Triple Vision

In this, our 50th episode, the Triple Vision team engages listeners in a fascinating discussion on aspects of Canadian identity that we don't always think about. We speak with Sheyfali Saujani who, at the time of our interview, was completing her PhD based on her Personal experiences with multiculturalism, her life as a racialized immigrant, and a former CBC journalist. She also happens to be an individual with partial vision. Sheyfali guides us through these various intersectionalities towards the question of what being Canadian means, both for her, and all of us.
The issues that I faced often had to do with my race or the colour of my skin. People look at me, they see a person who is racialized as brown and they immediately think, 'oh, where are you from? Are you from India?' And then you get into this longer history because my family historically migrated from India to East Africa. We were then expelled from Africa in 1972 from the Ugandan dictator Idi amin, and found refuge in Canada.

In this weeks episode, Carolyn and Peter talk with Kelly MacDonald of AMI. They asked the question; In a world of increasing integration for people who are blind, death blind, and partially sided, is there still a need for specialized broadcasters such as AMI? In this entertaining podcast Kelly answers this question, while providing humourous anecdotes along the way about his broadcasting career.
We may not necessarily be meeting the local brodcaster, radio 98 or what ever they are. That is, not really mentioning disability at all in their news cast. When we talk politics there is never the "well for the seniors or disability this is what Justin Trudeau's platform is for that". We don't hear it, and it is because it is not the hot key. Does AMI do more of that? We are more likely to find, we are more likely to interview the people who at least will talk to us that way, and walk out saying "that should hold them for a while, good".

Welcome to a special episode of TripleVision entitled Happy Hour 2024.
In this hour the TripleVision team and community guests will share war stories and humourous encounters of what it is like to be a blind person navigating in a sighted world.

In episode 47 the Triple Vision team speaks with Sharlyn Ayotte, the Founder of T-Base Communications, now Allyant. We talk to her on the day of her retirement when she looks back on her long and pioneering career as an entrepreneur who pushed the boundaries on accessibility and universal design. As T-base the company was responsible for the Info touch system which delivered real time information to Canadians in multiple and alternative formats, as well as developed North America's first audio banking machine.
I had learned some things during that whole process. I spent probably a good year on investigating how the Government of Canada made information available to citizens and constituents of the country on matters that were really important to us. Whether it was election information or it was health based or whatever it happened to be. Since we were depending so much on computer technology to help us through the process, and its all digital, why couldn't they just support digital for other formats such as digital audio, digital braille, digital large print and all of those things.

In this month's podcast Peter and Karoline speak with Canada's Chief Accessibility Officer Stephanie Cadieux. Calling herself Influencer in Chief Ms. Cadieux talks candidly about the progress made to date on the implementation of the Accessible Canada Act, and the long road still ahead before Canada is expected to be accessible by 2040.
Too often accessibility is seen as a charitable activity, something you do when there is money left over or, when you get a grant. We have to flip that script and say, 'no, accessibility is as important as electricity'.