Procedure and House Affairs Committee on April 17th, 2018

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

Good morning. Welcome to the 96th meeting of the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs.

Unfortunately, Mr. Christopherson's brother has passed away.

He won't be in town all week, so we are going to put off his election as vice-chair because he expects a big battle and he's going to have to defend himself as second vice-chair of the committee. We'll do that formality when he's here next week.

It's great to have you here again, Mr. Saganash.

As we continue our study on the use of indigenous languages in the proceedings of the House of Commons, we are pleased today to be joined by John Quirke, clerk of the Legislative Assembly of Nunavut.

Thank you for being here, and we really do thank you, because it means that we don't have to go over to the other building for our meeting. Thank you for coming all the way down from Nunavut. I'll turn the floor over to you for your opening remarks.

Nakurmiik.

[John Quirke, Clerk of the Legislative Assembly, Legislative Assembly of Nunavut]

Mr. Chairman and committee members, thank you for the invitation to appear before you today on the occasion of your committee's hearings, as part of its study on the use of indigenous languages in the proceedings of the House of Commons. As requested by the committee, my submission today will discuss my office's experience in providing language services to the members of our legislative assembly.

First of all, I would like to begin by drawing the committee's attention to the photograph on the cover of the submission that is before you today.

Our legislature's chamber is characterized by a number of distinct features, two of which are prominently featured in this image. These are the elders' seats that are on the floor of the House and the interpreters' booths that are located above the visitor's gallery. Their prominence highlights the importance of culture and language to our institution and its members.

Data from Statistics Canada's 2016 population census indicates that Nunavut's total population is approximately 35,580. Approximately 85% of the territory's population are Inuit and approximately 85% of this number, or 25,755 people, reported being able to converse in the Inuit language.

Our legislature's membership has broadly reflected the demographics of the territory as a whole. The 22 members of the fifth assembly took office last November. Since the institution's first sitting of April 1, 1999, a total of 72 people have held or are presently holding elected office as members of the assembly. Sixty-one of the 72 current or former members are Inuit and 11 are non-Inuit.

Approximately 70% of the total number of current or former members were or are bilingual in both the Inuit language and English. Approximately 20% were or are unilingual English speakers and approximately 10% were or are unilingual speakers of the Inuit language.

All of our legislatures to date have included a mixture of language proficiencies on the part of the members. Consequently, the need to hold proceedings and to provide services to the members in more than one language has been with us since April 1, 1999.

The federal Nunavut Act formally provides for the existence of our legislative assembly. Our territorial Legislative Assembly and Executive Council Act is comparable to the Parliament of Canada Act, a statute with which the committee will be very familiar. Since April 1, 1999, the legislative assembly has also passed a new territorial Official Languages Act and a new Inuit Language Protection Act.

When the territory was created on April 1, 1999, we inherited a body of statues from the Northwest Territories, including its Official Languages Act. That jurisdiction's statute recognizes a number of first nations languages that are not widely spoken in Nunavut.

The federal Nunavut Act provided that any significant amendments to the territorial Official Languages Act required the concurrence of Parliament by way of resolution. Nunavut's new Official Languages Act was passed by the territorial legislature in 2008 and the required parliamentary resolutions were subsequently passed in the House of Commons and the Senate in 2009. These were necessitated by the removal of such languages as Dogrib and Slavey from the statute.

Read together, our territorial Official Languages Act and Inuit Language Protection Act define the Inuit language to include Inuktitut and Inuinnaqtun. There are a total of 25 municipalities in Nunavut. Inuktitut is the variant of the Inuit language that is predominantly spoken in 23 of these communities. Inuinnaqtun is the variant spoken in the communities of Kugluktuk and Cambridge Bay. Inuinnaqtun also differs from Inuktitut in that it is written in Roman orthography rather than in syllabics.

The territorial Official Languages Act guarantees the right of all members of the legislative assembly to use the Inuit language, English, or French during proceedings of the House. I should note that census data indicates that French is the mother tongue of approximately 1.6% of the territory's total population and that we have never had a francophone elected to the legislature. Consequently, the language is not used during proceedings.

The Rules of the Legislative Assembly of Nunavut, which are analogous to the Standing Orders of the House of Commons, provide for a number of the requirements in relation to the translation of certain official documents, including formal minister's statements, the annual budget address, and motions.

