Rob Mineault
Hey, and welcome to another episode of AT banter,

Steve Barclay
Banter, banter.

Rob Mineault
Hey, my name is Rob Mineault. Oh, and joining me in the room today, Mr. Ryan Fleury.

Ryan Fleury
Good morning.

Rob Mineault
And Mr. Steve Barclay.

Steve Barclay
I’d like to know why he always gets first billing.

Rob Mineault
Actually, that’s true. Why did why is that?

Ryan Fleury
I don’t know i’m the good looking one.

Rob Mineault
Oh, right.

Steve Barclay
Are you really good looking?

Ryan Fleury
I am a legend in my own mind

Steve Barclay
We can’t make you any more good looking. Rob.

Rob Mineault
I’ll bring that up in our podcast meeting. How you guys doing?

Ryan Fleury
Pretty good

Rob Mineault
I’m on fire about the show today. I’m telling you. I’ve been thinking I was thinking about all last night. And yeah,, I’m blown out of a cannon today, guys.

Steve Barclay
Yeah, it’s, it’s a hot button issue.

Rob Mineault
Yeah, well, let’s just get right into it because I don’t want to waste any daylight. Ryan, tell us what we’re doing today.

Ryan Fleury
Today we are speaking with Karen Mckay from CELA. The Center for Equitable Library Access, I think it was and also Daniella Levy-Pinto, who is from NNELS, the National Network for Equitable Library Services, about the recent announcement from the federal government about their funding being cut.

Rob Mineault
This pisses me off so bad. Okay, so I don’t even know where to start with this. Can someone else set this up? I’m too angry.

Steve Barclay
Well, I mean, both of these are national library services that are providing alternative format materials to Canadians. And the government in its infinite wisdom has decided to slash their funding over the next What is it? 3 or 4 years?

Rob Mineault
Yeah.

Steve Barclay
Until they are not being funded at all, by the federal government,

Rob Mineault
$4 million. $4 million. Like the government cannot put in $4 million to this. These services. It’s it’s absolutely incredible. So and it gives us some perspective. So I mean, this is the only way that Braille copies of books are being produced. Like there’s, there’s there’s really no other service that that provides this, right?

Ryan Fleury
Well, it’s Braille, It’s audio, it’s human narrated audio, it’s e-texts, large print, right, DAISY. Like it’s multiple formats that are being provided to people with print impairments from these two organizations that you can’t get anywhere else.

Rob Mineault
You can’t, like there’s there is no you can’t just go to the go to Chapters and be like, yeah, I’d like a Braille copy of, you know, this book. There is no other outlet for this. I mean, the government did try to do this to these guys back in 2018. And of course, they blinked immediately, when there was some public backlash. I’m just I’m stunned at this, How often do we go off on about a Braille literacy. And we’ve talked about the Marrakesh Treaty on the show, and we’ve talked about the Accessible Canada Act. When I, when I got that email last week, I was so, I couldn’t I could not believe this. Because, I mean, there’s no there’s no other plan in place. They’re just pulling the funding. They’re just saying, no, we’re not giving you the money to produce these materials. And, you know, I was always on the CELA website last night, taking a look around and, you know, one, there’s a stat on the website, one in 10 books are produced in alternate formats. One in 10.

Steve Barclay
You want to hear the part that’s even more galling about this and in terms of, you know how much this costs us as as Canadians as a percentage of our federal budget. It is .001% of our federal budget, it’s a tiny, tiny drop in the bucket of the federal budget. And, and and something that’s so important to people like how can they cut this of all things?

Rob Mineault
Yeah, exactly like Braille literacy. Hello, like, how are you going to push Braille literacy when no books are being produced in Braille? Like how, like, what, what?

Ryan Fleury
Well, and also like you just mentioned the Marrakesh Treaty, we’ve just recently entered into an agreement where we will share books cross borders with other nations. How are we going to do that if there’s no money?

Rob Mineault
This is honestly it is embarrassing for the government to be doing this is the I can’t even…

Steve Barclay
it is just outright shameful.

Ryan Fleury
Yes. Somebody picked some low hanging fruit and we can cut 4 million here.

Rob Mineault
I don’t even know like they probably spend 4 million on renovating the bathrooms in the parliament building like this is ridiculous. $4 million is nothing in terms of spending government spending. I would I bet you you could we could come up with such innocuous stupid programs that are in existence, the cost, we more than $4 million. But when it comes to like, you know, Braille books, well, let’s just cut the funding. Ridiculous. Yeah. Okay, well, before we go too far down the rant rabbit hole. Let’s go ahead and bring on our guests.

