Sign language ruling

[nihilicious]

"All government services must be available in sign language free of charge, according to a court ruling hailed by the deaf community for giving their languages de facto official status alongside English and French."

Wow.

Article here.

UPDATE: Here is a link to the full text.

Comments

[scottyt2]

The cost of this is going to be huge, but the accessibility it provides is unprecedented. It's things like this that challenge me though, because I like to think I'm very much for accessibility but then I think of the money and the bureaucracy that will be necessary to support this and I'm just staggered.

A university group I was a member once faced this sort of choice and because we wanted to be accessible, we decided offering sign language interpreters was something we had to do. It did increase accessibility -- our group gained two deaf students who were devoted to the group and very productive, but 2/3s of our groups budget was suddenly sunk into interpreters. (We even recieved outside funding to provide the interpreters, but it still took 2/3s of our budget.) So many of the services we offered ended up shut down in order to afford the interpretters for 2 members.

I just can't pick a side on this one.

[scottyt2]

Nowhere near a good solution in discussion groups and policy meetings based on interaction. It would exclude the deaf individuals. There were times when we had to sink to me typing what everyone was saying so one of the deaf members of the group could read, but it was a wasted effort as it proved an unacceptable solution.

[scottyt2]

Until voice recognition reaches a level where it's practical in these situations (which it hasn't -- I did a study on this for my employer just a few months ago -- and it's still years away from) there's no good and cheap solution, and the courts are never in favour of cost efficiency over service.

[scottyt2]

That presupposes literacy, which is something Federal services aren't allowed to require of someone.

[scottyt2]

Only if I get to run against you. I like easy wins.

[scottyt2]

Eventually Kerry and Gore will figure out they actually did win and that Bush is acting as president based on trickery and bravado.

[scottyt2]

I think it's a good idea, but I also think it's a very expensive undertaking, and I've been waffling back and forth on those lines.

Re: But the people who want to vote for you likely can't

[scottyt2]

Uh. . . .

Until we went on a Bush tangent, I think we were talking about running for Canadian government, and I am a Canadian citizen.

Comment deleted because it was more suitable for another individual post

[gsyh]

yeah.