Closed captioning bill flawed, accessibility advocates say

A member of Parliament has introduced a private member’s bill to make closed captioning mandatory for all programming, but two experts on the matter say that while it’s a well-intentioned effort, it may ultimately have little effect as written. On May 19, Bloc Québécois MP Caroline St. Hilaire (Longueuil – Pierre-Boucher) introduced Bill C-313, more properly titled An Act to amend the Broadcasting Act and the Income Tax Act (closed-captioned programming). In it, she proposes a change to the Broadcasting Act that would make it mandatory for all broadcasting undertakings to provide their entire programming schedule with closed captions. Likewise, Bill C-313 also suggests a change to the Income Tax Act that would allow public and exempt broadcasters to raise money from taxpayers to fund closed captioning. But Joe Clark, a Toronto-based accessibility consultant, says St. Hilaire’s proposal falls short of the mark in ensuring equal access for all with disabilities. "I’m really tired of everyone putting deaf people’s needs first. Deaf people are not more important than blind people, neither is more important than the other and neither is more important than non-disabled people," he says. "We have equality under section 15 of the Constitution, and I would not support something that only helped deaf people, because they’re not the only ones who need help." Another accessibility advocate, Vancouver lawyer Henry Vlug, expressed some doubt that the bill would get the requisite support to make it a law. He adds, "I would also have expected any serious MP to be in contact with the relevant advocacy groups, I am unaware of this having happened." Under its current framework for governing closed captioning and other accessibility initiatives, the CRTC has set a target for 90% of all broadcasting to include closed captions. In a policy document titled Broadcasting Services for the Hearing and Visually Impaired, the commission notes that larger broadcasters must caption at least 90% of programming during the broadcast day; however, many broadcasters’ conditions of licence exempt the block of time between midnight and 6 a.m. from that requirement. Smaller broadcasters and those catering to francophone markets are given more latitude, but are still encouraged to meet the 90% standard wherever possible. But Clark points out that anything short of total equal access for the hearing- and visually impaired contravenes section 15 of the Constitution Act (1982), which guarantees equal consideration under the law for all. At the current 90% quota, he adds, broadcasters could get away with airing more than a month of inaccessible programming every year. "Ten percent of that is 36-and-a-half days. So if you wanted to, you could spend the whole month of December with no captioning," he notes. Vlug, who is deaf himself, has filed complaints with the Canadian Human Rights Commission against broadcasters such as CanWest MediaWorks Inc. and the CBC in a bid to force them to air 100% captioned programming. In both instances, he was ultimately successful: in 2002 he reached a settlement with the CBC’s English-language news services binding them to broadcast 100% closed-captioned programming. In Global’s case, Vlug and the broadcaster reached a mediated settlement in 2004 that committed the broadcaster to the same level: 100% closed captioning of programming. However, Vlug says it shouldn’t take a human rights complaint for broadcasters to move to full accessibility for all. "They could do much more sooner," he says. "They kick and scream when I insist they do and that is why I take them to human rights . CRTC keeps saying they take captioning seriously but keeps allowing broadcasters to do less than human rights require." Despite Vlug’s victories at the commission, Clark says he’s documented numerous instances where the CBC has failed to live up to their commitments to total captioning. " there are still inaccessible buildings, we don’t have 100% captioning," he says. For instance, the Canadian Human Rights Commission’s ruling on Vlug’s complaint against the CBC requires the public broadcaster to caption all broadcast content, including commercials, promo spots and bumpers. But not only does the CBC occasionally broadcast such content without captions, it also broadcasts subtitled programming without captions as well, perhaps believing that subtitles and captioning are synonymous. However, as Clark notes, subtitles don’t include text representations of sound effects or commonly understood phrases, as would be the case with "oui" or "non" in a French-language film subtitled in English. Nonetheless, Clark admits that Canadians have the most access to captioned programming out of any national television audience, being able to benefit from both domestic and imported programs. "It’s indisputable that Canadians have access to more captioning than anyone else on the planet," Clark says. But even if St. Hilaire’s bill were modified to include other accessibility requirements such as audio description for the visually impaired, Clark says that he would personally oppose the proposed amendment to the Broadcasting Act if it was contingent upon the acceptance of the change to the Income Tax Act. "Section 15 of the Constitution all the established human rights law for decades says it is a responsibility to provide accessibility. It is not an optional feel-good thing."

Closed captioning bill flawed, accessibility advocates say

Broadcast | June 5, 2006

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