As of today, we've had a total of 705 formal sittings of the house since April 1, 1999. Simultaneous interpretation between the Inuit language and English has been provided on a gavel-to-gavel basis at every single one of our 705 sittings. On average the legislature holds 35 sitting days per calendar year.

I should also note that although the Official Languages Act guarantees the right of all members of the assembly to use the Inuit language, English or French during proceedings of the house, there is actually no statutory requirement for the institution to provide simultaneous interpretation services in any language. As a practical matter, simultaneous interpretation services are required to ensure that all members can understand one another during their proceedings.

Our normal sitting hours are from 1:30 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, and on Friday the normal sitting hours are from 9:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. However, the house frequently sits for extended hours, especially during budget season. For example, during our most recent sitting in March, the house sat past its normal hour of adjournment on eight of 11 sittings.

In addition to the formal sittings of the house, simultaneous interpretation between the Inuit language and English is provided on a gavel-to-gavel basis at all meetings of our full caucus, which consists of all 22 members of the legislative assembly, as well as at all meetings of our regular members' caucus, which consists of members who are not cabinet ministers or the speaker. This body serves as a kind of unofficial opposition in our non-partisan, consensus-style legislature.

Simultaneous interpretation between the Inuit language and English is also provided on a gavel-to-gavel basis at all meetings of standing and special committees, as well as all televised hearings and other assembly events at which the public is permitted to attend or participate, such as our annual investiture ceremony for recipients of the territorial Order of Nunavut. I note, for example, that a total of 15 different sets of televised hearings were held by committees during the most recent assembly on the annual reports of the Auditor General and other items of business.

From time to time, our assembly has hosted national and international events at which relay interpretation has been required. For example, when a ministerial-level meeting of the Arctic Council was held in the chamber a few years ago, relay interpretation was required so that the Inuit language comments of the meeting's chair, who was at that time our territorial member of Parliament, could first be interpreted into English, and then into Russian for the benefit of that jurisdiction's participant. I should also note that when our chamber is used to host meetings of federal, provincial, and territorial ministers organized under the auspices of the Canadian Intergovernmental Conference Secretariat, that organization will arrange for French-language interpreters to travel to Iqaluit for the meeting, as there is little to no local capacity to provide this service.

Our legislature's Hansard is one of only a few publications in Canada produced in more than one language. In our case, the daily Hansard is published in both English and Inuktitut. Approximately 41,000 pages of Inuktitut Hansard have been produced since April 1, 1999. Our Hansard production is contracted out to an Inuit-owned company that is located in Iqaluit. Transcripts of televised hearings of standing and special committees are also produced in both Inuktitut and English. For the committee's interest, I have brought two excerpts from such publications with me today.

Our territorial Official Languages Act requires that an Inuktitut version of a bill be made available at the time the bill is introduced. As of today, a total of 419 bills have been introduced in the legislative assembly since April 1, 1999. Responsibility for the translation of government bills falls under the territorial Department of Justice. Responsibility for translating house bills, which falls under the jurisdiction of the legislative assembly itself, falls to my office. Since April 1, 1999, a total of 39 house bills have been introduced and passed by the legislative assembly.

As I noted earlier, the Rules of the Legislative Assembly of Nunavut provide for various translation requirements of documents that come before the house. As of today, a total of over 2,519 documents have been formally tabled in the assembly since its first sitting of April 1, 1999. The vast majority of official publications, including statutory required annual reports, are tabled in both English and Inuktitut. Some documents are tabled in four languages.

However, I wish to note that our rules do allow for documents to be immediately tabled when ready in only one language, with the requirement that translations follow. In many cases, it can take months for the translations of lengthy and technical documents to be produced, and we do not believe that it serves a useful purpose to prevent members from having any access at all to documents of interest.

The languages in which our televised proceedings are broadcast rotates on a daily basis. We recently reported to the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission, CRTC, that 37.5% of our total programming during each broadcast month is in Inuktitut, 37.5% is in English and 25% is in Inuinnaqtun.

It's important to recognize that the financial and human resources required to provide these language services are significant and I anticipate that the committee has taken note of the significantly different scale of operation between our legislature, which is one of the country's smallest, and the Parliament of Canada itself.

Between the start of the 2015-16 fiscal year and today we have spent roughly $3.7 million on language-related services, which includes the cost of producing Hansard and the cost of contracting the services of interpreters and translators.

