, why we can't have text messaging.  They have definitely got the coverage in their costing.

4754             COMMISSIONER DENTON:  Mr. Rendall, thank you very much.  Those are my questions.  I appreciate your answers.

4755             MR. RENDALL:  Thank you.

4756             THE CHAIRPERSON:  Mr. Rendall, it's Mr. Katz again.

4757             Thank you very much, Commissioner Denton.

4758             I have one question, and perhaps a couple of our other commissioners have a question, as well.

4759             If I heard you correctly, Mr. Rendall, you were suggesting that a dedicated group of telephone numbers be created in order to address those people with the unique difficulties of disabilities.  Is that correct?

4760             MR. RENDALL:  That's correct.

4761             THE CHAIRPERSON:  We have heard over the last two days, and probably read in the proceeding documentation, that an awful lot of people with disabilities don't want to be identified and registered as being disabled, and so I think your proposal probably would meet with some comment by those other people.

4762             Can you comment on the views that you expressed relative to their views that those people with disabilities should not be singled out and separately identified?

4763             MR. RENDALL:  Okay.  I fully understand what you are saying.  There's a lot of people out there that refuse to accept or want to be viewed by others as being disabled in the community.  However, I have attended employment focus groups in the Province of Ontario and I sat down with people that are mentally handicapped, physical, sight impairment, deafened trying to get work.  I asked them why would they resist being called disabled if they could get work, and they all agreed they are disabled.

4764             The second part to my answer is:  if there was a situation where a telephone number would be given to a disabled person, it would give them certain added benefits to communicate, especially in my case, I'm wondering how many people would turn around and say, "I'm not interested in being disabled".

4765             I'm sure if they got the benefits that would give them full accessibility to the outside world as a hearing person has, I don't know whether they are going to bite the bullet and say, "Well, I don't want to be disabled", I think they would join the bandwagon and saying, "I don't mind being disabled if I'm going to get special benefits so I can communicate with the rest of the world exactly like a hearing person can".

4766             THE CHAIRPERSON:  Thank you, Mr. Rendall.

4767             I'm sure we are going to hear from other parties over the next several days and hear their response to your views.  Those are all my questions.

4768             I know that Commissioner Molnar, on my left, has got some questions.

4769             COMMISSIONER MOLNAR:  Thank you.

4770             Mr. Rendall, I just want to make sure that I do fully understand what it is you are proposing regarding the relay service, SMS relay service.

4771             The relay, would that be relay similar to what we have for message relay today?

4772             MR. RENDALL:  I believe so.  I'm not exactly sure what you are talking about as a message relay system.  If you are talking about TTY, it would be very similar to TTY, except the incoming message would be in text form, the outgoing message from the operator to the emergency service would be voice, obviously, from them to the emergency service.

4773             COMMISSIONER MOLNAR:  Some of the telephone service providers today just integrate message relay, the TTY‑based message relay today, with their visiting operator service functions, an operators answers a TTY call.  Conceivably they would just accept an SMS message, is that what you are proposing, and then they would interface with the 911, with the PSAPs?  That's what you propose?

4774             MR. RENDALL:  No, I'm not suggesting that they interface anything.  What you are saying is integration, again, into the normal format of 911.  It's not going to happen within a short space of time.  It's not going to happen maybe for $100 million.  If we are looking for an inexpensive format and an immediate format, then it can't be integrated with the present 911, it's got to be stand‑alone.

4775             It would simply mean that the operator has to relay the voice message directly to the emergency services on the text message that they are receiving from the person in distress.

4776             COMMISSIONER MOLNAR:  Okay, thanks, that's what I understood.

4777             I assume you are aware of what the telephone companies say are the limitations to the SMS today, as it regards an emergency service.  They say, for example, there's no location identification, they say it is not a priority service, it's a storing forward service, there's no guarantee the message arrives, no guarantee it arrives in a timely manner, and when it arrives you don't know where it's come from.

4778             Do you believe with those limitations it's still of value or benefit?

4779             MR. RENDALL:  Okay, like I mentioned once before, I'm not a technical person, but I'm well aware from the carriers that there's alternatives out there rather than just SMS.  They can answer those questions better than I can, but there are other formats that can be used just as well as an SMS‑type system, which are more effective.

4780             So I can't answer that question for you exactly why SMS is better for some other format, but they know the technicalities and they believe it can actually work.  I have been in contact with Bell on a number of occasions and they have said that there's no reason why they can't have an effective tool by a relay system.

4781             COMMISSIONER MOLNAR:  Okay, I think I better understand.  So you are not proposing simply to use text messaging as it exists today within the wireless world, you are proposing that there be a next generation of text messaging that would have addressed some of these issue?

4782             MR. RENDALL:  That may be.  When you say "next generation", maybe there's a generation already out there that I'm not fully aware of.  So when we say "next generation", I don't know whether it's a next generation that hasn't been invented yet.  I'm saying they said there's other systems out there that can be integrated into forming that text capability into a relay system that would be more effective.

4783             Now whether that's an SMS or IAM, or whatever else it might be called, I'm not fully aware of that.  But they did say that the text‑message‑type system into a relay system and voice out can be accomplished in a short period of time with this present systems that's already set up called basic 911.

4784             So for cost effectiveness, like I said, there's no real reason why we can't have this system in place in a reasonable time.

4785             COMMISSIONER MOLNAR:  Okay, thanks.

4786             Those are my questions.

4787             THE CHAIRPERSON:  Thank you, Commissioner Molnar.

4788             Commissioner Lamarre.

4789             COMMISSIONER LAMARRE:  Merci, monsieur le président.

4790             Mr. Rendall, I'm Suzanne Lamarre.

4791             I want to touch on an issue that you briefly touched on in paragraph 16 of your presentation, and that is that when we deal with the issue of an emergency call, what makes an emergency call complete are links between different parts.  So, obviously, the CRTC can look at the question of the telecommunications part of it, but there's also a receiving end that's under the jurisdiction of public safety agencies.

4792             And as you pointed out, there are some institutions right now who have TTY equipment that are either broken or that they don't even know how to make it work.  So I'm wondering, in regards to this new proposed application that you have put forward here today, have you had any discussions with public safety agencies or associations such as the Association of Public‑Safety Communications Officials, also known as APCO, here in Canada?  And if so, what's their reaction to the feasibility of this new way of receiving emergency calls, but from their receiving end?

4793             MR. RENDALL:  No, I haven't spoken to the association that you have mentioned there.  Where I have been in communication with is actually 911 emergency call centres.  In eight municipalities in and around where I live, all of them say that they do not see any reason why this basic service can't exist.

4794             COMMISSIONER LAMARRE:  Okay.

4795             MR. RENDALL:  Right now, like I said before, because we don't have specific numbers of how many people have my disability, so we cannot communicate, we do not know how many calls that could have been placed by those people that cannot communicate into the 911 system.  We don't know that right now.

4796             We do not know either how many situations where a person with the disability that I have has suffered some grievance because they could not call a 911 emergency service, either for themselves, a family member or an emergency that they are seeing is in need of assistance.

4797             For instance, I have travelled the roads in many areas of this country.  I ski, I travelled on business, I have witnessed an enormous amount of accidents.  I was even involved in a very big accident myself, but at that time I could hear.  There's certain times now when I travel and I see something, I can't communicate.  The only way I can communicate is through my wife or someone that I know.  I have to text them and they have to call 911.

4798             I was involved in an accident a few years back, where I was in the middle of an intersection in an icy storm.  I couldn't move and neither could the other person.  The police were held up because of the ice storm and the only way I could communicate was through my wife.

4799             I had to text her with the message, she had to relay the call to 911, then she had to text me back what they were saying.  If you think that's a good enough situation, then why can't I have a text message service via relay system?  It's the same principle.

4800             COMMISSIONER LAMARRE:  Thank you, you answered my question.

4801             THE CHAIRPERSON:  Counsel, have you got any follow‑ups?

4802             MS LEHOUX:  I just need to review the undertakings.

4803             Hi, I'm Véronique Lehoux, legal counsel.

4804             So you undertook to provide the website of the 4C Telecom company, but I think we found, we just need confirmation.  So I'm just going to show it to you or you can come up, and then...can I show it to you?

