JACK LAYTON MP, TORONTO-DANFORTH
October 7, 2005
I am writing to lend my whole-hearted support to the human rights action being brought forward by Gary Malkowski, Nancy Barker and Scott Simser to make captioning in movie theatres universally available.
As our population ages many more people will experience hearing loss and require assistance in fully accessing films. It is timely that this action is coming forward now. Apparently the use of technologies to assist the deaf, deafened and hard of hearing, in particular rear-window captioning, is increasingly common in the United States. There is no good reason that Canadians should be denied the use of this enabling technology.
With the recent passing of the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act, I cannot see any justification for movie theatres being inaccessible to this significant portion of the population.
I fully endorse all legal efforts to secure captioning in movie theatres to ensure full and equal access for deaf, deafened and hard of hearing people.
Sincerely,
Jack Layton
MP, Toronto-Danforth