September 7, 2005
On behalf of the Goal: Ontario Literacy for Deaf People which is a provincial non-profit Deaf Literacy organization, I write this letter to endorse and give full support to the human rights action being brought forward by Gary Malkowski, Scott Simser and Nancy Barker to make captioning in movie theatres more easily accessible.
We, the GOLD board strongly believe that the Deaf, deafened, and hard of hearing have every right to access and enjoy movies in the theatres along with the rest of the society. Without rear window captioning, nor DTS-CSS, nor the chosen method of captioning, this is not an option available to us.
The practice of not providing rear window captioning, DTS-CSS, or other methods of captioning in all movie theatres is clearly discriminatory. The few theatres that do have this service are very limited, and only provide perhaps one movie shown with captioning for a short period of time. Why should the Deaf, deafened, and hard of hearing be excluded and put at this disadvantage? The technology is available to provide this benefit to a growing number of Canadians who have some degree of hearing loss.
We salute the courage and determination of Gary Malkowski, Scott Simser and Nancy Barker in their efforts to seek equal access to movies in the theatres for the Deaf, deafened and hard of hearing population in Canada. We shall look forward to the day when we will enjoy the same rights as others.
Sincerely,
Peggy Anne Moore,
Executive Director