4805             THE CHAIRPERSON:  Why don't I suggest you do that at the break?

4806             MS LEHOUX:  Yes?

4807             MR. RENDALL:  Yes, I can.  That looks like it, yes.

4808             MS LEHOUX:  Okay.

4809             MR. RENDALL:  Hang on a minute, I do have it here.  Can I...?

4810             MS LEHOUX:  Yes.

4811             Thank you very much.  Yes, that's it.  Okay, thank you.  Thank you very much.

4812             I'm just going to wait till you sit down.

4813             And you also undertook to provide all available information related to the July 2008 conference.  So would you be able to provide that by Friday, November 28th?

4814             MR. RENDALL:  I'm sure my national office put on that conference.  If they have got that relevant information, they should be able to do that for you ‑‑

4815             MS LEHOUX:  Okay.

4816             MR. RENDALL:  ‑‑ but I have to speak to them first.

4817             MS LEHOUX:  Okay.  That's going to be fine.

4818             Thank you very much.

4819             THE CHAIRPERSON:  I want to thank you, Mr. Rendall, and Mrs. Rendall, I believe, as well, for being here today before us.

4820             We will take a 15‑minute break and set up for the VRS Consultative Committee of BC videoconference, after which time we will come back to Ryerson.

4821             Thank you, and we will start again at 3:30.

‑‑- Upon recessing at 1512 / Suspension à 1512

‑‑‑ Upon resuming at 1529 / Reprise à 1529

4822             THE CHAIRPERSON:  Order, please. 

4823             Madam Secretary. 

4824             THE SECRETARY:  We will now proceed with our next participant, VRS Consultative Committee of BC who are joining us via videoconference from our Vancouver office.

4825             Mr. Hardy, are you ready to proceed?

4826             MR. HARDY:  Yes, thank you.

4827             THE SECRETARY:  Okay.  Please introduce yourself and your colleagues and proceed with your 15‑minute presentation.  Thank you. 

PRESENTATION / PRÉSENTATION

4828             MR. HARDY (interpreted):  I would like to thank the CRTC, the hearing panel, to allow us to hear our presentation from B.C. and to consider our concerns.  So we would like to thank you for that.

4829             My name is Monte Hardy and I am one of the members of the group, the Video Relay Service Consultative Committee for BC, representing our deaf community.  And with me is Susan Masters and Wayne Sinclair. 

4830             To start, I just wanted to let you know that my first language is ASL, American Sign Language.  We as a group have had a discussion about how I would present and I felt that it was important that I use English ‑‑ we felt as a group that it was important that I use English because we felt that I needed to ensure that my points were clear to the panel. 

4831             So I will now switch from American Sign Language to English.  And please don't misunderstand, that that means all deaf people are able then to use their voice and speak English, that isn't the case.  Thank you.

4832             So now I am going to use English. 

4833             MR. HARDY:  Okay, we are on the first slide here.

4834             We as the deaf community of British Columbia have a dream.  We have one of a society that we attain a level of functional equivalency and what that means is that we are on an equal basis with other Canadians in all arenas of life, including social, recreational, financial, employment, and specifically for today access to communication and information.

4835             This road is long and work is hard but the rewards for our efforts are really beneficial, not only for us but for all Canadians.

4836             To achieve this requires everyone in our Canadian society to willingly participate with passionate motivation to achieve this dream.  Sadly, our community continues to struggle with barriers, misunderstanding and many unwilling participants.  The very fact that we continue to have hearings such as this demonstrates to us that we have a long, long way to go.

4837             Next slide.

4838             The VRS Consultative Committee of British Columbia was formed as result of a community caucus on April 10, 2008.  We are a group of diverse people representing a community. 

4839             The purpose of this group was to provide TELUS with a contact point for discussion and consultation in the formation of a VRS service meeting the needs of British Columbian deaf people.

4840             Canadians who identify themselves as deaf, hard of hearing, deaf‑blind constitute a large segment of Canadian population.  The deaf and hard of hearing and deaf‑blind Canadians experience barriers in accessibility, discrimination, misunderstanding, missed opportunities, higher employment, underemployment, as a result of lack of accessible information and meaningful communication avenues from the larger population.  One of our biggest areas is often ignorance and/or negative attitudes about accessibility.

4841             Next slide.

4842             Many of us want the same opportunities as others.  Although many already contribute to the communities, they are limited by communication barriers.  We want to participate in many of the activities enjoyed by the average Canadian.  We want functional equivalency as our hearing counterparts.

4843             Information and communication are certainly considered commodities in our society.  Access to timely information pave the way to employment promotion, opportunities, financial independence.  Accessible communication builds relationships between us and the rest of the world in personal, recreational, and business realms.  For example, many businesses succeed or fail to timely information.  We want that same opportunity. 

4844             Many of us have experienced refusal to be provided a job because of imagined or real concerns around communication from people who are ignorant.

4845             Often, we are excluded from information in many, many circles, including social, recreational, employment, even the staff room where there is often discussion around promotional opportunities.

4846             Next slide.

4847             The foundations of an accessible Canada.  Our previous decisions of law provide those foundations for an accessible Canada and you see listed here:  the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, the Canadian Human Rights Act, the Supreme Court of Canada Eldridge decision 1997, the Federal Court of Canada Canadian Association of the Deaf decision 2006, the United Nations Convention of Rights of Persons with Disabilities, yet to be ratified by the Canadian government. 

4848             Next slide. 

4849             The characteristics of an accessible model of service, number one, is involvement of Canadian citizens who are deaf, hard of hearing, deaf‑blind, blind, visually impaired.  To this day, we don't see that.

4850             Number two, decision‑making in technology, standards, service models and other related issues are made by those who benefit from telecommunication, video communication and electronic information.  We still feel excluded.

4851             National standards that are set to ensure consistency, compatibility, quality that meets consumers' needs, and we are consumers.

4852             Next slide. 

4853             We believe that the sustainable funding of services such as VRS, message relay centre, captioning, described videos, is important to us so that we can be assured that quality services are maintained.

4854             That responsibility lies with the Government of Canada and the CRTC to ensure that a model of financial sustainability exists for such services.  This does not necessarily mean that it comes from general revenues but the cost of such services should be borne by all Canadians if we truly believe in the decisions and acts that I have mentioned.

4855             There are challenges when companies are left to comply with CRTC rulings.  Sometimes we experience tokenism on consultation committees.  Companies will render services that are most cost‑effective, and often quality or quantity of service will suffer. 

4856             Companies are accountable to their shareholders and not to Canadians who require accessible service and that is not meaning that we begrudge them the right to make a profit. 

4857             Next slide. 

4858             We are all not in the same area when it comes to communication needs.  We are diverse. We use a variety of avenues of communication and information and we need those variety of avenues.  We are certainly, clearly, early adopters of technology, and companies certainly would benefit from accessing our experiences.

4859             Access to emergency services is a privilege that most Canadians enjoy.  Canadians such as us still struggle to access communication to emergency services such as 911.

4860             Wayne, could you share an experience?

4861             MR. SINCLAIR (interpreted):  Yes, hello.  I am a Vonage user and there was an incident at my home, so I called 911.  It was the enhanced 911 and it was answered promptly through the TTY, which was fine, but what I learned is they didn't have my address.  So I had to then provide them with my address and they said that they would then refer me to a local 911 line.  So nothing ended up happening after that.  So I had to hang up the telephone.

4862             Several hours later, I decided to call 911 again and then there was no response at all.  No response at all.  Two hours after that, an RCMP officer came to my home asking me if I had made that call.

4863             So that is my example.

4864             MR. HARDY:  Thank you, Wayne.

4865             I ask the Commission here if you consider this acceptable.  I would imagine that you don't.

4866             Next slide, please. 

4867             The impacts of providing accessibility through technology for us means that the VRS enables deaf citizens to be integral part of society in a significant way.

4868             Consider all those jobs that require communication.  Those are not accessible for us as deaf citizens.  It allows for greater selection of economic, cultural and social selection of activities.  Portable videophones allow instantaneous communication between the deaf and non‑deaf, even in coffee shops, on the street.

