September 21, 2005
We are writing this letter on behalf of Huronia Hearing Impaired, an agency that served deaf, deafened and hard of hearing residents for over 20 years. We give our full support to Gary Malkowski, Nancy Barker and Scott Simser in their pursuit for full accessibility for deaf, deafened and hard of hearing people in movie theatres all across Canada.
We strongly believe that all deaf, deafened and hard of hearing people should have equal access in all movie theatres. The choice not to provide open captioning, DTS-CSS or any other kinds of captioning in movie theatres is a clear act of discrimination. Each deaf, deafened and hard of hearing person should have the same access as any other person who enjoys going to movie theatres.
With a growing number of deaf, deafened and hard of hearing people in Canada, there is no better time to provide captioning in all movie theatres. There are 3.1 million deaf, deafened and hard of hearing people in Canada who would benefit from captioning in movie theatres but are not able to do so with limited accessibility.
We applaud Gary Malkowski, Nancy Barker and Scott Simser for bringing this to the forefront and to ensure that all deaf, deafened and hard of hearing people have equal access to all movie theatres.
Sincerely,
Rose Gunton-Rumball
Community Outreach Coordinator
Huronia Hearing Impaired
Louise Gagne
Executive Director
Huronia Hearing Impaired