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

[Dr. Melanee Thomas]

I think if we are serious about representing the Canadian public, it's worth paying close attention to the empirical evidence from decades of research that shows how who is in the room matters.

While I believe that every representative will do a good and sincere job of representing all their constituents in all of their diversity, there still is the reality that as individuals, we have different lived experiences. That gives us a different lens on the world. That shapes how we think about questions of evidence and questions of priorities. It is something that has profoundly shaped how we all see the world, and that is actually relevant to policy and how the work is done.

I would like to turn it to Dr. Rayment, because this is a subject of some deep systematic work that she's done with how speech has worked inside decades of the Canadian Parliament. I think that this evidence is really important to bring to bear here.

[Dr. Erica Rayment]

Sure.

My dissertation research—soon to be a book, hopefully—looks at these patterns of speech and how different parliamentarians speak differently about different issues.

The evidence really does show, at least when it comes to women—I haven't had the opportunity to look at representation of other groups—that women parliamentarians, regardless of party affiliation, are more likely to speak about women and raise issues that relate to women. Having in place measures that make it possible for women to participate in Parliament, and likely for other under-represented groups to participate in Parliament, brings in new perspectives.

On the question about whether we should think about having a hybrid option or the option to participate virtually, think about whether this can be used on a continued basis moving forward, now that we have been forced to think about how we do this in the context of the pandemic. Is this something we can leverage to improve how Parliament functions?

I think we can think about hybridity as the next stage in the evolution of things like having the lights flashing and the bells ringing when it's time to vote. It's the next thing of making Parliament more inclusive in the same way as we can think about having women's washrooms. This is another step that we can have. It's not necessarily in the physical space of Parliament Hill, but it's another tool that can be used to ensure that Parliament is more inclusive and diverse.

[Ruby Sahota, Liberal, Brampton North, ON]

I want to squeeze in one more quick thought.

At the very beginning days before having a hybrid Parliament or virtual Parliament, when ministers were not here, they were not here. When they were travelling—in my first few terms here, many ministers often had work to do outside of the House and outside of Parliament—they just physically weren't present and they weren't virtually present either. They were not answering questions in the House of Commons.

Do you have any thoughts on that?

[The Chair, Liberal, Bardish Chagger]

You'll have to save that for later. I'm sorry, but your time is up and we are going to be switching panels.

I want to thank everyone for their time today. It's been a great conversation, so I thank you all for bringing the perspectives you have. I want you to know that PROC committee members appreciate your time. Should you wish to add anything, please send it in writing to the clerk.

With that, keep well and safe.

Dr. Rayment, we look forward to an update.

I hope everyone keeps well and safe. Take care.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bardish Chagger]

I'd like to welcome today's second panel for our review of the House of Commons virtual hybrid proceedings provisions, pursuant to the House order of June 23, 2022.

Our second panel includes, from the Canadian Association of Professional Employees, André Picotte, acting president, and Paule Antonelli, acting president of Local 900 and the interpreters' representative for the Local 900 council.

From the International Association of Conference Interpreters, we have Linda Ballantyne, president, and Jim Thompson, communication and parliamentary advisor.

From Public Services and Procurement Canada's translation bureau, we have Matthew Ball, acting chief executive officer, and Caroline Corneau, acting vice-president, services to Parliament and interpretation sector.

I'll ask everyone to make sure their earpieces are in, if they have a preferred language. If they have any issues, let us know and we'll assist. This is a new comment we'll be adding, moving forward.

We'll now hear opening comments, starting with André Picotte.

Welcome.

[André Picotte, Acting President, Canadian Association of Professional Employees]

Madam Chair, members of the committee, good afternoon.

Thank you for this opportunity to express our views on this very important matter.

My name is André Picotte, and I am acting vice-president of the Canadian Association of Professional Employees, or CAPE. I am normally the vice-president for CAPE's TR group. I'm accompanied by Paule Antonelli, Local 900 acting president and interpreters' representative on CAPE Local 900 Council.

CAPE is the third largest union in the federal public sector. It represents more than 23,000 economists and policy analysts, statisticians, Library of Parliament researchers, analysts at the Office of the Parliamentary Budget Officer and some 80 professional interpreters in the federal public sector.

I'd like to say an enthusiastic hello to the interpreters providing interpretation service today. I'd also like to thank them and their colleagues for their outstanding work.