4869             It makes the deaf business person or deaf employees a more valuable human resource in the economic infrastructure.  It helps to reduce the possibility of welfare for deaf citizens.  It enables deaf workers and owners to contribute significantly to the deaf economy.

4870             Deaf citizens often to have to pay hundreds, even thousands, of dollars for various assistive devices, including videophones, specialized cell phones, hearing aids.  The high costs have discouraged prospective employers from hiring deaf workers.

4871             The high expense involved in securing interpreting services have hampered the efforts of deaf citizens from setting up their own business.  VRS services eventually could be expanded to include interpreting, mitigating the current and potentially ongoing interpreter shortage.

4872             Next slide.

4873             Canadians expect a standard of life, including access to emergency services such as 911.  To this day we do not have true accessible communication.  It is time the standardization of 911 accessible communication occur and this must be addressed somehow and in some way.

4874             The CRTC must seek to develop a plan to address this gap in the many communications that many Canadians enjoy.

4875             Next slide.

4876             We have some concerns as well.

4877             Companies are accountable to their owners and shareholders and, understandably, resistant to providing access to services because they are not a benefit resulting from the cost expended, in their view.  Companies need to understand that we are consumers and wish to provide our experience, our expertise and our perspective to enhance their services. 

4878             In a recent letter dialogue with TELUS, we felt they were not taking us seriously regarding our offer to collaborate with them on VRS services.  Their response was simply:  Tell us and we will give you the service. 

4879             Meanwhile, we asked them to sit down and see us so that we could have a protracted discussion in giving them ideas.  They wanted to tell us.  We wanted to see them.

4880             Companies understand the technological aspect of providing services, accessible services, but they do not understand the social and economic impacts of providing those services.  We feel somewhat marginalized when requests to companies are ignored or advisory committees are set up that are ineffective and largely considered tokenism. 

4881             We are stakeholders who have a vested interest in ensuring the services that we receive meet the needs in the areas of quality and quantity.  We want to be part of the process in supporting companies to better understand our needs and, in turn, companies benefit in innovative ideas and opportunities. 

4882             Next slide. 

4883             The current CRTC process ‑‑ and we do thank you for setting this up ‑‑ for addressing national standards.  Issues are difficult to monitor.  Complaints, concerns, take an extraordinary amount of time to address.

4884             Direct contact with companies to address issues are not accessible for us.

4885             Communication with emergency services, again, are not consistent and do not keep up with emerging technologies to ensure access for us.

4886             In our submission, we encourage the CRTC to begin examining what was happening in the U.S.  with the trials under the Department of Transportation and the FCC and NG911 initiative.  We believe that we can learn from these trials.

4887             Next slide. 

4888             We certainly congratulate the CRTC in recognizing our needs and our needs that we need to be addressed, and we were certainly glad to see that the portion of deferral funding was set aside.

4889             Unfortunately, it is very clear that the initial application of this funding is limited to those provinces in which companies provide services.

4890             That is not equitable and that certainly is against the spirit of many of the legal decisions that have been made in Canada.

4891             We are concerned there are no plans to sustain the services financially and the costs will fall on companies providing those services, and as we have seen, the companies are certainly motivated by profit, which is certainly fine by us, but their obligation to provide accessible services are lacking.

4892             Next slide.

4893             We have some recommendations.

4894             We certainly suggest to the CRTC the establishment of an agency to develop standards and ensure consistency across Canada specifically for video interpreting and current information technology.

4895             This agency is designed to administer funding of the VRS service. 

4896             This agency will develop standards, provide guidelines, consultation and support the provincially‑based VRS services. 

4897             This agency will provide support to companies in development of new technologies and fund further research. 

4898             This agency will collaborate with companies in providing services to ensure that service standards are maintained and to troubleshoot any issues. 

4899             This agency certainly can hear complaints and attempt to problem‑solve with providing companies.  Failing that, certainly, a referral to the CRTC for a hearing.

4900             I can't overstress the need for the uniquely Canadian ownership and partnership that we feel is important.  We are heavily invested in the successful provision of a quality VRS service and many of our people are well positioned to provide expertise, guidance and training of these interpreters.  Opportunities for us to gain employment, successful recruitment and retention of us tend to be higher with deaf‑friendly organizations.

4901             Next slide.

4902             We certainly recommend the requirement of companies to submit plans for increasing the presence of deaf, hard of hearing, deaf‑blind, visually impaired, blind consumers in their workforce, and effective ‑‑ and the emphasis is on effective ‑‑ advisory groups.

4903             We also recommend a requirement of annual reporting of these actions.

4904             We also recommend the ownership of services for deaf, hard of hearing and deaf‑blind Canadians of services provided to their communities because we do certainly have a vested interest and we want to see good quality of these services.

4905             I want to thank the panel for the opportunity to present and that ends my presentation.  Thank you.

4906             THE CHAIRPERSON:  Thank you very much, Mr. Hardy and your team.

4907             It appears as though your group has come together in an effort to try and work closely with TELUS and I guess what you are suggesting here is it hasn't worked as well as you would have liked and one of the things you want us to do amongst your recommendations is to coordinate and organize some activities.

4908             I don't know if you followed the hearing yesterday but we did have TELUS here and we did strongly ask them to consider the views of all the parties, and I am sure they are listening today as well and will likely come back in their final submission with a response to some of these concerns that you have raised as well as some of the other parties.

4909             I will pass it on to Commissioner Simpson for some follow‑up questions if there are any.

4910             COMMISSIONER SIMPSON:  Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

4911             Mr. Hardy, Ms Masters, Mr. Sinclair, thank you very much for appearing before the Commission.

4912             I would like to start my questioning with a framework of questions actually to help me understand the nature of your group or your organization because it seems that you are taking or have a fairly broad mandate.

4913             Most groups we have heard from this week are approaching the Commission with narrower perspectives with respect to solution recommendations on technology or, I should say, in addition to that, try to bring a new level of understanding of the particular situations that impact their respective groups.  But I am hearing from your initial presentation a very broadly‑based mandate.

4914             Is that by design or how did that come about?

4915             MR. SINCLAIR (interpreted): Wayne Sinclair here, I think I will respond to that.

4916             We are a deaf community‑based group.  We started informally by having a town hall meeting of the members of the Greater Vancouver deaf community, and in those discussions about the TELUS VRS, the results came about that we formed a committee to start having communications with TELUS.

4917             And as a result of the lack ‑‑ well, not ‑‑ we didn't receive what we felt was an adequate response from TELUS.  We then started working on other aspects of VRS, mainly from what we are seeing happening in the United States and we happened to encounter several or we heard of several 911 difficulties that were occurring here in Canada.

4918             So then we hosted another town hall meeting with the deaf community and gave them that information about what we had been doing and what we had been gathering and then we were receiving more feedback from them.

4919             We are acting on behalf of the deaf community in the Greater Vancouver area.

4920             COMMISSIONER SIMPSON:  Thank you.

4921             So is this committee an ad hoc group?  Is it your intent to ultimately form an association of your own to represent your interests? 

4922             This helps me with my line of questioning, that is why I am asking.

4923             MR. SINCLAIR (interpreted):  I will let Susan ‑‑

4924             MS MASTERS:  If I could interject here.

4925             We are an ad hoc committee.  We are a grassroots organization.  We were, as Mr. Sinclair says, formed in response to the announcement that TELUS would be providing a VRS service.

4926             Our main concerns and our main reason for coming together was our concern is that we want to collaborate with TELUS on the ground.  We realize that this is a new service and we have expertise and we want to participate in that.

4927             Having no satisfactory response from TELUS, we didn't understand each other, and I think, as my colleague said, we asked to meet.  We asked to have collaboration and they said:  Maybe later.

4928             The opportunity occurred as we were trying to strategize on how to respond to TELUS, the opportunity of these hearings occurred.  So we have come together.

4929             We are from different organizations but we are actually representing the grassroots community.  We are empowered by their endorsement.