Ryan Fleury
All right. So, ladies, welcome to AT Banter. I am Ryan. And joining me in the room today are Steve Barclay.

Steve Barclay
I have coffee.

Karen Mckay
I am jealous.

Ryan Fleury
And Mr. Rob Mineault

Rob Mineault
Hello. And I also have coffee.

Ryan Fleury
Jeez, I’ve only had one so far I’m behind. And guys joining us are Karen McKay from CELA or the the Center for Equitable Library Access

And also Daniela Levy-Pinto. I hope I pronounced that properly.

Daniella Levy-Pinto
You did.

Ryan Fleury
Excellent from the National Network for Equitable Library Services.

Daniella Levy-Pinto
Hi

Ryan Fleury
thank you for joining us.

Rob Mineault
So why don’t we start with just for anybody out there who doesn’t actually really know what, what you guys do and the services that you guys provide? Let’s, let’s maybe start there.

Karen Mckay
Sure, I can take out this is Karen. So I’m the Communications Manager for CELA. And Daniela has more hands on experience than I do. But basically what CELA, and also what NNELS does is supply reading materials for people with print disabilities in a variety of accessible formats. So we do that in very similar ways to each other, but also slightly different ways. So CELA provides materials digitally, but also we provide physical materials. So those would be things like audio CDs, for use in DAISY players or other kinds of technology, and also physical Braille, and print Braille books, which are as probably, you know, they’re picture books, which have Braille overlays, so that a teacher and student or a parent and child can read those books together, regardless of how they read. And so we provide those two to our patrons, which are across the country through our member libraries, and also directly through our website.

Daniella Levy-Pinto
And I can speak about the NNELS side, as we also provide books in accessible formats for our readers. through public libraries. We have a program that produces print Braille children’s books, and have these physical copies in libraries across the country. And this is important for inclusive reading. We also work with publishers on the Braille side for to help them produce simultaneous releases the Braille format at the same time of production of release of the file. We respond, NNELS responds to patron requests of titles in, in the format that they need. NNELS employs people with lived experience of brain disability, to actually assess the accessibility of files and reading applications. So that’s, that’s the user perspective that that we provide. So as Karen said, we, we do similar things, but also do things a bit differently as well.

Rob Mineault
So it sounds like, like how much of a hand do you have in say, taking something like a book of fiction that’s, that’s new, and making that into a Braille book? Like, do you guys do the brailling? Or is that something that you do or do you assist the the actual publisher in producing that that Braille copy?

Daniella Levy-Pinto
So we do the brailling, thanks to funding, and then we do hire the transcribers to do the railing. A lot of the time what happens with publisher files is that they are not ready to be read with a refreshable Braille display. So human intervention, I mean, human work is needed. And and that’s what we do. We, we don’t do it automatically. We do it with human transcribers to ensure that everything is accurate, up to standards.

Rob Mineault
Yeah, well, and it sounds like that’s, that’s a fairly involved process. And maybe that’s that’s something that a lot of people don’t really realize. I think that that people maybe think, and I’m probably guilty of this, that it’s just the the the act of taking a digital file of a book and turning that into Braille would be a fairly straightforward process. But it sounds like that’s not necessarily the case, because it sounds like there needs to be human hands in that and there needs to be some conversion process involved in there.

Daniella Levy-Pinto
Indeed, and this is not only time consuming, but it’s it’s also not cheap. And the the funding does allow us to do that. And Braille as we know, is essential for literacy. And it’s a specific need that would not be addressed by by industry, precisely because a lot of intervention and formatting needs to happen to the files so that they work well, for Braille readers.

Rob Mineault
So we should also point out that the do that this is a free service that you offer to users, is that correct?

Karen Mckay
Yes, that is correct. And the same for CELA. It’s free to users.

Ryan Fleury
And so let’s let’s talk about the funding, how long has CELA, and NNELS been in existence and been receiving funding through the government.

Karen Mckay
So this, this, our stories are a little bit different. So CELA was established in 2014. And it was spun off essentially from the CNIB library. And so previously, the funding for this service was provided via charity by people donating to that, as well as with some government funding. So when we were established as our our own entity, we started to pursue different areas of funding, we still received some funding as we were separating from cniv from the the funds they received from the federal government. But then, just two years ago, I believe it was we were able to begin receiving the funding directly from the federal government. So that’s the $4 million that we’re talking about, that’s in jeopardy of being cut or has been announced that it’s been cut. So that represents about 65% of CELA budget, and then we receive funding and a couple of other ways. The federal or the provincial offices often fund us we’re funded by a number of provinces across the country. And then there’s also some areas where we are funded directly by libraries, they subscribe to our services. So it’s a little convoluted it’s not an easy answer to that question. But the federal funding that we’re talking about the funds that are in jeopardy, that money goes directly towards the production and the distribution of accessible materials. The other funding from the provinces are more about how we support our library service. So that runs the, you know, the digital downloads and that sort of thing that we need to do. The administration all of that kind of thing is funded out of our provincial funding, but the materials that we provide are funded out of the federal funding,

Ryan Fleury
And Daniella will it impact NNELS the same way that it’s impacting CELA.