Since Parliament switched to hybrid meetings in reaction to the COVID-19 pandemic, the interpreters' work has been dogged by technical issues and the failure of certain participants to comply with technical standards. Since 2020, hearing issues have forced 33 of 70 official language interpreters to take some 349 sick leave days. Every month, approximately 10 interpreters are reassigned to other duties on the advice of their physicians.

CAPE worked with the Translation Bureau and members of all the parties and appeared before several parliamentary committees. As no viable solution to the interpreters' health and safety issues was proposed, CAPE ultimately filed a complaint with the labour program of Employment and Social Development Canada on February 1, 2022.

Labour program representatives concluded that the Translation Bureau had failed in its duty to protect the health and safety of its employees, having regard to the new technological risks that had been clearly identified in the report on audio quality on Parliament Hill that the National Research Council Canada, the NRC, submitted to Parliament in October 2021.

Parliament's audiovisual services team, which strives to improve the quality of the sound transmitted to interpreters, addressed the problems associated with the incompatibilities between the system in place and the Zoom platform. Even though interpreters now have access to the full range of frequencies required under ISO standards—that fact remains to be confirmed by tests conducted by NRC, which were postponed until the Thanksgiving break—no improvement in sound quality has been observed since NRC conducted the tests in May 2021. Stéphan Aubé, chief information officer of the Digital Services and Real Property unit of the House of Commons, freely admitted that the sound obtained during remote sessions never met ISO standards.

Furthermore, the Transition Bureau has yet to apply the 2022 government conference interpretation guidelines providing that interpreters should never provide interpretation service where basic technical requirements are not met.

In conclusion, Madam Chair and members of the committee, I would repeat that interpreters are your principal allies in faithfully relaying, in the other official language, the message, with all its subtleties, that you wish to transmit to your electors and other Canadians. In-person meetings are less trying for them because the sound is better, and problems occur when a single member of Parliament or witness participates in the meeting remotely.

However, as committee meetings and hybrid sessions are likely to continue, it is imperative that health impacts on our professional member employees and their ability to continue working in their field be limited.

What must be done for people to continue participating?

The quality of sound transmitted by the audiovisual system must be improved and care must be taken to ensure that people participating remotely meet basic technical requirements.

Once again, I would like to thank the interpreters for doing their best in incredibly difficult conditions since the start of the pandemic.

Thank you for your time and attention. We will be pleased to answer your questions.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bardish Chagger]

Thank you very much for your comments.

I now give the floor to Ms. Ballantyne.

[Linda Ballantyne, President, International Association of Conference Interpreters - Canada Region]

We thank you for inviting the International Association of Conference Interpreters Canada, or AIIC Canada, to present our thoughts on hybrid proceedings.

Good afternoon, everyone.

I want to thank my colleagues, the interpreters.

We belong to a global organization that operates wherever conference interpretation is provided.

AIIC Canada understands that new technologies are here to stay and is interested in working with the translation bureau—the TB, as we call it—to ensure that it remains a centre of linguistic excellence, offering the best working conditions to its suppliers so as to provide the highest-quality services while safeguarding interpreters' health and well-being over the course of their careers.

At the beginning of the pandemic, to its credit, the TB took steps to ensure quality and interpreter safety by reducing the number of hours of work in virtual settings. It's widely understood that in-person settings, where interpreters are in the same room as active speakers, offer the best conditions for quality interpretation. It's also widely understood that interpreting remote participants over the Internet increases cognitive load and has caused auditory disorders and injuries amongst interpreters the world over.

Despite what you heard from the House of Commons administration on Tuesday, the National Research Council's testing has proven that the House of Commons AV system distorts Zoom, so the sound delivered from remote participants to interpreters becomes both unintelligible and a serious health hazard. This is a key point.

The House administration testified to your committee on Tuesday this week that the House of Commons audio system meets ISO standards. Omitted from their testimony is that this is true only for in-person sound. Audio from remote participants continues to be dangerous and frequently unintelligible, placing quality interpretation and the health and safety of interpreters at risk.

Interpreting remote interventions is what has generated many problems. The science is not sufficiently advanced to have definite answers to the causes, but empirically, given the number of injuries we've witnessed since virtual Parliament in Canada, we know that there is a serious problem.

AIIC Canada believes the special conditions of work instituted for virtual settings need to remain unchanged for hybrid meetings. Canada would be following the lead of the pan-European human rights organization and the Council of Europe, which have decided on conditions applicable to hybrid meetings.

For instance, should the total number of remote interventions amount to less than 25 minutes over the course of an interpreter's entire working day, the meeting will be classified as in-person.