4930             Will we become a formal organization? Perhaps.  It depends on how successful we are.

4931             But I think our recommendations and issues speak to the very grassroots perspective of, yes, we needed video relay services, no, we are not confident that the telecommunications company have the expertise to provide that service, and if they do, they are not speaking to us, so we don't know.

4932             We also have many, many years of experience of having people who are not deaf or hard of hearing established services, telling us that is a good service and we experience the damage that those inadequate services cause.

4933             So that is our whole reason for being.

4934             MR. SINCLAIR (interpreted):  And if I could just ‑‑ it is Wayne here again.  If I could just add to that.

4935             There is a wealth of information coming from the deaf community.  So while we are working on the video relay service and the 911 system for now, there is a good possibility that we would continue to advocate for other areas, employment difficulties, creating partnerships with a variety of different agencies and corporations.

4936             So this is where we are starting.  It feels there may be no end in sight to what we could possibly do.

4937             COMMISSIONER SIMPSON:  Thank you very much.

4938             Throughout the week, we have had several presentations on VRS and IPRS methodologies and it has been my impression that, by and large, the view of many of the groups that have presented here felt that the standards being applied in the United States right now are sufficiently adequate for introduction in Canada.

4939             Would that be your view?

4940             MR. SINCLAIR (interpreted):  I actually moved here to Canada just last year from the United States.  I am a dual citizen.  I grew up here in Canada, right here in Vancouver, spent most of my career, my working career, in the United States.  Now I am retired, I have come back to Canada.  Oh, Canada!

4941             And I am very ‑‑ I was a frequent user of their video relay service that was provided in the United States and I am impressed by the high quality of the interpreting services that are provided through that. 

4942             Several of the VRS companies are run by deaf individuals who understand the need for the high quality of the interpreter and so they mentor that quality and they can monitor that quality.

4943             There are some shortcomings in the services provided in the United States and I will give you an example. 

4944             Here in Canada, hopefully, I will see this happen ‑‑ and this has not yet happened in the States ‑‑ is in the same room communication using the relay interpreter.

4945             For example, if, say, Mr. Hardy was hearing and I am deaf and he can't sign, we would use the video relay service to be able to communicate with each other while we are both in the same room.

4946             That, I would like to see be provided here in Canada.  It is currently not happening in the United States.  They have a separate program that does that type of work but it is not part of their VRS.

4947             COMMISSIONER SIMPSON:  That would be the VRI service that you are talking about, I believe, where both the individual signing and the person who is able to hear are in the same room and the other intermediary is on video?

4948             MR. SINCLAIR (interpreted):  Yes.  Yes, you can call it the VRI, you are right.  But do we have to exclude the VRI?  I don't think we need to.  I think it needs to be included as part of the service provided by VRS.

4949             MR. HARDY: If I could also respond.

4950             There are some companies obviously now that have portable equipment that I could carry to a place that has WiFi or wireless and I could ‑‑ could you imagine if I had one of those equipment, I walked up to a teller and I put this on and I started signing, and that person ‑‑ I mean the efficiency.  Again, the point is equivalent functionality or functional equivalency is what we are hoping for and I don't know if it is in the jurisdiction of CRTC to consider.

4951             COMMISSIONER SIMPSON:  Thank you.

4952             Following through on the U.S. model and your recommendation that Canada establish its own standards, again going back to my question about the U.S. model and your previous answer, are there any other aspects that you feel that we would have to consider that would create a better, more distinctly Canadian set of standards, other than learning how to sign the word "eh"?

4953             MR. HARDY:  Yes.  Was that a West Coast "eh"?

‑‑‑ Laughter / Rires

4954             COMMISSIONER SIMPSON:  You bet.

4955             MR. HARDY:  Okay.  There are a couple of things and I think I have already mentioned this in our presentation, was the consideration around the sustainable funding model.  You know, I currently don't see a plan in place to ensure the sustainability of such a VRS service here in Canada.

4956             So I think certainly we need to take a look at the funding model.  You know, some will argue it comes from government revenues.  Others will argue that it should be spread amongst the consumers.

4957             The bottom line is there has to be a sustainable model.

4958             Currently in the States there seems to be a model that seems to be working.  Would that work in Canada?  That is something that we need to have a discussion about.

4959             The other thing is, we certainly ‑‑ what we don't like in the United States is the impact on the community.  When you have a number of VRS services setting up in a certain city, you deplete the level of human resources in terms of interpreters, live interpreters that are available to attend let's say doctors appointments, bank, business meetings and that sort of thing.

4960             We have experienced this here in Vancouver certainly with the setup of a company, a VRS company that has set up here locally that is providing services to the United States.

4961             I was part of a Council of Service Providers which is a group of about 25, 26 service agencies for deaf, hard of hearing, deaf, blind.  We drafted a letter to the company that set up the VRS service recognizing that they are providing services to the U.S. customers, asking them to sit down with us to have a discussion about the impact on accessibility for many of our deaf citizens here in Vancouver, the Lower Mainland and the rest of British Columbia.

4962             We sent one to the manager of the local service and we sent one to the Vice‑President of Communications for this particular company.  We received no response, none, not even acknowledgment of our letter.  We were very disappointed.

4963             Ironically now we find out that TELUS has contracted with the very same company who would not sit down with us and discuss the impact on our community.  We find this extremely concerning.

4964             This is something we would have sat down with TELUS and said look, we have some concerns here.  This is a company that does not sit down with the community.  You know, it's not just about technology, it's not about service, it's also about the impact on the community and our hope for functional equivalency.

4965             COMMISSIONER SIMPSON:  Mr. Hardy, you may not know and I don't want you to speculate, but are you aware of any other group, other than your own, that TELUS has been consulting with concerning this introduction of a VRS service?

4966             MR. HARDY:  Specifically no.

4967             Certainly in our community we communicate well.  We certainly have a very effective network of information, and it is our understanding ‑‑ and no confirmation ‑‑ that they may have talked with the Alberta deaf community.  But we have no confirmation of that.

4968             Again, TELUS has not indicated to us anything.

4969             COMMISSIONER SIMPSON:  Okay.  Thank you.

4970             I would like to go back to the notion of national standards again.

4971             Has your group been made aware of an initiative that is going on in Europe with respect to the establishment of relay standards, particularly the efforts of what is called ETSI, which is the European Telecommunications Standards Institute?

4972             MR. HARDY:  No.

4973             COMMISSIONER SIMPSON:  Okay.

4974             MR. SINCLAIR (interpreted):  But if I could comment ‑‑ Wayne here.

4975             COMMISSIONER SIMPSON:  Yes, go ahead.

4976             MR. SINCLAIR (interpreted):  I was visiting my children in Maryland and at the same time I decided to attend a VRS company there, and they informed me that they are actually working with France and they are distributing phones to the French deaf.

4977             That is the extent of my knowledge in regards to that.

4978             The French government has been involved, contracted with a company to purchase videophones to be distributed.

4979             But there is one thing I would like to bring up and perhaps you may need to be aware of this.  You are speaking of standards.  The company has different and higher standards of technology.  Some companies have different and higher technology than others.  Some VRS companies are using the H.323 standard of technology, whereas the one company is using a new and higher standard.

4980             What we would like to see here in Canada, getting back to your original question, is a competitive process.  We need to have good, healthy competition amongst different VRS's and producers of the videophones here in Canada.  That's what we need to have happen.

4981             COMMISSIONER SIMPSON:  Thank you.

4982             Just to finish this thought and to share, this ETSI organization in Europe is contemplating, through the creation of a specialist task force which was set up originally in the beginning of 2007.  They are developing standards for all European Union participating countries, also looking at all the multi‑linguistic issues, funding issues, monitoring and quality control for text relay, speech to speech relay, sign relay, lip reading, captioning, telephony, text to text and facsimile.

4983             So it may offer some promise of beginnings of what you are searching for.

4984             I would like to ask you, again going back to my initial observation that your observations and your goals seem more policy driven than technology driven.  So following through on that notion, is your group advocating that the CRTC should be looking at a regulatory policy with respect to the establishment of standards and the carrying of that policy through to industry?