Daniella Levy-Pinto
So I can offer a little bit of history as well. So NNELS started in or was created in late 2013 by a group of libraries that wanted to ensure that public libraries would have would have more hands on service for their users. These this group of libraries the nails creators fund the operations in terms of maintaining the repository of books, but some of the production is also covered by provincial provincial partners. Not all provinces have Nels services. Most provinces do. And some of the production especially for ebooks is covered by the provincial partners. Now, the federal funding that we are also talking about Nels started getting it in 2018. Importantly, to, to expand services to expand the range of formats that nails could produce. So now started working with Braille and audio after receiving this funding. And also, this funding has allowed nelles to work more closely with publishers precisely to help them become better able to produce accessible born accessible content. So a lot of work, all this work is or would be effective. Also. Nelson analysis is creating videos and tutorials and materials to provide information to users on how to use different reading applications. And so it’s there are several projects that would would be affected if funding is lost.

Ryan Fleury
Right. And that funding is $4 million to be basically gone within the next four years. Is that correct?

Karen Mckay
Yeah, the government’s planning to reduce it by $1 million each year until it is fully withdrawn in the year 2024 / 2025. So that $4 million is split between CELA and NNELS. So essentially, our budgets are each of our budgets are being cut by 25% for the federal money each year until there’s there’s no money left for production for for CELA stuff.

Ryan Fleury
Right. And so back, I think in 2018, this this popped up, as well, did it not that there was talk that the government was going to cut the funding?

Karen Mckay
Yes, it did. And at that point, CELA was still working with cniv with regards to the funding, and so that funding was restored very quickly, once the media caught, essentially, they this the funding was restored, within a few hours, we’d receive notice of that. So the other thing to sort of to bring into this piece is that the government in 2018, signed Marrakesh Treaty, which also essentially, you know, they they committed to not only folks in Canada, but around the world to be providing print materials for people with print disabilities. And, you know, by cutting this funding, they’re withdrawing their, their support of that and pushing it on to other funding sources be that industry or provinces or municipalities. And really, that’s going to introduce a level of inequity back into the system that you know, that sila analysis have been working very hard to eradicate over the past number of years. So the the federal funding, yeah, we’re we’re kind of scratching our heads a little bit about the withdrawal of the federal funding, because it doesn’t make sense on a lot of different fronts.

Steve Barclay
Who in government is responsible for the decisions to cut this funding?

Karen Mckay
So we’re funded through Minister Qualtrough’s office and her, her office title keeps changing, but its … Do you remember it? It’s, I’m just gonna look it up. I should have my screen title. Yeah, employment, workforce development and disability inclusion. That’s the name of her ministry. So she’s responsible for the funding for, for CELA and NNELS. For this project, there was also some funding available through Heritage Canada, which is kind of a different thing. And it’s supporting publishers. And Daniella probably can speak more to that than I can. But the sort of the the sad piece is that all of this funding that was put in place to support accessible funding is all drying up at the same time. And they, you know, the the onus is being pushed to other entities other than the federal government. And as I said earlier, that introduces inequities into the system that, really, we need to move past right all Canadians, all Canadian residents should have access to materials that they that they can read. And if government needs to support components of that because there’s not a place in the market for that to be done efficiently and effectively and cost effectively. Then the government man has made this commitment the federal government’s made this commitment through Marrakesh to to provide these materials and It’s also you know, we it calls into, into question human rights issues, you know that we know, they signed on to the developmental points through the UN. And so you know, one of that is education and having access to the resources that you need for education. So there’s lots and lots of layers to this question. But really, if people want to get in touch with somebody, it’s Carla Qualtrough, who’s making the decision on this. And also, we’re asking people to get in touch with Chrystia Freeland as well. Because her, you know, her, her portfolio also influences this one.