Should the total number of remote interventions last between 25 and 50 minutes, the meeting will be classified as hybrid, with no changes in working hours but with extra financial compensation. I would like to discuss financial compensation, if you're interested, during question period.

Should the total number of remote interventions exceed 50 minutes over the course of an entire day, the meeting will be classified as full remote, with increased team strength or shorter working hours, plus financial compensation.

In Canada, the TB intends to go in the opposite direction. It's already offering assignments under prepandemic hours of work for virtual hybrid meetings. They are not waiting for verification of the House audio system, saying it's fine for in-person meetings. This misses the point entirely anyway. The TB is requiring that a majority of participants need to be remote before special conditions kick in to protect quality and interpreter health. This is what makes no sense. What matters is this: Who is doing the most talking? Is it those in the room or those connecting remotely? A hybrid policy to protect quality and our safety should be based on this consideration.

We know that most airtime of committee meetings is occupied by witnesses, many of whom will continue to connect remotely to save money, time and the planet—and because some are pregnant, as we heard earlier today. Your colleagues on LANG, in a unanimous motion to the House, have expressed concern about interpreters' auditory health. If hybrid meetings are to be a fixture of the House in the future, we urge you to weigh in too in order to protect quality and our health.

Let me be clear, AIIC Canada does not oppose new technologies that enable a hybrid Parliament and allow members of Parliament and other stakeholders to participate remotely. It goes without saying that it's up to you to decide how the House wishes to conduct its proceedings.

We ask that you provide conditions that are conducive to the high-quality services that all parliamentarians and Canadians are entitled to receive while protecting the health and welfare of interpreters.

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bardish Chagger]

Thank you, Ms. Ballantyne.

Mr. Ball, you have the floor.

[Matthew Ball, Acting Chief Executive Officer, Public Services and Procurement Canada, Translation Bureau]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

My name is Matthew Ball. I'm the acting CEO of the translation bureau. We're part of Public Services and Procurement Canada.

With me today is Caroline Corneau, who's the acting vice-president of service to Parliament and interpretation.

I'd like to begin by acknowledging that we are gathered today on the traditional unceded territory of the Algonquin people.

Honourable members of the committee, thank you for inviting us to participate in this panel alongside Monsieur Picotte and Madam Antonelli from the Canadian Association of Professional Employees and Ms. Ballantyne and Mr. Thompson from the International Association of Conference Interpreters. These long-standing partners of the bureau are valuable allies in our efforts to ensure quality interpretation services for our clients and optimal working conditions for our interpreters.

As a centre of excellence in linguistic services, the translation bureau is proud to provide interpretation for the House of Commons. I'm pleased to have this opportunity to speak about the interpretation of virtual sessions in the context of your study on hybrid proceedings. Please note, however, that the translation bureau is not responsible for the technical environment in which the interpreters work.

Since the start of the pandemic, our interpreters, like other professionals, have provided services essential to the proper operation of democracy. Allow me to take this opportunity to thank our employees, freelancers and our partners here present for their dedication.

Since the health and safety of interpreters are the Translation Bureau's priority, we have taken measures to protect our interpreters from the consequences of virtual meetings with the help of the House Administration and our other partners. For example, speaking during a virtual meeting without using an appropriate microphone increases the risk of sound issues, which can force our interpreters to interrupt their services. The House Administration therefore provides headsets equipped with a unidirectional microphone for all members and witnesses.

And I thank you, honourable members, for using those headsets, which vastly reduce the risks, the number of health and safety incidents and service interruptions.

With regard to capacity, there is a shortage of interpreters, not just in Canada but around the world. To wit, the translation bureau, the largest employer of interpreters in Canada, has only some 70 staff interpreters in official languages. We're fortunate to be able to benefit from a pool of freelance interpreters available to help, but even the private sector capacity is limited. We have approximately 60 freelance interpreters in official languages serving parliamentarians, and their availability varies depending on the demands of their personal lives and their other clients. This means we have to be very agile in matching our supply with the demand. We are aware of the challenges this causes you as our clients, and rest assured that we are making every effort to increase our capacity.

Among other things, we continue to hire every new graduate in official languages from the only two master of conference interpreting programs in Canada. One is taught at the University of Ottawa here and the other one is at Glendon College at York University. We are also about to hold our annual accreditation exam in official languages in November. We anticipate that this will allow us to add several new interpreters to our pool of qualified suppliers.

Furthermore, this past summer, we took part in the pilot project conducted by the House Administration to determine whether interpretation services could be provided by interpreters located outside the Parliamentary Precinct, which could also expand our interpretation pool.