The single greatest capacity challenge that we face is the very small number of humans being alive today who are able to provide quality Inuit language interpretation and translation services. We engage a core group of approximately 10 extremely hard-working and talented Inuktitut and Inuinnaqtun interpreter-translators to provide sessional and intersessional language services. However, we are in competition with other entities such as the court system, other levels of government, and the private sector to engage such professionals.

This capacity challenge is not one that can be resolved by simply spending more money. As I'm sure the committee recognizes from the excellent interpretation and translation services that are provided to Parliament in the English and French languages, the skills required to be a proficient interpreter-translator are not ones that can be developed overnight or by taking a three-day course. The challenge for us is further compounded by the significantly greater linguistic differences that exist between English and the Inuit language than those that exist between English and French. There are also significant dialectical differences between the variants of the Inuit languages that are spoken in different regions and communities.

As the committee would note from the Hansard excerpt that I distributed, we have been working with such partners as the Nunavut Arctic College to build local capacity in this profession, but it is important to recognize that this is a long-term process.

I wish to conclude by again thanking the committee for its invitation to appear before you today. I hope the information I have provided will be of use to you in your deliberations, and I welcome comments and questions.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

Nakurmiik.

I just want to make sure everyone has that speech. Okay. As he said, he brought some samples of their Hansard, which is produced in English and Inuktitut. Is it okay if I distribute that? I need permission.

[David Graham, Liberal, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

Please.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

Okay, please distribute it around.

The way our committee works is each party gets a time-limited chance to ask some questions. Politicians will go on forever if we don't have limits.

We'll start out with Ms. Tassi.

[Filomena Tassi, Liberal, Hamilton West—Ancaster—Dundas, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Quirke, for your opening statement and for being here with us today to share your experience and expertise on this.

You've spoken about the challenges you've faced, essentially financial and human resources. What can you offer to us as advice in terms of overcoming those challenges with the experience you have had?

The initiatives you have started are fantastic in terms of the differences in the language, but what are general pieces of advice that you could give us as we move forward?

[John Quirke]

I mentioned how much we spend, but let me just put that in context: the money I'm spending is on par with what you are spending right now in English and French. We just happen to be doing it in Inuktitut.

The amount I quoted to you was for a couple of years. Last year, for example, we spent over $900,000 on those services. When I look at my non-discretionary and discretionary budgets, I see it represents 20% of my expenditures. After I take away all the members' salaries, the benefits, the budgets for independent officers, and my salary and that my staff, it represents 20.9% of my budget. We're doing it in Inuktitut, and you're doing it here in French and English, so your figures would be way bigger than my figures.

Obviously, what you will have to look for when the House of Commons board of management—whatever your process is after the standing committee—identifies the service you're going to provide.... That is just a question of budgeting. The question of budgeting will be one thing for those people to provide those translation services. Your biggest challenge, I think, will be to make sure that you get the proper, qualified interpreters to provide that service to the members who wish to speak indigenous languages in the House. To me, in many ways it's pretty black and white in terms of budgeting—that's the easy part. It's getting the people to provide that service to you.

[Filomena Tassi, Liberal, Hamilton West—Ancaster—Dundas, ON]

Okay, so the human resource part is the more difficult part.

I notice here in the picture you have the translation booths right behind. Would you ever consider remote translation? Have you ever thought of that, as opposed to bringing the interpreters to you?

[John Quirke]

No, we've never tried that. I don't think it would work for us. We have a big issue in Nunavut in just trying to have reasonable Internet services across the whole territory. It's horrendous. I don't think it would work.

I just went to a process recently of doing an interview for a staff member. The candidates wanted to speak Inuktitut, which was fine. The question came up: what if you want to do it by telephone interview? How would that work? We've never even considered it—I never even thought about it—but I would say it would be mission impossible for us to do that.

[Filomena Tassi, Liberal, Hamilton West—Ancaster—Dundas, ON]

What about here? Let's say, for example, Internet wasn't a problem. Do you see any problems with remote translation being provided?

[John Quirke]

Off the top of my head, no. Again, if you go down that route, I would do it as a pilot project, but I can't foresee any issues you would have in doing that remotely.