4985             Is that what you are looking for?

4986             MR. HARDY:  Yes, we are.

4987             COMMISSIONER SIMPSON:  Okay.  I'm sorry, go ahead, please.

4988             MS MASTERS:  I'm sorry, just to add to that, I think that's exactly what we are asking for.  We may be naive and may not know how to get there.

4989             I think also our underlying concern on any of those task force or regulatory bodies is you need the strong participation of the consumers you serve.

4990             I think if we have one message that we really want you to walk away with today, it is that the companies, the telecommunications, the broadcasters, if we go to others, are ignoring an important resource and that resource are the end users.

4991             The end users are incredibly techno‑savvy.  As Monte mentioned, deaf and hard of hearing users are early adapters because they have to be.

4992             I don't know if you are aware that the telephone system was actually ‑‑ the telephone was actually invented as part of developing hearing devices for people who are deaf.  It's ironic that that now telephone system excludes people who are deaf, but deaf and hard of hearing people have invented workarounds.  We also are very savvy.  We want to be able to participate on an equal basis in a task force.

4993             We also look to policy in terms of what is needed as a national standard, because we have seen that when access is left to able‑bodied people, they don't often get it right.

4994             So I think that is the message that we really want to emphasize.

4995             COMMISSIONER SIMPSON:  I'm almost finished, Mr. Chair.

4996             On to some practical matters that do involve issues of life and death.

4997             On the subject of 911 emergency processes that are in place right now, there has been a condition applied by the CRTC that stipulates that IP providers for voiceover Internet make aware their customers ‑‑ bad syntax, sorry ‑‑ make their customers aware of the limitations of that service and also make it incumbent upon their customers to notify their IP provider of any address changes to keep current.

4998             In addition to this, is there anything else that you would want to put as a priority for us to consider?

4999             MR. HARDY:  You are talking specifically about 911?

5000             COMMISSIONER SIMPSON:  Yes.

5001             MR. HARDY:  Well, again referring back to the presentation, I think we certainly need to follow closely the NG 911 initiative to see what results from those trials.

5002             Currently I think there are five locations in the United States.  We need to be following those things, those processes, to ensure that ‑‑ you know, there is no point in reinventing the wheel.  The 911 access is really technology driven, but again looking at the consumers, you know, does this work for the consumer?

5003             You know, I think that somehow, whether it is the CRTC or some body needs to contact the Department of Transportation and create a liaison with them to learn from those and to be able to apply those learnings here in Canada.

5004             Again I am going to emphasize the very fact that many Canadians enjoy accessible communication and, as you heard from Wayne, there was a two‑hour delay before a police officer showed up.

5005             What if Wayne had a heart attack?  What if he was bleeding?

5006             You know, I think the average Canadian would raise a lot of issues about that.  That is unacceptable.  We are talking life and death here.  We are not talking about accessible service; we are talking about life and death.

5007             COMMISSIONER SIMPSON:  Thank you very much.  That concludes my questioning.

5008             THE CHAIRPERSON:  Thank you very much, Commissioner Simpson.

5009             Are there any other questions from the Panel?  Staff?  Legal staff?  No?

5010             Thank you very, very much for joining us from Vancouver.  Hopefully the communication link worked well, and we welcome you at future proceedings.  Thanks again.

5011             MR. HARDY:  Can I make one suggestion though?

5012             THE CHAIRPERSON:  You certainly may.

5013             MR. HARDY:  While following the proceedings on a captioning, live captioning, we certainly thank you for that opportunity, but we also would like to encourage you to consider that many deaf people across Canada have a difficult time with literacy ‑‑ that's not all deaf Canadians ‑‑ and that their first language is a visual language.  I would like the CRTC to consider in the future in proceedings such as this to provide a video feed.

5014             Thank you.

5015             THE CHAIRPERSON:  Thank you very much.

5016             THE SECRETARY:  I now call on the Centre for Learning Technologies of Ryerson University to come to the presentation table.

‑‑‑ Pause

5017             THE CHAIRPERSON:  We will commence with the Ryerson Centre for Learning Technologies, Mr. John‑Patrick Udo.

5018             I understand as well that one of your colleagues, Deborah Fels, was here as well and unfortunately had to return to Toronto.

5019             I apologize for us running a little bit late and it's unfortunate that she had to go back.  Had I known, we probably would have tried to rearrange people's agendas, but...

5020             MR. UDO:  Yes.  She would have liked to have stayed.  Unfortunately, she has to teach a class at Ryerson today at 7 o'clock so she couldn't be here with us.

5021             THE CHAIRPERSON:  Hopefully we will have an opportunity to see her in Toronto.

5022             MR. UDO:  Thank you.

5023             THE CHAIRPERSON:  Thank you.  Go ahead.

PRESENTATION / PRÉSENTATION

5024             MR. UDO:  My name is John‑Patrick Udo and I am here from Ryerson University.  I am a researcher there.  As we said, my colleague Deborah Fels was here earlier but had to leave.  So I am going to be giving a presentation entitled Alternative Approaches to Closed Captioning and Audio Description.

5025             In terms of an agenda, I am going to give you a brief introduction as to inclusion in media captioning with an example, audio description and an example, as well as some concluding remarks.

5026             We feel at a university level that it's very important to get the theory behind universal design out into the general public.  Universal design is designs that benefit all and that are considered from the beginning of the creation process, which means that they are not tacked on after the fact.

5027             The problem we are seeing here is closed captioning, as well as audio description to a lesser degree, is often touted as the poster child of inclusive design when really it isn't.  There are lots of problems with closed captioning and audio description in terms of that.

5028             For example, it is produced in a post‑production context, which means it happens after the fact.  After the entire show has been put together by a director, the producer has approved it, sound, lighting, everything is done, then it goes out to an audio description house or closed captioning house.

5029             We find this problematic because the original designer is not included.  That is one of the main points of universal design.  When you design something, it has to be designed from the beginning with as many people in mind as possible, with as many different sets of needs as possible.  If you don't do that, then it becomes a costly adaptation.

5030             It is also important to look at the context of the entertainment experience that you are going to enjoy.  If you are watching the news, it is a lot different than watching a drama or watching a mystery.  I don't watch a drama to be informed.  I do however watch it to be entertained, whereas I would watch the news possibly to be more informed.

5031             So we have to look at the context as well.

5032             I will just give you a brief overview of closed captioning in terms of the EI 608 standards.

5033             As you know, closed captioning is the verbatim translation of speech which means that a lot is missed out upon.  It is also done in a monospace font and there is limited expression of non speech‑based sound.

5034             When it is represented in terms of music, a note would be represented as opposed to an idea of what the director was trying to convey.  When a director puts music into a piece, they don't put it in so that someone knows that it's a Viennese waltz.  They put it in there to elicit an emotional reaction, and captioning the words "Viennese waltz" doesn't do that.

5035             So we are going to provide some alternative examples for you.

5036             So in terms of what viewers don't like about closed captioning right now from the studies we found in the literature review that we have done, they don't like this scroll‑up captions.  It is easier to caption that way.  However, in terms of psychology, the psychology of reading that has been done, it is very hard to read when the lines scroll up as opposed to non‑scrolling up captions.

5037             There is also missing information in terms of paralanguage, speech prosody.  The way that we speak is not conveyed.  Sarcasm is a very difficult thing to convey with current closed captioning and it is very different to say, as I have said with my example with the Viennese waltz, you can say sarcastically and then the person has their dialogue, but it is an entirely different experience to hear the sarcasm as opposed to being told that there is sarcasm.

5038             And there is a lot of inaccuracies as well in terms of spelling, grammar, punctuation.

5039             So what we found is that viewers want depth, they want complete information, they want to be engaged, which goes to the context of the entertainment experience which I have spoken of; quality and consistency amongst styles around the country and an equivalent experience to that of a hearing audience.

5040             So we have come up with a new idea for closed captioning that we have worked with a variety of content creators on and that is to give the production crew, the content creative team control over the closed captioning.  We lift the technology problems in terms of giving these content creators the ability to do basically whatever they want with the closed captioning within ‑‑ sort of within limits obviously.

5041             What we have done is animated captions, where animations appear on screen or text is animated.  So I am going to show you a brief example of that.

