Procedure and House Affairs Committee on Oct. 6th, 2022

[Matthew Ball]

I'm going to ask Ms. Corneau to answer that.

[Caroline Corneau]

Madam Chair, what I can say is that conditions before the pandemic were completely different from what we have now. It's extremely difficult for me to give an accurate figure. That's because it depends on all kinds of factors.

I don't have the number at hand, but I can tell you that it's an extremely difficult exercise to go through.

[Marie-Hélène Gaudreau, Bloc, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

Madam Chair, insofar as we would like to have a proper understanding of the repercussions on the professionals who help us do our work in both official languages, I think that it would be worthwhile to have an overview of both sets of circumstances, accompanied by numbers.

Earlier, we discussed incidents and accidents, but I didn't see any actual figures. Particularly given what we have lived through over the past two years, what are the numbers with respect to incidents since the pandemic?

[Matthew Ball]

I'll ask Ms. Corneau to provide some information about that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bardish Chagger]

Ms. Corneau, you can go ahead and answer that question.

[Caroline Corneau]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Up to September 2022, we had received approximately 90 incident reports.

[Marie-Hélène Gaudreau, Bloc, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

Thank you.

My understanding is that it also makes it possible to work on prevention.

There were 90 incident reports. Is that number high compared to the number of incidents that used to occur prior to the pandemic? Is this a surprising number?

[Caroline Corneau]

In fact, the incidents we are talking about at the moment were related to the quality of the sound, which relies on the virtual component we are familiar with.

[Marie-Hélène Gaudreau, Bloc, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

Okay. We heard some talk about this problem earlier.

So the hybrid format, even though some preventive action is possible, led to some accidents. We're talking about the risk of hearing injuries. I'm not sure I'm using the right terminology, but we've just learned that the source of the sound has an impact and we are concerned about it.

How many injuries were recorded?

[Caroline Corneau]

Close analysis is required to determine what constitutes an injury.

For example, in 2022, no employees went on sick leave for an extended period because of a work injury. That, I would say, is good news.

The incident and other reports are about symptoms and situations that may have occurred and that represent a risk to health and safety without necessarily constituting an injury or accident as such. That's why we can tell you that at the moment, based on all the data, about 70% of the more than 90 reports were simply incident reports, and not linked to a disabling injury. On the other hand, 30% reported a disabling injury that could require one day or a few hours of absence, or a need for temporary accommodation for a period specified by a doctor.

[Marie-Hélène Gaudreau, Bloc, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

Matters of health, safety and accessibility are important if we are to be able to do our work and determine whether or not the hybrid format is possible.

Madam Chair, can we ask the witnesses to give the committee an overview of the direct correlation between hybrid format meeting conditions and accidents?

[The Chair, Liberal, Bardish Chagger]

Perhaps you could share that directly with the clerk for all of us to have those numbers, or any insights. That would be great.

[Marie-Hélène Gaudreau, Bloc, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bardish Chagger]

You all know very well that I like when everything goes through the chair, because you interpret it, but today I'm noticing that the tone and temperament between us is nice. That's because we know how hard you work and because you're sitting right in front of us. If you weren't, we'd sometimes lose sight of the work you do. That's why I'm not interrupting to say you have to go through the chair. It's so that you can get maximum time.

We have Ms. Blaney for six minutes.

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

Thank you, Chair.

I thank all of you for being here. I have a great respect for the interpreters. They make my life a lot easier, and I am very grateful to them.

My first questions I'm going to hand over to the International Association of Conference Interpreters. I'll let you decide who should answer.

One thing I found interesting today was what you said about the House administration doing some testing. You felt that their testimony was true only for in-person sound, as opposed to remote sound. I'm wondering if you could explain that a little bit more.

[Linda Ballantyne]

Thank you for the question.

We in our association have actually very little information about the most recent testing that's been conducted by the House administration's experts. We have received no report. We have been aware of testing that's been going on for two years.

The translation bureau brought in the NRC to do testing because of injuries and an interest in trying to understand what was going on. Those tests showed a number of conclusions, namely that the House administration's AV systems had problems, in addition to the problems that we understand come with these platforms such as Zoom.

When the NRC presented its findings, the House administration brought in its own experts. Our understanding is that the House administration did not agree with the findings of the NRC. We believe there's been a bit of a ping-pong game going on. We are waiting for the House administration's findings, and now we have the NRC going back in. They have apparently conducted more tests just recently. They will be testing again on Thanksgiving weekend. From what we understand, this is to validate what the House administration's experts have concluded. We've lost sight at this point of what the NRC concluded already some time ago, so we are in the dark about what is happening with the testing. All we know is that we continue to have injuries, and this has been going on for far too long.

Thanks.

[Jim Thompson]

I would just add that the committee is in the dark as well—you are—because the House administration told you on Tuesday that they are not prepared to give you the results of that report.

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

Okay. Thank you for that.

One thing I'm interested in, and you mentioned it earlier, is that freelancers are not putting in safety applications and so on. Are you guys tracking in any way what's happening for freelancers?

[Linda Ballantyne]

Thank you very much.

It is very unfortunate that we as freelancers.... This is around the world. Freelancers around the world are suffering injuries. Freelancers are offering services in institutions around the world where the institutions are doing some tracking, but here we are a small association. We are all volunteers. It is very difficult for us to track. We would rely entirely on our freelancers reporting to us. We don't have an infrastructure for tracking. We have talked about it in AIIC internationally to try to figure out how we could do that. At this point, it is not what we are doing. It's purely anecdotal.

I can tell you that some of the anecdotes are very, very disturbing and very upsetting. We have interpreters who, since these platforms have started being used since the pandemic, are unable to work and will never be able to work again—

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

Thank you so much. I have only a minute and a bit left.

I want to take the opportunity to ask a question of CAPE again. I'll let you decide who wants to answer.

I have two questions. First, there was mention of hearing issues. Can you elaborate a bit on what types of issues there are in terms of hearing issues? Second, what do you believe the House administration could do to improve interpreters' working conditions during hybrid or remote meetings?

[Paule Antonelli]

We've chosen to talk about hearing issues because there's a wide range. They go from tinnitus, which most of us have at this stage.... That was not the case before the pandemic for most of us—most of the interpreters, I mean, and maybe parliamentarians too, with the amount of time you spend online. We need better sound for our work.

Tinnitus is the lowest thing, and then it goes on to a hypersensitivity to noise. If you have interpreters around, they will wince if you drop a knife on a plate.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bardish Chagger]

I was so intrigued by where you were going with that, but the bell rang.

Mr. Vis, you have five minutes.

[Brad Vis, Conservative, Mission—Matsqui—Fraser Canyon, BC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you to all of our witnesses here today.

I'm a man who sometimes speaks very loud. During the pandemic, was it difficult for you when someone like me raised his voice to make a point in the House of Commons?

[Linda Ballantyne]

Thank you for the question.

We have a volume control button on our console in the booth.

[Voices]

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