Procedure and House Affairs Committee on May 13th, 2020

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

Yes, that's the version. NDP 5 is on page 35, line 11. Then LIB 4 is line 8 on page 30.

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Banff—Airdrie, AB]

Thanks.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

Ms. Blaney, I think you wanted to say something before Mr. Turnbull starts.

[Rachel Blaney, NDP, North Island—Powell River, BC]

No, I'm just interested to hear what Mr. Turnbull has to say.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

Go ahead, Mr. Turnbull.

[Ryan Turnbull, Liberal, Whitby, ON]

The amended version would be, “That the House ensure that all members of Parliament have access to the telecommunications infrastructure including consistent standard hardware, software and Internet connectivity necessary to attend virtual proceedings.”

To Mr. Duncan's point, it would say “in their constituency” and take out the word “offices”, and then “paid for through the central budget.”

Then the rest, from the semicolon on, would be identical: “and until that time, that members of Parliament”. I won't read that part because I think you all have it.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

Does everyone agree to NDP 5?

We're also going to have NDP 5 moved up to section (c), “Uphold the rights, immunities and privileges of the House and its members”.

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

Andre, have you got that?

All right. NDP 5 is adopted and moved. LIB 4 is going to be removed.

We are moving on to page 32 of the English version, and section (d) on upholding language rights.

LIB 5 says, “Ensure we that we are respecting the status and use of the Official Languages Act of Canada.”

Is everyone in agreement to respect the Official Languages Act?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

I didn't think I would get opposition to that one. That was the only one that I was confident about the whole time.

LIB 5 is adopted as is.

[Rachel Blaney, NDP, North Island—Powell River, BC]

Madam Chair, I just want to point out that yesterday we decided that there should be another recommendation added here around indigenous languages. I'm wondering if we could get an update on that so we know what we're saying yes to.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

I don't know. I recall having the discussion, but I don't recall what we decided to do. Was it on my plate to do something about that?

Could you remind me, Ms. Blaney? Mr. Duncan, do you remember?

[Eric Duncan, Conservative, Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry, ON]

I remember the discussion yesterday. I made a note on it. I'm just wondering, with Ms. Blaney, about the many lists of things that our committee probably needs to continue to have a conversation on. Would that be something that needed to be acknowledged there, but would be part of our future work? In that last section, could we have that acknowledged as an item, to say that's an extra feature?

I think that's going to present some translation and technology issues with Zoom or an interpretation platform. I'm interested in that. I think we have to take a look at how we can make that work.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

I think that our discussion was that we haven't been able to ask our witnesses whether these platforms would be able to accommodate indigenous languages and that we could make a recommendation to look at that question in further study.

Perhaps Andre has something that could help.

[Andre Barnes]

Madame Chair, as an update to version 3 of the report, which you haven't seen because we weren't able to have it translated in time, I added language to an earlier part of this section. It would be in the second paragraph, under part (d), “Uphold language rights”. If you bear with me, it would read,

“Further, the Speaker”—and this is existing language already in the report—“of the House told the Committee that it is his view that members should also 'continue to have access to established processes for the interpretation of indigenous languages.' The Committee agrees with the Speaker.”

That is existing wording from version 2.

I added, “The committee also notes that it has not heard evidence about the technological capabilities of the House to provide simultaneous interpretation for indigenous languages during the pandemic. The committee encourages the House to examine options for ensuring the processes for the interpretation of indigenous languages continue during the pandemic.”

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

Could we use that same language as our recommendation, “the committee encourages”, and make that into a recommendation?

Ms. Blaney, would that be...?

[Rachel Blaney, NDP, North Island—Powell River, BC]

I would be very content with that. I know part of the conversation was around what capacity Zoom had to do that kind of work, and the fact that we didn't know. It's just that I don't want that to get lost in the report.

Thank you so much, everyone.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

Perfect. Thanks for bringing that up.

Andre, could you put that language right into a recommendation in that section?

I think he's doing that.

Is the committee okay with adopting that recommendation, for the House to ensure...?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

All right, then I think we are through the language rights section—oh, no, we're not. Sorry, I'm jumping ahead of myself.

We have LIB 15. We have LIB 16. We have a lot more. I don't know why I thought....

Go ahead, Mr. Turnbull.

[Ryan Turnbull, Liberal, Whitby, ON]

In the spirit of collaboration, I see a number of alignments again in some suggestions that are made here in the recommendations. I want to see if there is a possibility of combining some of them. I think that LIB 15 is reflective of the recommendations that were put forth by the witnesses. I can't remember the names of the two—

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

Do you mean the Translation Bureau, maybe? No, it was the association....

[Ryan Turnbull, Liberal, Whitby, ON]

Yes, I think it was the association of conference interpreters. I'm sorry, but I'm forgetting names right now. My brain's a little bit tired, so forgive me. Essentially, I think we adopted a lot of those.

One thing we talked about as a group, which I think is actually addressed in the BQ 4 recommendation and in the NDP 6 recommendation, is to have a minimum standard rather than indicating very specific technology that would be required in order to be recognized to speak in a virtual proceeding. It seems to me that what we really want to do—and this is expressed well in both the Bloc and the NDP's recommendations on this—is to essentially adopt a minimum standard or require more quality criteria.

I was thinking that potentially we could amend the first paragraph of LIB 15 to include that wording, and then potentially we wouldn't need BQ 4 and NDP 6.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

Would you be able to read through what that wording would look like?

Then I have Madame Normandin and then Ms. Blaney on the list as well. Would you be able to propose language?