[Filomena Tassi, Liberal, Hamilton West—Ancaster—Dundas, ON]

I notice here it looks as if you have a number of booths. Are each of those booths in the background translation booths? It looks like—

[John Quirke]

The farthest one on your left is for the media. The next one is for Inuktitut and English. The next one is for Inuinnaqtun and English. The next booth is actually a sessional booth that I use for my staff, but it's a type of booth. It's a booth that is similar to the other ones, so that if we ever get to the situation where we provide French interpretation, that would be our booth. It would just be a matter of moving the equipment in and plugging it in.

[Filomena Tassi, Liberal, Hamilton West—Ancaster—Dundas, ON]

Okay.

With respect to the Hansard, you mentioned you contract that out. How does that work? What's the turnaround time for that?

[John Quirke]

It's a tendered contract. As I mentioned, a company in Iqaluit won it. They've had it since 1999. I think they provide a very good product.

In terms of the English Hansard or the English blues, we will normally get them the following morning between 8:00 and 10:00. The Inuktitut usually comes late in the afternoon the following day. There always will be the odd hiccup, but normally it's fair to say that the English comes between 8:00 and 10:00 in the morning, and Inuktitut in the afternoon.

[Filomena Tassi, Liberal, Hamilton West—Ancaster—Dundas, ON]

With respect to the trained interpreters you've had, you mentioned an initiative that you started. How big a challenge has that been, getting properly trained interpreters?

[John Quirke]

Well since day one , April 1, 1999, I can count on my hand the interpreters we've used. Four of them are still there. We've gone through quite a few interpreters over that time. They have left us only because of health reasons, or they've retired. Some of our interpreters came from NWT when we split. Obviously with the Inuktitut interpreters, we inherited them. Some of them were living in Nunavut anyway, so we automatically contracted them. They've been with us since day one. The other Inuktitut interpreters who made Yellowknife their home were part of our team from the beginning, but, over time, they have retired, etc.

What we have seen in the past two assemblies, and actually began to recognize in the second assembly, is that we're having a lot of difficulty getting new people into the stream. We've been faced with that problem since day one. We have worked with Nunavut Arctic College to try to establish an interpreter-translation program, and it has slowly developed.

I'm looking forward to the current program, because I believe they have eight or 10 students. We have let them do simultaneous translation in the house. Of course, we alerted all the members to please be patient, that they may make mistakes, but it worked out very well. I think this is the year that they graduate, so I'm looking forward to seeing how many of them will come over as contractors, or go back to the communities to provide those services.

It's a continuing challenge, in that sometimes I wonder if interpreter-translator is a career path that a lot of people want in our young community in Nunavut. I'm keeping my fingers crossed, because it won't be long until a lot of our present interpreters will be retiring.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

Just so you know, Filomena, the Yukon legislature also contracts out Hansard.

Do you happen to know the hourly rate that you pay a translator, because we had that from one of our other witnesses?

[John Quirke]

Yes, I do. I've been reading your transcripts.

We have four rates for our interpreters. The lowest rate is $650 per day, then $750, then $800 and $1,010 per day. A day is 7.5 hours long. When the interpreters come into the office in the morning, they're already doing translation of documents, or they're interpreting for committee meetings. Like I said, we start at 1:30 and they're in the booths doing translation.

We have those four rates, from $650 to $1,010 per day.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Reid.

[Scott Reid, Conservative, Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Maybe I could start with that question. You have quite a range of rates. Is that because there's a different rate for simultaneous interpreters versus those who are translating written documents?

[John Quirke]

No, they all do the same functions. It's based on their competence. We judge their performance, and as we see how well they're doing, they will move up to the next rate.

[Scott Reid, Conservative, Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston, ON]

The legislature sits on a limited number of days a year. Do they do other work for you when the house is not sitting?

[John Quirke]

Yes, of course, when the house is not sitting, we're the employer of first choice—I like to say that—so they're always ready and available to do our committee work, our public hearings, and our day-to-day requirements. In terms of composing correspondence for a member who is writing in both languages, they will do the translation for us at a different hourly rate.

[Scott Reid, Conservative, Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston, ON]

I want to ask about the Inuktitut and Inuinnaqtun. I gather that, depending on which scholar you ask, Inuktitut writ large is either a language group or a dialect continuum, with a series of dialects that should be considered part of the same language. Since I don't speak any of these dialects, I have to rely on you as my sole source of information.

Are Inuktitut and Inuinnaqtun mutually comprehensible?