‑‑‑ Pause

5042             MR. UDO:  And of course my sound isn't working.  Here we go.

‑‑‑ Video Presentation / Présentation vidéo

5043             MR. UDO:  So that just gives you a little idea of the stuff that we are working on, where emotion is represented through animation as well as colour.  We have several other examples of that, but obviously due to time limitations we are going to stop there for that.

5044             We also do work on audio description at Ryerson University.  I will just give you a quick overview of what audio description is.

5045             Now, when I say audio description, I understand here there is a big debate as to whether it is video description, described video, audio description or any of the other names that we come up with.  At the research level we talk about audio description as being one collective word for all of those things.

5046             It is a process that we are talking about.  We are not talking about technology right now.

5047             So audio description has been happening forever, ever since someone has been able to turn to someone else and explain what's happening and that's through the whisper mode where a parent or sibling or whoever turns to someone and says this is what is going on in a movie theatre.

5048             And it was formalized in the 1970s by G. Fraser and WGBH has also developed guidelines, a process for film and television.

5049             Now, the conventional approach for closed captioning is that the master tape, after the entire show has been completely done, all the lighting, sound, editing, mixing has been done, it is then given to a third party accessibility vendor who then receives the copy of the content, identifies the spaces for description.  They have to decide what is important.  They write a script; they review the script.  Then they record and mix and then they send it back to the broadcaster or the studio and it is aired.

5050             Here is an example of the conventional approach to closed captioning.

5051             Just so you know ‑‑ I didn't introduce the last clip and I apologize for that ‑‑ this is from Odd Job Jack, which is produced by Smiley Guy Studios.  We have worked with them on this project where Odd Job Jack ‑‑ you will see Odd Job Jack being described conventionally and then Odd Job Jack being described by the content creation team.

‑‑‑ Video Presentation / Présentation vidéo

5052             MR. UDO:  So what is the problem with that?  It was very well done by the describer.  We don't have a beef with that.  We believe that description houses do an amazing job considering the amount of time that they have.  They put a lot of effort into it.

5053             Unfortunately, we believe that it is probably a more interpretive job than closed captioning.  Closed captioning and audio description, although they are sometimes lumped together, they are two very different processes.

5054             So there is not enough time or space to describe everything in terms of audio description so someone has to make that choice.  Therefore, there is interpretation.  We believe the best people to do that would be the content creation team.

5055             The other question we have is what about entertainment value?  Is it more entertaining to have something described by someone who is not part of the content creation team as opposed to someone who knows the intricate nature of the script and the characters that are involved?

5056             There is also the possibility of a different business model; that instead of being at a cost to the broadcaster, it could actually be sold as a piece of entertainment.

5057             I am going to show you an example of the same clip of Odd Job Jack, but it's described by the main character, Jack.  The script writer that wrote the script for Odd Job Jack wrote the descriptions and the main character actor for Jack, which was Don McKellar, was the describer in the voice of Jack.

5058             I will just show you the clip.

‑‑‑ Video Presentation / Présentation vidéo

5059             MR. UDO:  So that is what the description team for Odd Job Jack the content creators came up with, and we believe that it more concerned with entertainment as opposed to information.  From the user tests that we have done, we found that blind and low vision individuals were willing to give up the amount of information that they got in exchange for the amount of entertainment they got from watching the clip with Jack narrating.

5060             So in terms of a comparison with audio description, which I touched on before, it is interpreted.  Audio description, you have to make choices, whereas closed captioning is not so much interpreted.

5061             A new script plus a separate audio track equals the opportunity to make some money and the possibility of a new creative piece of content.

5062             It is more time‑consuming and it is an arduous process and there is a question of quality and what that means to viewers as well as the broadcaster.

5063             We have some tools at Ryerson that we have developed for audio description as well as closed captioning, Live Describe for audio description.  We also have a public Wiki for that where amateur describers can download a show and provide their own audio description for it, as well as then upload that audio description so that it is available to other users.

5064             Enact is a tool for the creation of animated captions like you saw in the clips that I showed you.

5065             We are also working on an online collaborative feedback mechanism, what is commonly referred to as a complaint mechanism.  We believe that this is negative.  There could be people out there that are doing a great job in terms of the broadcasting industry and we believe that they should be recognized as well.

5066             So in terms of takeaway remarks, things that you should remember from our presentation, closed captioning and audio descriptions, they are different and they should be considered as different processes and the guidelines and standards should reflect that.

5067             We believe that they should both be under creative control and that if you put them under creative control, there is not going to be a problem with quality because directors and producers are going to see that as part of their show.  Right now it is outside of their purview, so they don't really see it as part of their creative content or necessarily consider it.

5068             And entertainment value is important when you look at inclusive media.  If you ask people why they attend a movie or why they watch television, they are going to say to be entertained and to have an enjoyable experience, and we believe that should be reflected in the audio description as well as the closed captioning.

5069             I would like to thank all of our participants and everyone that has made this possible, all of our funders, content creators that we have worked with, and I would invite you to ask me any questions.

5070             Thank you for having us here today.

5071             THE CHAIRPERSON:  Thank you very much, Mr. Udo.  Very interesting work that is being done in Canada.

5072             I'm going to ask Commissioner Denton to follow up with any questions he might have.

5073             COMMISSIONER DENTON:  Thank you very much, John‑Patrick.  That was a great demonstration.

5074             How did you begin to get into this endeavour?

5075             MR. UDO:  I'm sorry, I or Ryerson University?

5076             COMMISSIONER DENTON:  Ryerson.

5077             MR. UDO:  Well, we started working in terms of, led by Dr. Deborah Fels, working with Odd Job Jack and seeing how it could be more entertaining because the people that we talked to have a real problem with it being informative.

5078             Like I keep saying, you don't go to the movies to be informed as to what is going on; you go to be immersed.  To be constantly reminded that you are using an assistive device might not be the best way of doing that.  So that is how we got into it.

5079             Then it went into other assistive technologies like captions.  We also do work on sign language on the web through the use of sign links.  Instead of text based links, we use video.

5080             And we do a lot of other research as well.

5081             COMMISSIONER DENTON:  So I see on your list of sponsors that you have managed to generate some interest in a significant number of institutions.

5082             MR. UDO:  Yes, we have.

5083             COMMISSIONER DENTON:  Is that going to be continuing in the future?

5084             MR. UDO:  Absolutely.  We are working right now very often in terms of live events, which is not part of the scope of this proceeding.

5085             COMMISSIONER DENTON:  Yes.

5086             MR. UDO:  But we are also looking for creative content, creative content teams who might want to approach us after watching this proceeding.  We are currently working with other people as well.

5087             COMMISSIONER DENTON:  It's interesting in a sense is how do you pitch this to the creative community?

5088             MR. UDO:  When we go to creative content creators they are more than eager to work with us once they see how it affects the quality of the content they are creating.  So the problem is that they are at a distance.  They don't see their show with closed captioning or hear their show with audio description.

5089             But once you go to them and show them how audio description is done now, they see it as not reflective of their vision.

5090             When you watch a show, it is all about the director's vision.  And to ask someone in terms of audio description to try and articulate that vision and interpret it for other people, it is a really hard task for them to do and a task that they won't be able to do as well as the original content creators.

5091             COMMISSIONER DENTON:  If you are successful in this, will it roll out and become a business itself?

5092             MR. UDO:  Absolutely.  There is the potential for business models like I have talked about where you can sell the new product that has been developed.

5093             We have done studies, as well as we do have a manuscript in press, where we asked people if they would be interested in buying an audio described version of Odd Job Jack, for example, with the original audio and the audio description, and they were very much interested in saying that they would pay ‑‑ I believe we asked them a dollar, if they would be interested in paying that and listening to it while they are driving or doing other activities, which would be a great example of universal design, where people who the design was not originally meant for would be included.

5094             COMMISSIONER DENTON:  Thank you.

5095             That completes the questions I would like to ask.

5096             THE CHAIRPERSON:  Thank you, Commissioner Denton.

5097             Anybody else on the Panel have any questions?

5098             Legal counsel, any questions?

5099             Well, thank you very much and I again apologize to Dr. Fels for us delaying her to a point where she couldn't stay any longer.  We will try and follow up with her at some later date.

