IQALUIT, Nunavut -- Nunavut MP and federal health minister Leona Aglukkaq took what she calls “a new way of communicating” on a test drive April 10 in Iqaluit.
That’s when she spoke to Clayton Ungungai of Baker Lake, a student at Algonquin College in Ottawa, who is Deaf, thanks to a new video-conference telephone connection. Helped by sign language interpreters on both ends, Aglukkaq asked Ungungai when he planned to graduate and what his plans were.
Aglukkaq learned that at the end of the month Ungungai graduates in aboriginal studies and then he wants to head back to Baker Laker, where his communication will be that much easier due to the new video telephone he’ll have at home.
“Thanks to this project, hearing impaired people in Nunavut now have access to a state-of-the-art communications tool,” Aglukkaq said.
Six communities in Nunavut are now participating in a pilot project to test the video-conference equipment in a partnership between the governments of Canada and Nunavut, the Nunavut Broadband Development Corp., and the Canadian Deafness Research and Training Institute.
The special telephone, which is outfitted with a tiny video screen so that people on both ends can see each other sign, is an easy thing to use and not expensive to supply: $200 a phone, a $75 modem along with access to dedicated broadband, the most expensive and essential part of the new communication...
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