Evidence of meeting #101 for Procedure and House Affairs in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was gaelic.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Blake Richards Conservative Banff—Airdrie, AB
Thanks, Mr. Simms, and leave it to you to say what everyone's thinking, I suppose.
Conservative
Blake Richards Conservative Banff—Airdrie, AB
We'll go back to Mr. Reid for a final round of questioning.
Conservative
Scott Reid Conservative Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston, ON
Thank you very much. My ex-wife was from Newfoundland and we also had a language barrier between us.
Conservative
Scott Reid Conservative Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston, ON
While you were talking, Mr. Simms, I was looking up the Shetland dialect. It turns out there's a radio station that broadcasts in it, at least according to Wikipedia. I did not know this until just now.
I wanted to ask about the two-week delay in terms of getting an interpreter. I can see why that's true for Norwegian or for a number of European languages. Is that also true for the Gaelic interpreter, as well?
Head of Public Information and Resources, Scottish Parliament
Yes, that would be preferred, just because there are only four or five Gaelic interpreters who we can use, so it's really to guarantee their availability.
Conservative
Scott Reid Conservative Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston, ON
I can see why that's preferred and I can see how, with a committee meeting like this, where you were scheduled a significant amount of time in advance, if one of you had wanted to demonstrate how the whole thing works by means of having one of those interpreters, it all would have worked.
Obviously when you're dealing with the proceedings of the House itself, that would be a very different story. Debates move around for other.... Unless you're very different from the way we operate, it's hard to tell a day in advance for sure that you'll be debating this or that subject, and then things happen. To use a contemporary example from our own House, someone just passed away—one of our members, yesterday—and there were a number of tributes to that individual. Had it been a situation in which it would have been appropriate to use the Gaelic language for something like that, would you be able to accommodate that on short notice, or would that not be possible?
Head of Public Information and Resources, Scottish Parliament
We would do our best to accommodate it. Whether it's possible depends on the availability of interpreters, and that's always the case because we don't hire interpreters within the Parliament itself.
Conservative
Scott Reid Conservative Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston, ON
Right. The two-week lead time, is that based in part on the assumption that the individual, the interpreter, will actually be physically present in the Parliament?
Head of Public Information and Resources, Scottish Parliament
Yes, it would be.
Conservative
Scott Reid Conservative Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston, ON
If you went to a remote interpretation model, which is one of the things we've been discussing here in Canada.... You do find that some of our indigenous languages are relatively easy to accommodate within the capital. I know the name doesn't mean anything to you, but Inuktitut is a widely spoken indigenous language. Ottawa has an easy air link to Nunavut. It's a different story if you get one of the west coast indigenous languages, where people live 3,000 kilometres away.
I wanted to ask if you have you looked at the possibility of remote interpretation.
Head of Public Information and Resources, Scottish Parliament
If the interpreters were located remotely, then, yes, I'm sure we would, but at the moment most of the interpreters are in Glasgow, so it doesn't particularly follow. When we have a meeting that's more remote, we would take the interpreters with us, as the MSPs would travel to the venue.
Sub-Editor, Official Report, Scottish Parliament
We also have an extra requirement of interpreters in that, once the meeting is over and they're done with interpreting, we bring them back to actually transcribe the Gaelic for us, because in Hansard we actually have, or we will shortly have, only one fluent Gaelic speaker. The interpreters actually do the Gaelic transcription for us, too.
Conservative
Scott Reid Conservative Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston, ON
I just want to be clear about that, because this is another issue that's come up here. We have talked about the need to have the written record reflect what was said, but our assumption has been that the written record in English and in French, which is our other official language, would record that which was spoken originally in Inuktitut or Cree or Coast Salish, or whatever it happens to be. I assume your Hansard similarly is in English? You don't have a Gaelic version?
Sub-Editor, Official Report, Scottish Parliament
It is. We don't do a Gaelic translation of it, but we include the Gaelic in the running line of the Hansard, if you like. When somebody speaks Gaelic, we put the Gaelic in first, and then we'll put the interpretation in after that so it's all included.
Sorry, I think our lights have just gone off because we haven't been moving.
Conservative
Scott Reid Conservative Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston, ON
We can hear you, though. We can no longer see you, but we can hear you.
I hate to say this, but it reminds me of Scottish weather from when I was there. You could hear people, but not always see them.
Head of Broadcasting, Scottish Parliament
It's exactly like that. The vagaries of a Scottish day we're putting it down to.
Conservative
Scott Reid Conservative Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston, ON
Thank you very much. Once again, all my time is used up, and I really appreciate the evidence you've given today. Thank you.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Larry Bagnell
I'd like to thank our witnesses very much. This has been a very interesting addition to our study, from our last witnesses.
Malcolm, thank you as well.
I would just remind members that we will meet on Tuesday and we'll do e-petitions. The Clerk of the House will be here in the first hour, and in the second hour we'll do our report on this, or give instructions to the drafters, so we have to think about that.
On May 23, even though we're going to do the report, we will get the clerk of the Northern Territory legislative assembly. Remember that was going to be in the evening, and David suggested it be on the Wednesday because there are usually votes on Wednesday, so we're already here. That's May 23 in the evening. Is that okay with everyone? If there are any additions to the report from that, we would just throw them in. Okay?
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Larry Bagnell
Okay.
The subcommittee on sexual harassment will probably be finished on Tuesday, so that report has to come to us.
The meeting is adjourned.