Daniella Levy-Pinto
Yeah, I can speak more about the heritage funding or the funding that how accessible publishing is, is working. So, in 2019, the federal government allocated $22.8 million dollars in five years for Accessible publishing. So this would be to work directly with publishers to create awareness, teach them about accessibility, and build capacity for them to create born accessible content. So, Sue, we are on year two about to start your three year three of that initiative. NNELS has been working with publishers in a lot of helping them with a lot of the work, knowing that Canadian independent publishers, I mean, working with them, it is clear that there is a lot for them to do, a lot of them will not be able to create more accessible content, I’m only talking about for example, ebooks, ebooks, by by the time when the heritage funding is supposed to, to end as well. We know that not only publishers will not likely be able to, to produce all the content they create born accessible, but also these other materials does not. There’s there’s not a commercial incentive for them to produce. What’s going to happen with with all of these, and we know that publishers can’t, so publishers have have also been very supportive of our campaign. They value the work, they recognize they will not be able to fill all the gaps for accessible reading for people with a broad range of disabilities.

Ryan Fleury
And so this announcement from the government was made last week and the media outlets, CBC is done interviews, AMI, Global, you know, we’re broadcasting this, as well. It’s been out on Twitter, Facebook, as the government approached you guys yet to enter into any sort of negotiations? Or is Are they gone silent?

Karen Mckay
Um, so we have been, we started advocating with the government, as soon as the announcement was made back in part in December as part of the Fall Economic statements, we’ve been having ongoing conversations with them. But as of yet, we have not been presented with with any kind of resolution. You know, the these, these processes, unfortunately, often are slow and a bit onerous. And there’s a bit of gamesmanship in it with regards to how these things play out. But what I what I can tell you is that, you know, we’re continuing to advocate that we are seeing a lot of response to the advocacy campaign we’re hearing lots of letters are being passed on from our, our patrons from our users, from their family members. And we’ve gotten lots of support from other outside organizations, learning disability organizations are on board and are writing letters. letters are going out from libraries. We’ve had, you know, response from Authors and Publishers. So there’s a groundswell of awareness, which is, which is fabulous. And I’m sure there’s lots of MPs that are doing their research now about what accessible book publishing because of all the phone calls, they’re getting into their, into their offices. We are hopeful we know that Carla qualtrough has been a great advocate of people with disabilities in the past. And, you know, up until this situation, we we have been quite pleased with how she had advocated not just only for Priscilla users, but more broadly for the disability community. And so we’re hopeful that, that she’s working behind the scenes to try and turn this ship around a little bit because, you know, $4 million for the federal government in the context of their broad budget and in the context of what that money represents, and how valuable Is to a wide number of Canadians. There’s estimated one in 10 Canadians with print disabilities, that $4 million is, you know, a drop in the bucket and love them to drop it into my bank account. But that’s not gonna happen. But you know, it’s not a lot of money in the context of the federal government budget. And so. So we’re hopeful, but we don’t have any great news to share right now.

Ryan Fleury
Well, and Carla herself has a vision impairment. So hopefully, she’s part of the community. She’s advocating, you know, hard and strong to the people above her.

Karen Mckay
Yeah, I would hope so. You know, she has been a friendly face in the past. And I’m sure that this is a very painful decision for her like, I don’t think it’s one that she’s taken lightly or advisedly. I do think that there’s, you know, that there needs to be a broader conversation about how we have sustainable funding for these sorts of services, which are not commercially viable. Which, again, if we, you know, if we push them down on to different levels of government or into different funding models would introduce inequity, like I said before, and so you know, that there’s a role for the federal government here. And Daniela can speak more, because she’s more involved with the publishers, but we know that publishers are paying attention, we know that they’re making efforts to create more books and at born accessible way. But you know, there’s, they’re also dealing with all of the issues with COVID, all the resource issues that have come from that, you know, there’s lots of layers at play here. And so to withdraw this funding now, this year, without really a solid plan for how we’re going to serve folks with print disabilities going forward, especially Braille readers, in particular. Yeah, we just were scratching our heads a little bit.

Daniella Levy-Pinto
Yeah. And since we work closely with publishers, we really know they are. It’s very encouraging. And very, it’s great to see them working hard on trying to make trying to do the best they can for creating accessible content. But they are also I mean, not not only dealing with the impact of the pandemic and having to adjust internally, there is also a lot of variety of materials. And it’s not as simple as as producing now everything by decree, for example, books with a lot of images need different treatments, publishers don’t have yet expertise on creating image descriptions for that content. So there is still a lot of work that needs to be done. Also important to remember that the industry based solution would only apply to Canadian independent publishers that go through heritage, or I are funded federally through through heritage, this would not apply to international publishers or multinational publishers. So what happens with with that content, it’s, there are so many pieces, and there’s so much content that would likely fall through the cracks. So by ensuring that both NNELS and CELA can continue to operate, it ensures more of an equitable reading landscape for everyone, regardless of province, regardless of economic status. Also, a commercial solution, of course, means that people need to pay for that, for that content. And in a community of people where in which unemployment is so high, this is also an issue. Another issue that both nails and Scylla are very important for is reaching that content reaching that accessible content. We know that reading platforms using public libraries, they’re not necessarily accessible with assistive technologies with screen readers, for example. So until all of that all of those pieces have a solution. We feel that it is really important to ensure that there will be continued support.

