Monsieur Guimond's reputation for always being in good humour is of course known universally. However, I am somewhat concerned that taking the approach he recommends, of ensuring that no documents are ever distributed if they're not in the two languages, does not allow us to discharge our functions as required by the documents that we are all bound to follow, which are of course the Constitution and the Charter of Rights.
I draw everybody's attention to subsection 17(1) of the Charter of Rights, which says: “Everyone has the right to use English or French in any debates and other proceedings of Parliament.”
It doesn't say every member of Parliament, it doesn't say every senator, it says everyone. Everybody who is brought before our committee has that right. The right to use these languages, or either of the languages, I would assume applies to both their written submissions and their verbal submissions. We've accommodated the verbal submissions by means of simultaneous translation, but with regard to written documentation, it's a little more complicated. I think this is Monsieur Guimond's point, that
we also have the right to speak whichever language we prefer.
It seems to me that the best way to deal with the apparent conflict between these two rights is for us to be not merely passive in our approach to witnesses--for instance, it's been the practice on this committee and every other committee I've ever participated in to just expect witnesses to figure this out on their own--but to engage them in an active offer. When we summon them as witnesses, we first should inform them of what the rules are, that we're not going to distribute documents that are in one language only. Second, we should make the offer not to ministers who have their own translation facilities but to someone else who comes as witness, perhaps from across the country, that we can translate documents of a reasonable length into the other language if they're given to us in enough time.
That's something that's available, but witnesses aren't informed of this right. When I was a witness before a committee some six years ago, I was not informed that I had this right. I turned up with a presentation that relied upon people turning to tabs in the written presentation. Had I known I had the right to submit that for translation, I would have done so. When you bring someone all the way across the country, it seems it's a very poor use of taxpayers' money to have them come here with a presentation that can't be distributed to members and that therefore causes everyone in the room to waste their time.
So what I would like to suggest as a practice is that we notify all witnesses in advance, in writing, and that the clerk develop a standard letter that is sent out from the committee to all witnesses. The letter would inform them of the right to have their documents translated, up to a reasonable length, to ensure that we don't have the situation that causes Monsieur Guimond such justified fear.