Declaration of Emergency Committee on Feb. 27th, 2024

[Matthew Shea]

I will confess that I don't spend a lot of time on the website. I think we would have known going in, when it was handed over to us, that they uploaded the evidence in the language it was received in. My understanding is that this is in keeping with the Evidence Act and that there are actually concerns around doing translation that may change the meaning of evidence. That is why it's done that way, as it's been explained to me by the legal experts.

[Claude Carignan]

There are still 56 documents pertaining to submissions published without being translated. Are you telling me no one noticed?

[Matthew Shea]

I cannot speak to whether we have official languages complaints related to that specifically, so I won't say nobody reacted to it. As I understand it, that was in keeping with the Evidence Act and not offside with the Official Languages Act, as it's been explained to me.

As mentioned before, we will see what the official languages commissioner comes back with. If one of the complaints relates to that and if the official languages commissioner—

[Claude Carignan]

So, no one at the Privy Council Office or the Rouleau Commission looked into the issue of both official languages or no one was even the least bit concerned.

[Matthew Shea]

We were absolutely concerned with both official languages. I remember the work that went into the commission of inquiry's final report. You may recall that the commission had a timeline. Unlike most commissions, where there's an ability to extend the work, there was a very firm timeline. I remember there were nights and weekends worked, with the help of our colleagues at the translation bureau. I would say it was an incredible amount of work to get this translated. We knew just how serious it was to have this translated.

[Claude Carignan]

Now I understand the Rouleau Commission’s report: he didn’t have time to read the evidence.

[The Joint Chair, Hon. Gwen Boniface]

Colleagues, we have a tight timeline. I would suggest that we go in this order: Mr. Motz and Mr. Maloney for three minutes, Mr. Fortin and Mr. Green for two minutes, and then we take our break. Otherwise we're going to run into the next panel. Does that work?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Joint Chair, Hon. Gwen Boniface]

Mr. Motz, you have three minutes.

[Glen Motz, Conservative, Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner, AB]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

Mr. Shea, I understand that Justin Trudeau, the Prime Minister, is the minister responsible for PCO. Is that correct?

[Matthew Shea]

That is correct.

[Glen Motz, Conservative, Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner, AB]

Has he been briefed on this issue?

[Matthew Shea]

I cannot speak to whether he's been briefed on this specific issue. He has a parliamentary affairs team that would be briefed, but I think it would be more likely that the government House leader would be briefed on this type of issue.

[Glen Motz, Conservative, Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner, AB]

That's fair enough.

Are you aware if there's any direction to PCO, then, from either the minister, the Prime Minister, or the House leader's office on respecting bilingualism or ignoring it?

[Matthew Shea]

I can say with confidence that the direction we receive from all ministers is to respect official languages, to ensure bilingualism, to ensure interpretation in cabinet meetings and to ensure that documents are available in both official languages. That is absolutely a requirement for everything we do.

[Glen Motz, Conservative, Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner, AB]

I want to clarify something you said earlier. We know, from the Official Languages Act in subsection 14(2), that a witness can appear in the language of their choice and that the hearing of witnesses in the official language of their choice shouldn't be disadvantaged.

You made a comment about evidence, that you weren't sure that evidence needs to be unilingual only under the Canada Evidence Act. Did I misunderstand you, or can you clarify your understanding of the provision about providing evidence to a commission, in this case, and whether or not it was only required to be unilingual, or does it have to be bilingual?

[Matthew Shea]

My understanding of the Canada Evidence Act, as it has been explained to me.... I will preface every answer by saying that I am not a lawyer and I do not wish to entertain a legal debate with a number of lawyers in the room. My understanding is that the Canada Evidence Act says that you have to post it or you should post it in the language it was submitted in. My understanding is that part of the rationale behind that is that the translation could be seen as altering the evidence.

[Glen Motz, Conservative, Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner, AB]

You're saying “posted”. That's an interesting comment. It's not a matter of just having the evidence presented to the commission. Are you talking about the actual posting of that on the website or in a document?

[Matthew Shea]

I'm saying that my understanding is that, when it's posted on a website and just received, it needs to be kept in the language it is received in, that it's not translated.

[Glen Motz, Conservative, Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner, AB]

What would be considered evidence under the Canada Evidence Act is a pretty broad term.

Thank you. I wasn't aware of that. I was just trying to get some—

[Matthew Shea]

I would add, if I could, that witnesses were given the option to appear in the language of their choice as well, so some witnesses appeared in English and some appeared in French.

[The Joint Chair, Hon. Gwen Boniface]

Thank you. Your time is up, Mr. Motz.

Mr. Maloney, you have the floor.

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

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you to all our witnesses for attending, and for their patience and understanding.

Mr. Shea, I don't know that anything here would qualify as technically a legal argument, so I don't think you missed out on anything. This is just my observation.

It seems to me that we're going around in circles a little bit here. What we're trying to get to is whether there is a smaller group of documents that we can obtain in a relatively short period of time, at a relatively reasonable cost, that are going to be relevant to our considerations here at this committee, and we can't seem to land on that.

If I understand you correctly, the $16 million that you're referring to.... You referred to a period of 10 months, I think, a couple of times tonight. The letter that I've seen refers to a period of 12 months. In any event, it's going to be something just shy of a year. That is the smaller group of documents from which we would then be able to determine what documents we want. Is that an accurate summary?

[Matthew Shea]

No, and perhaps it's because I have not explained it well. The $16 million is for the exhibits that are on the website that we've been talking about that are currently in one language and not in both. That is the cost to translate those.

We have not come up with the cost to translate a list, but it would certainly be less than that. It would certainly be something we could do more quickly, because we're talking about one line per document, as opposed to translating entire documents. We could certainly come back very quickly and quantify what that would look like for the committee as a starting point. We think we could do that relatively fast.

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

That's a list of documents, without translating the actual documents themselves. Is that correct?