Rob Mineault
Yeah, I mean, I have to say that, you know, being being outside of of all of that, in terms of like, not really being sort of an insider into the what the government’s been doing and what they And how the funding has gone like I’m, I’m shocked, I am shocked that they’re doing this. And I mean, especially in the in the age of via the Accessible Canada Act and the Marakesh treaty, all these pieces that were falling into place in terms of really being able to create this idea of an equitable landscape. To pull the plug on this funding, it seems so counterintuitive, and and I have to agree, like as a taxpayer, like $4 million, that’s your absolute, that’s a drop in the bucket. In fact, they should triple the funding, because, you know, like, the stat on on the website is, you know, fewer than one in 10 books are being are able to be produced in an accessible format. That’s not even acceptable. You know, it’s, it’s, it is it just it shocks me that this is happening. And, frankly, as as somebody who, for years has really been an advocate for Braille literacy. It, it’s, it’s extremely frustrating.

Karen Mckay
Yeah, we would echo all of that. And if you wanted to give Carla Qualtrough a call and say that.

Rob Mineault
I definitely will.

Karen Mckay
Yeah, it is, you know, it’s it is a bit disheartening in, in the face of, you know, knowing that only one in 10 books are accessible. I had a conversation with a patron the other day around this, and the impact of this, and I said, you know, without these federal funds, we would not be able to have produced the books for Canada reads, which is happening right now, which is a national conversation about the one book that all Canada should read. I mean, that’s their sort of their tagline. And so that would leave folks out of that national conversation. And those books are, you know, they’re selected to reflect Canadian experience, and they’re selected to reflect a variety of stories and to be inclusive. And to, for us to say to folks, I’m sorry, we can’t, you know, we don’t we don’t have the funds to make this happen in the timeline that needs to happen. We don’t have the support from the government to make it happen, you can’t be part of that conversation is heartbreaking, right. And it flies in the face of everything that we are learning right now about equity, equity, Equity, and Diversity and Inclusion, and all of those things that the government itself has championed. As part of, you know, not only including folks with disabilities more broadly in our in our society, but just everyone making sure that everybody has a place and a voice and the resources they need to succeed. And so, you know, this is it’s a, it’s a technical issue in some areas, it’s a conversation that we need to have with a variety of people, but at its core, it’s really about do, we want to make sure that everybody can be included. And when you when you break it out in those sorts of terms in that kind of framework? You know, it’s an easy, yes. And we are hopeful that the government will see it that way, too, given the amount of, you know, the amount of funds really is not substantial. And there’s, you know, there’s a case to be made, we know that materials available to to folks in accessible formats, helps them with their education, and it helps them with their economic prospects, it helps them in their career development. It helps them in social inclusion, like, for example, what the Canada reads, which speaks to ensuring that they have connections, and there’s mental health components in there. And so those $4 million, you know, as an expense are probably offset by a huge number of economic and financial benefits, right to make sure that these that everybody has access to these sorts of things that they can succeed. You know, we had a comment from a lawyer the other day on Twitter, who said that the materials that he was able to access an accessible format, you know, help to be successful in his career, he’s a blind lawyer, and, you know, you think, Okay, well, this, this gentleman’s probably paying, you know, reasonable amount of taxes, he’s probably contributing exponentially back to the community in non financial terms. And so, you know, there are other supports for other areas in the government. And you think, okay, that, you know, they measure those economic payoffs, which is fair, given that it’s a financial situation, but, you know, there are financial arguments to be made about, this is important. There’s also social ones, and there’s just basic humanity ones, like, let’s include folks, let’s make sure that everybody can succeed, let’s give them a level playing field and a platform on which they can become, you know, contributing members of society, that they can be successful, they can be healthy. And so we’re just we’re hopeful the government will, will look at it in those terms rather than raw financial terms.