5100             MR. UDO:  Thank you very much.

5101             THE CHAIRPERSON:  Thank you again.

5102             MR. UDO:  And if you have any more questions or would like to e‑mail me, I believe you have my contact information.  Thank you.

5103             THE CHAIRPERSON:  Thank you very much.

5104             We are going to revert back to our regular calendar and I guess we are going to lock in with Mr. Clark in Toronto.

5105             Do we need any time to set up?  Ten minutes to set up.  Maximum 10 minutes to set up, I'm being told.

5106             So we will take a break for 10 minutes.  We will resume at 4:45.

‑‑‑ Upon recessing at 1635 / Suspension à 1635

--- Upon resuming at 1655 / Reprise à 1655

5107             THE CHAIRPERSON:  Order, please.

5108             It appears as though we lost our link to Toronto, so while they are trying to reset it, we will go ahead with the next party.

5109             Madam Secretary...

5110             THE SECRETARY:  Before we begin the presentation, I have a few announcements to make.

5111             I would like to note that we have prepared a summary of the 18 November 2008 TELUS undertakings, to be filed with the Commission by 28 November 2008, which will be filed on the public record and posted on the Commission's website shortly.

5112             I note for the record that this document is CRTC Exhibit No. 2.

5113             Also, during the break Ryerson undertook to provide research done by them with users of described video and of captions by November 28.

5114             We will now proceed with the presentation by the Canadian Cable Systems Alliance.

5115             Please introduce yourself and your colleague.  You will have 15 minutes for your presentation.

PRESENTATION / PRÉSENTATION

5116             MR. EDWARDS:  Thank you very much.

5117             Good afternoon, Commissioners, and thank you for allowing the Canadian Cable Systems Alliance to participate in this proceeding.

5118             I am Chris Edwards, Vice-President of Corporate and Regulatory Affairs for the Cable Systems Alliance, and I have with me Harris Boyd, our regulatory advisor.

5119             While we had not initially requested to appear at this hearing, following two rounds of interrogatories, we decided that the issues were sufficiently diverse and in‑depth to require us to be here to present the perspective of the small BDUs and the small TSPs that we represent.

5120             We also realized that many of the issues involved could have serious consequences for both our member companies and the customers they serve across the country.

5121             Finally, it became quite clear that responding to many of these issues would require the CCSA and its members to develop a better understanding of the challenges facing disabled customers, and the range of possible solutions that might be available.

5122             We would also like to thank the larger cable companies for including the CCSA in their working group, and allowing us to benefit from their broader experience and technical expertise in this area.

5123             At the outset, let me say it is clear that one of the major barriers to improving the accessibility of our member services to those customers with disabilities is improved communications.  While our members receive few complaints, and would like to believe that it is because the level of service is so high, we cannot be sure.

5124             Unfortunately, that could also be because, even though communications avenues are sufficient, some disabled customers may simply be unaware of the various resources available to them, or, sadly, those customers feel that they should not expect more than they get, and just live with the level of service they receive.

5125             The fact that we don't know is an impediment to improving the situation, and we recognize that.

5126             Our members want to be responsive to their customers.  They operate in very competitive markets, and would not want to lose a single customer from their already very small customer bases.

5127             Nevertheless, customers who pay for services should be able to take full advantage of them, and we have to make every effort to ensure that they can.

5128             It is worth emphasizing, however, that in very small systems, serving more remote communities, it may not always be technically or financially possible to implement every solution that might work in larger centres.

5129             That is not a question of will or intention, but of resources and capabilities.

5130             Recently we participated in discussions, organized by Bell Canada and Rogers, with a range of organizations representing Canadians with disabilities.  That was a very useful experience for us.  It allowed us to hear directly the issues facing blind and vision impaired customers, as well as those who are deaf and hard of hearing.

5131             A very long list of concerns was presented, many of which lack specific solutions at this time.

5132             Some of the concerns dealt with issues outside the scope of this hearing, such as terminal equipment and hiring practices.  Others, such as the establishment of a video relay service, require complex, national solutions.

5133             We realize that we are very small players, who can have minimal impact on addressing such issues in an effective manner.  Our member companies have neither the technical expertise nor the resources to do so.

5134             We also realize that some of the solutions being discussed would be difficult, or even impossible to implement within the scale of operations of most of our member companies.

5135             Even though the development of industry‑wide solutions should reduce costs and create more equitable access to services across the country, we will have to keep in mind that alternate approaches may be needed to accommodate smaller providers, with limited numbers of customers.

5136             While symmetry in regulation and level of service is important, the equitable treatment of service providers, according to their capabilities, is also required.  Regulatory symmetry cannot always mean the blanket application of the same rules to all providers.

5137             The addition of 20 cents to the phone bill of customers in a system that serves only 500, or even fewer subscribers, will not produce the kind of funding required to implement sophisticated technological solutions within such a system.

5138             With respect to a number of issues covered by this proceeding, a one‑size‑fits‑all solution simply will not work.

5139             The consultations in which we participated raised a great many issues, representing the perspectives of a large number of accessibility groups.  We agree with the larger distributors that this current regulatory process needs to focus on a limited number of issues, where progress in implementing solutions is definable and doable.

5140             The issues need to be those with the highest priority in improving accessibility.  None of these issues is likely to be resolved properly without a clear focus and continued attention.  We believe that the Commission has set out some of the key issues in its Public Notice.

5141             We would now like to address, briefly, those measures and services that the Commission highlighted for discussion at this hearing.

5142             Based on our recent discussions with the accessibility organizations, it appears that emergency services are the highest priority.  That includes access to 911 telephone services and to emergency broadcast services by those with vision and hearing disabilities.

5143             Some of our member companies are now offering local telephone service and have become CLECs.  We expect that others will follow.

5144             The 911 services they provide are, in all cases, operated by third parties, the PSAPs, in conjunction with the large telephone companies.

5145             Enhancements to these services to improve accessibility will have to be developed and operated by these same groups.  They will have to determine the costs and propose how they should be funded.

5146             Our members' only concern in this area is to be treated equitably as these services are rolled out.

5147             With respect to emergency broadcast services, the CCSA already is an active participant in the BDU working group established by Public Safety Canada.  Public Safety's target is to have a national system implemented by the end of 2010.  That system will include both audio and video warnings of specific impending events that could threaten lives and property.

5148             While the CCSA member companies may well choose to switch all channels to an emergency message rather than add a message to each and every individual channel, their customers will indeed receive the warnings.  In fact, for those with disabilities, the more dramatic forced switching approach that we are considering may be the most effective means of alerting them to imminent danger.

5149             The CCSA and its member companies have very little experience with video and message relay services, having gotten into the phone business only very recently.

5150             However, based on what we have learned in connection with this proceeding, we believe that these are services which must be developed and implemented on a national basis, whether by service providers or by third parties with expertise in these areas.

5151             Service providers, particularly the smaller ones, should be able to subscribe to purchase such services, and should not be required to develop those services on their own.

5152             Based on the experience to date in the United States, these are very expensive services to operate, and specific funding mechanisms will be required to implement them.  Any such funding mechanism will need to be structured in such a way that small providers receive sufficient funds to cover their costs.

5153             A per‑subscriber fee, as I said before, would provide insufficient revenue where the number of customers is very small.

5154             The other issue with respect to advanced relay services is that customers must have access to the internet to take advantage of them.  For video relay services, we understand that some level of hi‑speed internet access is necessary for the service to be effective.  Such hi‑speed service is not available in many of the areas that our members serve, and is even less available in non‑cabled areas.  That fact needs to be considered before any such service is mandated.

5155             As closed captioning is embedded in the programming that our member companies receive, we do not have any comments on how its quality should be monitored or controlled.

5156             With respect to described video, most of our larger member companies are moving rapidly to the deployment of digital technology.  Almost all of them currently duplicate all channels in digital, and many will become 100 percent digital within a few years.

5157             Digital technology allows the passthrough of additional descriptive video information very easily for any channel on which it is available.  Our members commit to supporting that passthrough on digital.

