Evidence of meeting #93 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 interpretation.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Blake Richards Conservative Banff—Airdrie, AB
That's the only one you can recall that would have been of that nature.
Clerk of the House of Commons
Again, as I said, the occasions were relatively infrequent. There were some that would have been used for statements, but this one, as I recall, was a substantive intervention in an aboriginal language.
Conservative
Blake Richards Conservative Banff—Airdrie, AB
In that case, if you can recall, and in any of the other few cases that existed, was prepared text provided in advance, or was it required to be?
Clerk of the House of Commons
There was prepared text available to us. He provided it to us in English. We were able to make sure that there was a translation in French. At that point, we didn't have to do relay. The moment we had both languages available, when the member was speaking, we would try to coordinate it so it was understood in both languages. That is one of the reasons that having an extensive notice period is useful if we want to avoid that problem.
Conservative
Blake Richards Conservative Banff—Airdrie, AB
As far as you can recall, was there ever an instance where a relay was needed and text wasn't provided?
Conservative
Clerk of the House of Commons
I would have to review it. I would have to speak to people who have a better memory than I do.
Conservative
Blake Richards Conservative Banff—Airdrie, AB
What you're indicating, though, is that having the text prepared in advance sounds like it's quite helpful to ensuring timeliness, because if you're talking about doing a relay, then there's more time being consumed.
Conservative
Clerk of the House of Commons
In fact, you could avoid a relay if you were given a text that said this is the English of what is going to be said in Inuktitut.
Clerk of the House of Commons
If you had the time, you could translate it.
The translation is a different class of work than interpretation. Interpretation is simultaneous. You're hearing it at the same time you're speaking it. The level of concentration is far greater. If you're basically working with having an opportunity to write the text from English into French, then you're not really interpreting; you're simply reading.
Conservative
Blake Richards Conservative Banff—Airdrie, AB
Exactly.
I agree with you completely. I could never imagine being an interpreter. It amazes me that they can be listening and speaking. It astounds me.
That was what I was getting at. I think your answer is that it is certainly much easier, from both the perspective of the quality of the translation or interpretation and also of the use of time, if the text can be provided in advance. That's something we might want to consider when we're making any decisions about this. That would maybe be a requirement, I guess was what I was asking.
Clerk of the House of Commons
Again, to constantly be putting a positive spin on this, I would suspect that, if the infrastructure is properly built, then the time frame for the notice may be squeezed. No one would feel then that they were being shortchanged, in terms of the ambitions you have to introduce additional languages other than French and English.
Conservative
Blake Richards Conservative Banff—Airdrie, AB
In your current role, or in setting up that arrangement in the Senate, in preparation for this study, have you had any interactions with other jurisdictions that have had this multiple language interpretation? If you have, can you share with us any information?
Clerk of the House of Commons
The only one was when I spoke to the secretary general of the European Parliament, who explained what a challenge it is. He has 10,000 employees and they move. They go from Strasbourg to Brussels, and it's a huge operation. However, they seem to be successful at it, because they're not working in just two official languages and an additional language, but they're dealing with 28.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Larry Bagnell
I guess one of the ramifications people talked about was that if they're speaking that language—let's say Inuktitut—in a place where there are a lot of people who speak Inuktitut in Canada and they're the audience, then there will be ramifications for a channel like CPAC, so that those people can hear that speech.
Thank you very much. We appreciate your coming here. We're going to suspend for a minute to get the translation set up in Cree. If anyone wants to speak to you, I'm sure you'll be here for a couple of minutes.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Larry Bagnell
Drin gwiinzih shalakat. Good afternoon, and welcome back to the 93rd meeting of the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs as we continue our study on the use of indigenous languages in proceedings of the House of Commons.
We'll hear from Romeo Saganash, MP for Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik—Eeyou. For members' information, Mr. Saganash will be delivering his opening remarks in Cree. For today's meeting, we have arranged to have simultaneous interpretation of Cree into English and French. We'll have the clerk explain to you a little technicality of how that will work.
Mr. Clerk.
The Clerk of the Committee Mr. Andrew Lauzon
In the interpretation system, channel 0 will be the floor language, so when someone is speaking in Cree, you'll be able to hear it on the floor channel at 0. The interpreter will be interpreting from Cree into English, and then our interpreters will be interpreting from the English translation into French on channel 2.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Larry Bagnell
Mr. Saganash, thank you for coming. We appreciate your being here and look forward to hearing your comments.
Romeo Saganash NDP Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik—Eeyou, QC
Thank you.
I want to thank you all for inviting me to bring my thoughts here while you're working on this and trying to bring other languages to be spoken here at these meetings.
I would also like to say that I'm really happy that I'm here to be able to put forward my thoughts on this.