Ryan Fleury
I think I’m going to start a campaign I’m blocked totally blind myself. And so I think the campaign I’m going to start is if the government is going to consider cutting the funding to a library service that affects millions of people. My campaign is I’m going to reach out to all the blind, visually impaired, print impaired people out there and say don’t pay your taxes this year. Let’s give it to CELA and NNELS instead.

Rob Mineault
I don’t know if I would do that.

Steve Barclay
Yeah, I don’t think the jail terms is really what we’re looking for.

Ryan Fleury
Sometimes it takes a protest, you got to stand up for what’s right.

Steve Barclay
But it is it is super frustrating when you look at other decisions this government is making, you know, they’re spending $12 billion on a pipeline right now. And they can’t find for for for a service, that that really does serve a lot of Canadians very, very well. That’s crazy.

Karen Mckay
Well, and even if we take a step back, like, you know, knocking on wood, there’ll be a solution quickly with this. But what we don’t want to see is that it comes through as part of a stopgap measure, you know, it’s, we’re restoring funding for a year or whatever, right, we need to have, we need to have a sustainable funding formula. And we know that industry wants to step up, and that you know, that there are other players that need to come to the table. But that, you know, this situation where every year or every other year, we’re having to lay everybody’s hair on fire, in order to maintain our funding is not sustainable, that’s not great for the community. You know, it’s not great for our ability to plan longer term. It’s not great for for publishers, because they don’t know which way is up with regards to what they need to do for accessibility. So, you know, we would be grateful to make sure that, you know, if we receive or that there’s, there’s funding sustained for the next year. But what we really need is a long term commitment that’s honored by all levels of government, and also, you know, across all parties, federal parties, that they’re committed, and that they understand the value of this, which is why it’s so important that we have so many folks writing their MPs, and educating them about this, but also, you know, really drawing this awareness for the broader public, which is definitely happening, that we’re seeing on, you know, media coverage, and we’re definitely seeing through our Twitter feeds and that sort of thing. Because, you know, when you explain this to folks, they’re like, wow, this doesn’t make any sense at all. And it really does not.

Ryan Fleury
And so if people were interested in sending letters, do you have sample letters that people can download and fill out on your websites?

Karen Mckay
CELA does. So if you go to celalibrary.ca. Right on our on our front page there, you can link out to our advocacy page, and it’s got sample letters for em, to write to your MPs, it’s got speaking notes, if you want to make a phone call. It’s got social media materials that you can download. We’ve got some questions and answers there for some of the questions that we’re getting from folks. And I think, I think NNELS has something similar similar, don’t they Daniella?

Daniella Levy-Pinto
Yes, we also have an advocacy page. So it’s And then there’s, there’s the advocacy page there. And there are also sample letters and more information about the about what this means some of the campaign, some media stories as well,

Karen Mckay
Yeah, the messages that we’re trying to really hit on are, how important it is for people to write their MPs, because that’s what’s going to, you know, to turn this around. But also, as I said earlier, it’s going to provide some education for people that maybe aren’t completely aware of this issue. And that our goal is in our conversations with the government is to not just, you know, restore funding now under public pressure. But to help seal I am Nell’s and the publishing industry come up with a plan and provide sustainable funding so that we are not in a situation in an ongoing basis, we are happy to work with publishers and with the government. You know, we want to find ways to make these resources available to more folks more easily, more consistently with higher quality, all of those sorts of things are part of our goals, but we need government help to make that happen.

Daniella Levy-Pinto
I would completely echo that. So what people can do is continue writing to their MPs or, you know, contacting their MPs and expressing support for this. We are hopeful, but we need to raise our voices together and make very, very clear that these services matter for equitable reading,

Rob Mineault
You know, we’re certainly gonna encourage every single one of our listeners to do just that. But guys, I just want to say thank you so much for all the work that you guys are doing in this regard. And you guys are fighting the good fight. Fingers crossed, that, you know, we can reverse this and I think that hopefully there maybe will be a silver lining in in the sense that it will bring to the forefront and spotlight The importance of these services and, you know, in the fact that we, we need to do the opposite of cutting the funding, we need to actually increase the funding and, and you’re right, you know, get get some sort of a plan together.

Karen Mckay
Well, from from your lips to Carla Qualtrough’s ears, please.

Steve Barclay
Come on, Carla.

Karen Mckay
Guys. And thank you so much for for hosting us and for letting us talk about this issue and for raising the issue with your your listeners, because really, we need we need across the board support. And we’re so grateful that you’re helping us to share this message.

Daniella Levy-Pinto
Yes, thank you so much. I were very grateful for for the platform and, and for your support. Thank you so much. Awesome.

