Declaration of Emergency Committee on Feb. 27th, 2024

[Matthew Shea]

Yes, that would be whatever title they have saved it as.

My colleague Alexandra has been looking through them. We see an email to so-and-so or a document about X, so they tend to have enough information that I think you can get a sense of what they are. In addition, we can give a listing or a sorting. We talk about how 88,000 of that 152,000 are productions from parties. We can sort them by party. If you have an interest in certain respondents over others, we can prioritize those.

[James Maloney, Liberal, Etobicoke—Lakeshore, ON]

Okay. Then we can pick and choose whichever one we want.

[Matthew Shea]

That is our goal, to give you a menu of options and allow you to pick, if you are interested in a particular person who submitted documents.

[James Maloney, Liberal, Etobicoke—Lakeshore, ON]

Can you give me a ballpark of how long that list might be?

[Matthew Shea]

We can do it in a matter of a couple of weeks, we think. I'm loath to give an estimate on behalf of the translation bureau, but we're talking about 152,000 times 10 or 15 words. I don't know if they want to dare give an approximate—

[James Maloney, Liberal, Etobicoke—Lakeshore, ON]

It's a list of 152,000 items.

[Matthew Shea]

Exactly.

[James Maloney, Liberal, Etobicoke—Lakeshore, ON]

Then we go through that list with a relatively short description of what the documents might be, and then we have to decide which of those documents we might want to look at. In order for us to look at those documents, you're then going to have to translate them and give them back to us.

[Matthew Shea]

That's correct.

[James Maloney, Liberal, Etobicoke—Lakeshore, ON]

In order to get those documents translated, you're going to have to request funding from somebody if it's more than a moderate sum of money.

[Matthew Shea]

I think the list we could probably do—

[James Maloney, Liberal, Etobicoke—Lakeshore, ON]

No, I'm talking about the next stage after the list.

[Matthew Shea]

I mentioned at the start four large groupings. One of the groupings is these internal administrative documents. That's 11,000 documents. If the committee were to say it's confident that it doesn't care about the HR and the finance and the internal documents, we can take 11,000 off the table right off the bat and focus on the rest.

[James Maloney, Liberal, Etobicoke—Lakeshore, ON]

Thank you.

[The Joint Chair, Hon. Gwen Boniface]

Mr. Maloney, your time is up.

Mr. Fortin, you have two minutes, followed by Mr. Green for two minutes.

[The Joint Chair (Mr. Rhéal Éloi Fortin), Bloc, Rhéal Fortin]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I will proceed quickly, because I only have two minutes.

Mr. Shea, I very much welcome your proposal to draw up a list of the documents. However, I am still puzzled, since that is exactly what was asked in the motion we passed on November 23 and sent to you. It asked you to provide us with an index including the document titles, subject, date, number of pages and language. We asked you for that information on November 23. It is now February 27, and nothing has started. It’s been three months.

Mr. Smith was correct in not wanting to lay blame on you and wanting to focus on action instead. That’s what I want too. However, I am having a hard time taking your proposal seriously.

In any case, I do indeed want that index or that list as quickly as possible. You said it would take a few weeks. By that, do you mean two weeks, three weeks? Are you able to give us a general idea?

[Matthew Shea]

I can't speak to the translation piece, but for the PCO piece, I think in two to three weeks, easily, we can provide this, and we can provide it as it's available. The government pieces we can do very quickly—

[The Joint Chair (Mr. Rhéal Éloi Fortin), Bloc, Rhéal Fortin]

Fine. Sorry to interrupt you, Mr. Shea, but I only have two minutes.

Mr. Lymburner, how much time do you think the translation of these documents will take?

[Jean-François Lymburner]

Thank you for the question. I think it also clarifies the use of the word “index” during the last meeting. Indeed, it looks more like an index.

If there are 152,000 lines, each containing a certain number of words for translation, the work could be done much more quickly than translating 124,000 pages, which we cost estimated at $16 million.

We can work with colleagues. I know that everyone wants to look into what’s really going on. Based on what I understand from Mr. Shea, the texts are not long, but they still have to be reviewed by people who have the required legal expertise to verify their clarity.

In short, the work could probably be done in a few weeks.

I will let Ms. Plouffe give you more details.

[Annie Plouffe]

I want to quickly say that one of my colleagues did the calculation. We’re talking about 152,000 lines. If each line contains an average of 15 words, that is still 2.2 million words. We have to see how much time it would take to translate that number of words, but we could still do it very quickly.

[The Joint Chair (Mr. Rhéal Éloi Fortin), Bloc, Rhéal Fortin]

Can you give us a general idea, Ms. Plouffe?

[Annie Plouffe]

No, absolutely not.

[The Joint Chair (Mr. Rhéal Éloi Fortin), Bloc, Rhéal Fortin]

Is it a week, a month, two weeks, two months?

[Annie Plouffe]

It would take about 2 to 3 months.

[The Joint Chair (Mr. Rhéal Éloi Fortin), Bloc, Rhéal Fortin]

Okay.

Thank you.