Procedure and House Affairs committee  Mr. Chairman, there are 300 Translation Bureau employees who work just for Parliament — both for Senate and the House of Commons, as well as other parliamentary activities. This includes the interpreters. There is a hierarchy of priorities for translation. Clearly, when Parliamen

Procedure and House Affairs committee  That is a very good question, Mr. Chairman. The service to members continues at all times. It all depends on the volume they receive on a particular day. In the House of Commons, more English than French may be spoken on a given day. The same is true in the case of documents. The

Procedure and House Affairs committee  If your translation request is urgent, it is important to specify that.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Mr. Proulx, you are asking me a question that I would have trouble answering today. I am not aware of the internal workings of the parliamentary translation bureau nor of the ways in which a translator is assessed, nor how quality standards are maintained. However, these are issu

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Thank you for your question. We began this discussion a long time ago. The popularity of BlackBerrys has most certainly grown. There are more than 1,600 of them in use in the House of Commons. Therefore, the services offered center around BlackBerrys. This thing we call a Pocket

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Mr. Chairman, I want to thank Mr. Guimond for his question. The life cycle of a computer is normally the same as the life cycle of a Parliament. As a rule, we make plans to replace the computers every three and a half or four years. Therefore, every three and a half or four year

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Mr. Speaker, when equipment nears the end of its life cycle, we always replace it with the most up to date software. Whether it was going to be Vista or some other software, it was the right time to take the plunge. All constituency offices are now coming to the point where they

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Absolutely, Mr. Godin. The equipment is all compatible and works well together.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Each time a migration is done, whether for a riding office or for a Hill office, we analyse the environment and applications specific to that office. Then, we work with the Member to develop a transition plan and we indicate the steps to follow. We also do whatever we can to help

Procedure and House Affairs committee  That's an excellent question, Mr. Chairman. The replacement programs that we propose have components that are destined for Members' Offices on the Hill, for senior House officials and for constituency offices. I'm referring to the software programs. We stress training and trans

Procedure and House Affairs committee  We're always there to help you, sir. As you know, we offer 24/7 support. If there was an issue with your BlackBerry in synchronizing your calendar function, I don't think it would have been a Vista or software issue. It must have been something very particular at that time. But w

Procedure and House Affairs committee  At the same time, maybe you're not aware, but for every constituency we have developed a complete package of information on what to do, how to do it, who to call, and on the things to be looking for concerning the migration to Vista for constituency offices. Maybe we should redis

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I will follow up with you on that later on.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Mr. Chairman, Mr. Guimond was the one who asked us to go forward with this pilot project, because he was experiencing some serious problems with synchronizing his schedule. He was the first to sign on to the pilot project and it allowed us to experiment with possible solutions. T

Procedure and House Affairs committee  It has been for at least two years now. We will take a closer look at Mr. Lukiwski's problem and rectify it, if possible.