Rob Mineault
Thanks. So thanks so much, guys. Best of luck. And hopefully we can have you guys on at a future date and talk about all the great new funding you got.

Unknown Speaker
That wouldn’t be wonderful. We would love to come back with great news.

Rob Mineault
Yes. Perfect. Thank you so much.

Karen Mckay
Thanks again.

Daniella Levy-Pinto
Thanks again.

Ryan Fleury
Bye. Bye. Have a good day.

Karen Mckay
Take care.

Rob Mineault
Man, this is so this is so frustrating, you guys. So I’m angrier now after the interview?

Ryan Fleury
Well, I think Karen was saying that, you know, with this funding cut at 65% of their I guess operating budget to produce books and alternative format for their patrons.

Well, yeah

It’s a big chunk.

Rob Mineault
Yeah, I mean, let’s be honest, without it without a plan in place. If this funding gets pulled, I mean, they’re, they’re pretty much sunk. I don’t know how you can operate with that huge of a chunk out of your, your operating budget.

Ryan Fleury
Yeah, you’ve got stuff you got transcribers to pay, you’ve got maintenance on on Braille printers, you know, because they’re converting books into Braille and alternate alternate formats. That all takes time and and people to do that it’s not done using machine learning or anything like that. So yeah, it’s it’s gonna be detrimental to the service.

Rob Mineault
I think that what a lot of people don’t understand and I have to say, that I’m I have been guilty of this before is that they don’t really understand what the process is to take a book. And to turn that into an alternative format, whether that’s large print or if it’s Braille. That’s, that’s quite the process. And you can’t you like to make that into some sort of a commercial model. Like Come on, like that would mean that probably to produce a Braille book, and then the past that expense on to say, a consumer. I mean, a $30 book would probably cost somebody What $200? Yeah, I

Ryan Fleury
don’t know. You know, there was I think, and Steve, correct me if I’m wrong, but didn’t it used to be or biggest still, probably is that one print page, almost equated to like four Braille pages. So yeah, you know, if you if you think you’re buying a print book from chapters, that’s, you know, I don’t know, 200 pages? Well convert that into a Braille book that now gets mailed out to a patron who wants that book in Braille. There’s time involved to produce that book. It has to be reformatted. It has to be transcribed. Everything has to be aligned like it’s it’s not just the entered into Word or Duxbury, and hit print. Now, this is a time consuming process. Yeah, labor intensive process. Yep.

Rob Mineault
Somebody who’s able bodied, you can just you can go to the library, browse the books, pick whatever you want, you take it out, you can go read it for free.

Steve Barclay
That’s just what a public library does.

Rob Mineault
Yeah, that’s right. And so next time, you know, go to your public library and go try to find a Braille book.

Ryan Fleury
It’s not even just Braille, you know, like, let’s say, I don’t know, Stephen King comes out with a new book tomorrow, you know, sure, I could probably go and get that on Kindle or audible or some of the other services. But there are people who need books in a specific format, whether it’s human narration, whether it’s Daisy text, Daisy audio, Braille, these guys are providing a service of providing books in so many different formats that nobody else gives you access to. Yeah. So you may have dexterity problems. You can’t swipe and tap on your tablet. Or maybe you’re not computer literate. You need the Braille format, or you have a daisy player. Like there’s nobody else doing this. These guys need a sustainable funding model.

Rob Mineault
Well, I thought that that was a really interesting point, too, because, you know, if you look at the big picture, like the government tried to do this in 2018. So what happened? Big public pushback. So they blinked they said, Oh, no, JK, JK, here you go. Funding back. And then here we are, you know, three years downstream, and they just do it again. So it’s clear to me that this is not something that they consider a priority. And one of my fears is That, okay, they’ll blink again this time, but then two years ago, they’ll just, they’ll just gonna keep doing this until they’re eventually, you know, they were people down and they just managed to do it without that much of a public backlash, like, I don’t know what the big picture plan for them is. But like this is this, it just seems insane to me that they are doing this, you know, a couple years after passing this Accessible Canada Act that we made such a huge, big deal about how, you know, we want we want Canada to be a fully accessible country. Like, what a joke, like you can’t even throw $4 million at, you know, providing alternate access to the basic fundamental reading. Like, that’s insane.

Steve Barclay
Hey, did you know the Prime Minister has an official country residence at Harrington Lake Quebec? Did you know that?

Rob Mineault
No, I didn’t.

Steve Barclay
Yeah, it’s being renovated right now guess how much is being spent on renovations?

Rob Mineault
Hmm.

Ryan Fleury
$25 million

8.6 million.

