Deaf Canadians Hail Launch of CBCs Full Captioned Schedule

This is the day when the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation proves it is possible to provide closed captioning for 100 percent of the TV broadcast day!"

OTTAWA --- November 1st, 2002, is a day that will celebrated among Deaf Canadians forever," predicted Chris Kenopic, President of the Canadian Association of the Deaf. This is the day when the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation proves it is possible to provide closed captioning for 100 percent of the TV broadcast day!"

The CAD, which is the national organization of Deaf Canadians, praised the new CBC captioning policy, which goes into effect today. The CBC and Newsworld will be captioning all material they broadcast, including news updates, station promos, live interviews, sports, and emergency reports.

The policy responds to a complaint filed by Henry Vlug, a Deaf lawyer and a former President of the Canadian Association of the Deaf. The CADs current President, Chris Kenopic, and Executive Director James Roots both testified as expert witnesses in the case.

The CAD and Deaf individuals have been fighting for more captioning for a quarter of a century," explained Roots, whose own involvement in advocating captioning stretches back to 1977. In fact, it was the CAD itself that first brought captioning to Canada in the early 1970s. We worked with the CBC to introduce it in this country, and its a real pleasure to be working with the CBC again to achieve the dream of 100 percent captioning at last."

Roots added that the CBCs ability to achieve full schedule captioning just six months after promising to do so has proven the feasibility and affordability of the goal.

Weve been insisting for the past ten years that there is no longer any technological, financial, or human excuse for any TV station to fail to caption all of its programming immediately," he said. The CBC has finally proven us right. The precedent has been set, and no TV licensee is going to be able to get around it in the future."

Only paid advertising is not subject to the CBCs new captioning policy. Chris Kenopic promised that the CAD will be monitoring advertisers and will move quickly to contact any of them who reject the CBCs request for voluntary compliance with the policy.

Advertisers had better realize theyre going to look pretty stupid if their commercial is the only thing on the CBC that isnt captioned," warned Kenopic.
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For further information :    James Roots, Executive Director, Canadian Association of the Deaf, mailto:jroots@cad.ca or TTY (613)565-8882 via Bell Relay Service 511. Chris Kenopic, President, CAD, ckenopic@cad.ca, pager ckenopic@imessaging.net. Henry Vlug, hvlug@dowco.com, or TTY (604) 325-2151 via Relay (604) 681-2913. Website: www.cad.ca.