CBC has to caption every second of its broadcasts on CBC Television and Newsworld...
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A deaf person, Henry Vlug, filed a human-rights complaint about missing and inadequate captioning – and won. Starting in November 2002, CBC claimed to comply with that decision by captioning everything on CBC TV and Newsworld
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...but they aren’t captioning everything
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For three years, I watched CBC and took notes. I found well over a hundred cases where captioning was missing or inadequate
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I published my results, which seemed to be taken seriously
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In November 2005, I published my findings. The Canadian Human Rights Commission forwarded my findings to CBC, which eventually sent me two letters in response
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CBC conceded all my points about missing captioning...
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CBC agreed that all the kinds of captioning errors I found had happened or could have happened, and claimed to be tightening up its procedures.
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...but CBC sounded defensive and angry on other points
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CBC claimed that subtitled movies don’t need to be captioned (even though sound effects are never subtitled), that scrollup captioning was just fine for dramas and comedies, and that real-time captioning really could be used for programs that aren’t live. And they angrily defended themselves, using terms like disagree strenuously and dispute... vehemently
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Then the Human Rights Commission tried to scuttle the case
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My lawyer used the word “complaint” in a letter to the Canadian Human Rights Commission, which seized on it and made it sound like there was never a complaint in process and I’d have to file one from scratch. Basically, the Human Rights Commission tried to cancel its own investigation
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And CBC captioning hasn’t really improved
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None of the different kinds of captioning errors and omissions I found have been rectified. Nothing has been completely fixed. (I’m still taking notes, and now I publish my results regularly)
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If CBC can’t maintain 100% accessibility, who can?
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If a public broadcaster cannot maintain a legal requirement to provide 100% captioning, what hope do we have for 100% captioning anywhere? Why would private broadcasters, who will do anything to save a penny, put in any extra effort to attain 100% captioning? What hope do we have for audio description for the blind on most, or all, programming?
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