Oh, my God,

Steve Barclay
They can find $8.6 million to renovate a residence that the Prime Minister I think spent Easter in once. But they can’t find $4 million for a library service that serves hundreds of 1000s of Canadians.

Rob Mineault
Oh, my God

Ryan Fleury
It’s it’s ludicrous. And you know, I, I’ve mentioned this on previous shows, but you know, I have to try it, I think and dig deeper to try and get somebody from the government or somebody who’s helped developing the standards for this Accessible Canada Act? Because really, you know, it has been passed. But right now, I don’t I have no idea what that act contains. I know, standards are being looked at now. boards are being set up, you know, is literacy going to be a part of this now Accessible Canada Act? And, you know, there’s there’s just so many unknown questions as to why this is still a discussion.

Rob Mineault
Yeah, I mean, you have to remember the Accessible Canada Act was is really the only thing that was in there was just, you know, basically making federal government services more accessible, right. It did nothing in terms of like, anything else?

Ryan Fleury
And at the point it was passed? Yes.

Rob Mineault
And you know, and yes, they were talking about making like these special minister positions, which, as we found out last week, when we talked to Mike, like a lot of those positions haven’t even been filled yet.

Ryan Fleury
Right.

Rob Mineault
it’s so you know, obviously, I don’t know. Like, I don’t want to be too cynical about this. But it even at the time, when the Accessible Canada Act was passed, we were talking about, well, geez, I really hope that this isn’t just a PR stunt, or this is just just, you know, a lot of a lot of smoke and mirrors. Gee, it really feels like that could be the case, because I don’t know, I don’t get the feeling that accessibility and inclusion and equity is really all that much of a priority right now.

Steve Barclay
It certainly doesn’t seem like nope.

Ryan Fleury
There you go.

Rob Mineault
But like I said, like, hopefully what this does is that hopefully the pushback on this and let me get — Okay, so anybody who is listening to this podcast, we demand you to reach out, contact your MP, I don’t care, open your window and stick your head out the window and scream about this, like this is bullshit. I think that if you have any sort of skin in the game, and even if you don’t, even if you’re able bodied or whatever, and you have any sort of an interest in making the world a better place, this is a really, really important issue like this is we’re not just talking about, you know, being able to read the newest Stephen King book. in Braille. It goes far beyond that, like the implications of this, it’s going to affect Braille literacy, because people can’t be Braille literate, if they can’t actually access any books that are Braille.

Ryan Fleury
Parents, parents may not even be able to read stories to their children, because these Braille / print books won’t be available.

Rob Mineault
Yeah. and that in turn is going to impact Braille literacy, which is going to turn impact things like the employability of somebody because if they’re not Braille literate, they’re much less likely to be employed farther down the line like this. The implications of this are really far reaching. Getting this funding back is really important, but also putting the spotlight on how important this the work that sila and nelles is doing. it like that really needs to be highlighted as well and we need more funding, not less funding.

Ryan Fleury
All the information you need is on the CELA and NNELS website.

Rob Mineault
We’ll put it in the show notes. Get out there, contact your MP. Let’s turn this boat around.

Ryan Fleury
Alright, so, Rob

Rob Mineault
Yes?

Ryan Fleury
Where can people find us?

Rob Mineault
Oh, they can find us at http://www.atbanter.com

Ryan Fleury
They can also find us on Facebook and Instagram.

Rob Mineault
What he’s what he’s throwing he’s throwing curveballs today. Okay

Steve Barclay
Email address is cowbell@atbanter.com.

Ryan Fleury
Well done, sir.

Rob Mineault
Man,

Ryan Fleury
man. All right.

Steve Barclay
So hang on, hang on. Before we go here. I think it’s important to mention, as they said contact Carla Qualtrough, the minister in charge. There’s two ways to contact Carla. And please be respectful and specific in your ask to Carla. She can be reached by mail for free no postage required when you’re mailing an MP. It is Carla Qualtrough House of Commons Ottawa Ontario. K1A0A6. And if you don’t know how to spell Qualtrough, because it is QUALTROUF. And again, be respectful. Wait, Oh,

Rob Mineault
really? F?

Steve Barclay
Oh, no, sorry.

Rob Mineault
Coffee hasn’t kicked. Let’s try that again.

Ryan Fleury
And if you don’t know how to spell Qualtrough, which clearly I do not. It is Qualtrough

Excellent.

Rob Mineault
All right, that is gonna do it for us this week. Thanks, everybody for listening in. Big thanks to Karen and Daniella for joining us. Once again. encourage everybody to reach out to their MPs. And we will see everybody next week.

Ryan Fleury
Bye.