5158             For the very small cable companies, however, the economics of their operations do not make digital distribution feasible, and those companies will continue to operate their analog systems.

5159             We do not believe that these small systems should be required to make the substantial investments required to pass through described video in analog.

5160             While we hate to say it, other alternative video providers are available in all of these markets, so customers do, in fact, have a choice if they want to receive described video programming.

5161             In the area of customer service and support, we certainly agree that more can be done.  While our member companies will never be in a position to establish separate internal groups to deal with customers with disabilities, better training would undoubtedly improve an understanding of their needs and how to address them.

5162             We do wish to emphasize that the CCSA's small, community‑based cable operators do tend to know their customers far better than distributors who operate on a national or regional scale, and in major urban centres.

5163             In these small systems, personalized service is not only possible, but it is the norm.

5164             While some customers may require an electronic bill instead of a printed one, others may want someone to explain the billing verbally, and some may prefer a large text format or Braille.

5165             Small systems should have the flexibility to respond to those requirements as they arise.  In their view, it makes no sense to mandate that any or all of these approaches be implemented universally, regardless of customer demand; that is, they live in their communities and deal with their customers personally.

5166             The CCSA and its members are aware that they may lack the expertise and resources to undertake all of the measures proposed in this proceeding.  However, we are confident that the accessibility organizations can and will assist us in developing solutions, and educating our people, and that cooperatively we will be able to ensure that all of our customers have access to our services.

5167             Websites are a particular challenge for small companies.  Just keeping them up to date to reflect service changes is difficult.  They do not tend to be completely revamped on a frequent basis.  Neither are new sites frequently launched.

5168             Despite the laudable goal of W3C compliance, it is not necessarily a practical requirement for the smaller companies.

5169             We do acknowledge that we need to understand the guidelines better, so that going forward, as website changes are made, we can incorporate as many of those principles as possible.

5170             In conclusion, and as we stated in our responses to many of the interrogatories, we think that the implementation of any new regulatory requirements should be made as flexible as possible, so as to recognize the different types and sizes of service providers involved.

5171             All of the telecom and broadcasting services in question are now offered in very competitive environments that, taken as a whole, provide customers, both disabled and others, with real choice as to how and from whom to access those services.

5172             CCSA's members will make every effort to respond to accessibility issues as completely as possible.  But, as is the case in all areas, they may not be in a position to do everything that the larger companies can do.  We recognize that that is not an ideal situation, but, in truth, it is the reality we face.

5173             If we have a couple of minutes left, I know that Harris had a couple of ideas about the consultation that he wanted to raise, and perhaps we can contribute something there.

5174             MR. BOYD:  Commissioner Denton, yesterday, suggested to a presenter that, if they had changed their mind since they had provided their written submissions, or even in the course of this week, in listening to some of the presenters, they should feel free to change their mind, and we hope that would also apply to us.

5175             In terms of the consultation process, we had originally proposed, like some of the other companies, that probably establishing a group for telecommunications and a group for broadcasting, on a general basis, would be a good framework, and this week Quebecor suggested that you would also have to divide those by language.

5176             So there would end up being four general groups.

5177             Most of the companies are involved in both broadcasting and telecommunications, so that would probably mean, given that we have French‑language and English‑language customers, that we would have to be involved in all four groups.

5178             Having gone through a fair number of consultations in recent months, talking to a lot of people here, and listening attentively for three days, we think that is not the best approach to follow.  We think that a much more specific approach, a targeted approach, would be better, where you would have specific working groups ‑‑ and I use the term "working groups" as opposed to "consultation" purposely, because I think we want to make sure that results are produced, that they are produced in a timely fashion, and that you have an ability to follow up on the work that is being done.

5179             Just by way of example, without necessarily being presumptuous that these would be the priorities you would choose, or that these would be the groups and companies that should lead them ‑‑ and I hope that people in the industry and the other companies will forgive me for mentioning their names.  I just want to give you a couple of examples of how we would see this unfolding, and there would be a limited number of these working groups.

5180             Take, for example, video relay services and IP relay services.  There seems to be a growing consensus that they should be national.  There are a couple of companies ‑‑ Bell Canada has proposed that it be national.  They have done a lot of work, a lot of research, and they have looked at how it works in the United States.

5181             TELUS has a trial planned on the IP side.

5182             SaskTel is, evidently, doing quite a bit of work.

5183             Obviously, those three companies would be ideally situated to be part of a working group on these particular issues.

5184             These are issues that affect deaf and hard‑of‑hearing people, so the blind, the vision impaired, and the physically disabled probably wouldn't want to be part of those groups.

5185             We would have virtually no contribution to that kind of working group either.

5186             Our only concern would be, at the end of the day, that the service be available to our members at a tariff rate, or at a reasonable cost that was equitable across the industry.

5187             That would be an example.

5188             You could also have, not to let the broadcasters off the hook, a working group that looked at quality control and monitoring of closed captioning, and probably, also, at the same time, look at a way of coming up with an inventory, and keeping it up to date, of programming with described video.

5189             It is very hard for us to tell our customers what is available if we don't know, and I don't think there is anybody in the country that actually knows that.

5190             So there should be some sort of an inventory accessible to us, or directly accessible to customers.

5191             A third example, just to give you one where I think we could play a role, would be on customer service and communications.  We have a fair amount of experience in that area.  I think that a lot of groups would be interested in that.  There may be common ways of explaining how to access described video, how to assist customers in a certain way.  There may be common training programs that we could develop, and I would include changes to websites in that particular working group.

5192             That would be across language groups and across both broadcasting and telecom.

5193             Just by way of example, we would see a small number of working groups that were mandated by you, that reported back to you, where it was very clear at the outset what they were going to do, as opposed to very large groups, which would maybe fill a room like this, and they would spend the whole first year trying to figure out what they were going to do.

5194             We will take your questions now.

5195             THE CHAIRPERSON:  Thank you very much.

5196             Before I pass the baton on to Commissioner Duncan, I want to understand that, by working group, you mean non‑involvement from the CRTC, other than establishing the terms of reference?

5197             MR. BOYD:  Certainly, if the CRTC wanted to be there as an observer, I think that would be fine, but I think you should mandate them and you should expect them to report back to you, and then you would have, obviously, a number of ways that you could deal with that.  You might have to put out a Public Notice on some of those things.

5198             You might have to agree, for example, for a video relay service, on the funding proposal which should be coming from that group, the timing for implementation.

5199             I don't think that you have to be part of it.  Sometimes it's better not to be inside it if you are actually going to monitor it and approve the results.

5200             It would be up to you, but I think that it has to be under your supervision.

5201             THE CHAIRPERSON:  I think the concern that was raised is not that you can't have a working group with the industry, perhaps developing something that they think is the right thing to do, it is getting the involvement and the support and the approval of the end user, the customer, who is disabled, and the carrier or the BDU incorporating their unique needs into the final solution.

5202             That is where I tend to hear that there is a level of confrontation that they are telling us needs our involvement.

5203             MR. BOYD:  I think, in all of those groups ‑‑ maybe I wasn't clear.

5204             I am suggesting that the relevant disability groups would be part of the working group.

5205             I think that you would need regular reporting, so that you could see whether or not they were making progress.

5206             I think the difference between that and what has been going on to date is that the groups really have no authority.  They have no clear mandate, and they are not necessarily structured with all of the right players.

5207             THE CHAIRPERSON:  Thank you for clarifying that.

5208             Commissioner Duncan.

5209             COMMISSIONER DUNCAN:  Thank you, Mr. Edwards and Mr. Boyd.

5210             First of all, I want to get a little more clarification, because I understood you to say that the BRS and the IPRS, you would leave that to, you said, three parties ‑‑ TELUS, Bell ‑‑

5211             MR. BOYD:  And SaskTel.

5212             COMMISSIONER DUNCAN:  But, then, you did, in responding to the Chairman, say that you thought that the relevant disability groups would be involved, as well.

5213             MR. BOYD:  Yes, and I think I had said that certainly the hard of hearing and the deaf would be part of that working group.  Those services are designed to help them.