I want to let you guys know that I will be speaking English sometimes on some of the things that I will be talking about. Maybe you won't understand if I share it all in Cree, but what I will talk about is the Constitution. That's what I'll be talking in English about, when I start talking about the Constitution and the way we look at it.
I know that this was talked about in the past. One of the things I want to discuss is this. I know that it can be easy to bring people here so that our people can speak their native language, and I can help you guys. I really expect the Cree language will be able to be spoken. I would always tell you guys ahead of time what I would be talking about. I can tell you guys about what I think, and I think that it's easy.
Can you hear Priscilla interpreting in the background? I want to thank her. She's here helping us today.
I know that I don't have much time to talk to you guys, but I will try to talk about what I need to talk about here.
I really think that you will help people, especially aboriginal people, to be able to speak their language. It really helps us to speak our native language. You probably know that before they took me, before I was sent over here, there was no title for someone to be working in what I am doing right now. There was no title as to how we were going to be called, for what you'd call a member of Parliament. We tried to find a name for us. Today I can say that we call them “the people who speak on our behalf, on their behalf”. That's what they call me, and this is what I bring, my word, here in Ottawa, and that's what I did. We didn't have that. You guys had speakers, but we didn't have that. Now we call that “the boss of words”.
That's how we can help each other—by allowing aboriginal people to speak their language. I really think we look at the Constitution too much. We should look at section 16 of part I the Constitution, but it's not the only one we should be looking at. We should also be looking at sections 22, 25, 26, and 34. Those are all the ones that we should all look at equally so we can understand where they came from, about my knowledge, about how I'm able to speak my language.
Mr. Chair, I have read some of the stuff the Senate has done in the past with respect to the feasibility of achieving what I've been proposing since I got elected to this place in 2011. Is it feasible? In my view, it's a resounding yes.
As I said in Cree, those who wish to speak their indigenous language can provide advance notices as to whether it's going to be a question, a statement, or a speech in the House. The notice may change to that effect. Development of a bank of interpreters like Priscilla in the back is easy. That should be developed jointly with the member of Parliament. There are known interpreters up in my riding, many of them who do speak Cree. I think it's a matter of resolving the technology and the space required. I don't know if any of you have visited one of the cubicles of the interpreters in the House of Commons. They're pretty small. It wouldn't be possible today because of that.
I also did mention in my opening remarks that the recognition of my right to speak Cree in the House of Commons will benefit all indigenous languages. If we are serious about recognition of rights in this country then we need to do that. I'll come to the constitutional aspects in a while.
Protection and preservation of indigenous languages is one thing, but there's also the development aspect of indigenous languages when we do recognize the right of indigenous people to speak their language in the House of Commons. I gave two examples there. We didn't have a word in Cree for member of Parliament until I got elected and we had to develop that exactly.
I explained to elders what a member of Parliament does. They suggested a couple of words and we came up with yimstimagesu, “He or she who speaks on your behalf”. We did the same for the Speaker.
I know that my time is flying by, but I did want to touch on certain aspects. We seem to be focused too much on section 16 of part I of our Constitution, which recognizes the two official languages of this country and the House of Commons. We need to read section 16 jointly with sections 22, 25, 26 and, of course, section 35 of the Constitution of Canada. I think if you combine and read along with other sections there is a definite constitutional right for me to do so in the House of Commons.
Added to that, since our Constitution, UNDRIP, the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, was adopted in 2007 by the UN General Assembly. Section 13.2 of the UN declaration states:
States shall take effective measures to ensure that this right is protected and also to ensure that indigenous peoples can understand and be understood in political, legal and administrative proceedings, where necessary through the provision of interpretation or by other appropriate means.
I think under UNDRIP there is an article that pertains to that. I think the present government has committed to the UN declaration and implementing it, including, to a certain extent, article 5 as well.
The TRC also recommended to the government, in call to action 13, the following:
We call upon the federal government to acknowledge that Aboriginal rights include Aboriginal language rights.
That's call to action 13. I believe that the present government also endorsed all 94 calls to action. I think this committee needs to refer to both of those.
That's our framework, Mr. Chair.
I listened closely to the presentations of the clerks just a while ago. I raised these constitutional issues and fundamental rights issues because I don't want to be told as an indigenous person, “Yes, we will allow you to speak your language; yes, we will give you permission to speak your language in the House of Commons.” That's charity. I don't want charity. I want my rights to be recognized and respected in that place. I've always stood up for those rights, and I will continue to do so.
One other aspect that needs to be mentioned is that in the most important decision by the Supreme Court in June of 2014, the Tsilhqot'in case, the Supreme Court talked about human rights with respect to indigenous peoples for the first time. The Supreme Court said in its decision that the Charter of Rights and Freedoms in part I of the Constitution and section 35 in part II of the Constitution are sister provisions. In that sense, we need to look at my right to speak Cree in the House of Commons as a constitutional and human right.
I don't know if I have much time, Mr. Chair, but....