Thank you, Senator Boniface.
It's now my turn to speak.
Senator, would you like to chair the meeting while I ask questions? It's not really evidence, but I'll let you chair the meeting, in case you need to call me to order.
I won't repeat everything that's been said. We've already discussed the issue of producing documents and I don't see a way out. I agree with everyone; it didn't seem like anyone really intended to provide us with a translation of all these documents. I see that as well. Like Mr. Green, I'm not about to spend my weekend digging through millions of pages of documents before we begin drafting the committee's opinion. However, if I had access to all these documents in French, I'd be able to choose the ones that seem most relevant to me. If my selection was wrong and I left out an important document, I would be solely responsible and I'd have to take responsibility for that.
For the moment, I've been asked to indicate which documents I'd like to see. We've already been through this. Not so long ago, we asked for an index of the documents, since we couldn't have the millions of pages, indicating that we'd be able choose which ones we wanted once we had the index. It wasn't perfect, but at least we could have tried to determine what we were less interested in and what seemed very important to read. However, we never even got the index. I think we were told that it would cost $16 million to translate the index and $300 million to translate the documents. I'd actually love to hear the Clerk of the Privy Council explain how he came up with those figures, which seem enormous to me.
I'd like to know why it's impossible to obtain these documents when, in principle, we have the right to work in both French and English. I think this is important. Senator Carignan was right to say that this is the case not only for francophones, but also for anglophones, because some of the evidence and documents are in French, so anglophones won't be able to read them. Would it have made a difference? Would it have changed any of our opinions? Maybe or maybe not, but we'll never know because we can't read them. I think this problem will affect the quality of our report, since we won't be able to see all the evidence, not to mention that it violates our democratic rights.
As I've mentioned a couple of times now, we have to decide whether we want a bilingual Parliament or not. We can't say that we want it to be bilingual only when it doesn't cost too much or take too much time, and that if it becomes too expensive, we just won't bother anymore. If that's the case, perhaps we need to decide at what point bilingualism is too expensive. It would be easy to dismiss this question without a second thought, but I see it as a fundamental issue.
Personally, I think we do need to hear from officials with the Privy Council.
Mrs. Romanado, I think you put forward a good motion and I congratulate you on it. For someone who just joined the committee, you seem to have grasped the challenges involved.
That said, with all due respect, I think the difficulties associated with translation and the recent ruling by Judge Mosley are significant. Again, no disrespect, but I think we're botching our work here. Once again, until I see the documents that were tabled or presented to the Rouleau commission, and to which I was supposed to have access under the motion we adopted about a year and a half ago, I can't proceed blindly and I can't select the relevant documents.
I think it was Mr. Green—I may be wrong—who said that we could choose the documents we thought were important. That's all well and good, but if I don't know what documents are available, how can I determine which ones are important? It's a bit like telling a child to choose the candy he wants but without showing him the candy dish. His answer may come as a surprise, and the child probably won't get the candy he wanted because he didn't even know what was in the dish.
In short, I need to hear the people from the Privy Council explain, first and foremost, this business of spending hundreds of millions of dollars to translate documents. It seems astonishing to me.
I'm sure they'll provide us with some convincing explanations. I look forward to hearing them. That's the first step.
Next, we'll have to discuss with the Clerk of the Privy Council what we can do to obtain, at the very least, an index or list of documents to establish which ones we want translated. Of course, there's a good chance that, at the end of the day, our report will have to point out that we didn't have access to all the evidence. We may not have a choice in the matter.
I don't think we can afford to be lazy at this point. We need a minimum of rigour, and we must try to obtain as much information as possible in order to produce a report that is as consistent and rigorous as possible.
Thank you, Madam Chair.
Mrs. Romanado, you have the floor.