Honourable members of the committee, the Translation Bureau spares no effort to provide you with excellent service while protecting its interpreters. While in-person meetings afford better interpretation conditions, we know that virtual and hybrid meetings will remain a reality. Which is why, with the help of our partners in Canada and abroad, we will continue gathering reliable data, seeking innovative solutions and developing new interpreters so we can meet the needs of the House should it decide to continue with virtual and hybrid meetings.

I will be pleased to answer your questions.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bardish Chagger]

Thank you very much for those comments.

I think I can speak for all members and reassure you, I hope, that this conversation is one we'll be learning a lot from and that we want to ensure that our interpreters succeed. You are definitely essential to the work we do, since we are a country with two official languages, so we do thank you for giving us the time and for the important work you do.

We will start with six-minute rounds, starting with Mr. Calkins, who will be followed by Mr. Turnbull, Madam Gaudreau and Ms. Blaney.

Go ahead, Mr. Calkins.

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Red Deer—Lacombe, AB]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I will echo the wise words she said. I am a unilingual member of Parliament and I rely completely on the interpretive services that are provided here. In the 17-some years I've been here, I want to thank you very much for enabling me to do my job to represent my constituents.

I'm going to start with the translation bureau.

Mr. Ball, I want to talk a little bit about the notion of witnesses appearing at committee prior to Zoom being used. Prior to Zoom, we had video and teleconferencing capabilities for witnesses to appear. Was that system better for the health and well-being of our interpreters than Zoom is?

[Matthew Ball]

May I answer the question?

We were doing remote interpreting services prior to that. I wouldn't say it was better. I hesitate to describe or speak with any authority on sound quality issues, but anecdotally we had problems prior to the pandemic and prior to the adoption of Zoom. We had service interruptions when interpreters were providing services for witnesses remotely.

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Red Deer—Lacombe, AB]

Has the bureau been approached by Parliament or the government to circumvent the bureau being the only provider of translation services here, and has it ever been suggested that interpreters could be remote, as well as witnesses?

[Matthew Ball]

If I may answer the question, the bureau's mandate is to serve parliamentarians as they see fit. We're not privy to conversations in camera and, as I said, we do our best to work in collaboration with the House administration.

Our first priority is the health and safety of interpreters and our second priority is providing parliamentarians the services they expect and deserve. The bureau has had conversations, but there's been no specific requests that I could speak to.

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Red Deer—Lacombe, AB]

Has the advent of hybrid or virtual Parliament hastened the departure of members of your bureau for health and safety reasons or because of the workload or the potential for harm? Are you recruiting as fast as you are losing?

[Matthew Ball]

If I may, Madam Chair, if I understand the question correctly.... Sorry; could I get the question repeated? I'm not sure I understood the nuance.

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Red Deer—Lacombe, AB]

Has the workload as a result of a hybrid Parliament hastened the departure of people who might have been close to retirement—or anybody, for that matter, from the service?

There will be a normal ebb and flow. There will be normal succession planning. You would have demographics in your organization for when people were expected to retire. I'm asking if things have changed outside the expected realm of when people would be moving on or leaving the bureau or were not willing to work for the bureau anymore as a result of using Zoom or hybrid Parliament.

[Matthew Ball]

It's a difficult question for me to answer, Madam Chair. Yes, people take retirements, as they have. I would be speculating as to the cause of how much or how often our freelance interpreters are working for us.

I could maybe speak anecdotally. Working in the pandemic was a challenge for interpreters, as it was for many professionals across the country and around the world. We asked interpreters.... As an essential service they had to come onto Parliament Hill. They had to leave their homes and their families. They had to come and work in a booth that's four feet by four feet with three people together during the middle of an airborne pandemic, so it was a challenge.

We worked really hand in hand with the House administration, which eventually provided individual booths, which was a great relief to our staff and to our freelancers. We had very close collaboration with the association, with the union and AIIC as well. We communicated constantly with them to ensure that everyone felt safe, that they could do their jobs and could support parliamentarians.

I don't want to avoid the answer, but there's been a shift. We have 20 fewer suppliers on our open contract since last year. I can't tell you the reasons, but it is a reality.

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Red Deer—Lacombe, AB]

For the second part of my question, I would like Ms. Ballantyne to weigh in as well. Is your recruitment replacing what you're losing?

[Matthew Ball]

We are working on multiple fronts to increase our capacity. We support teaching at the University of Ottawa and at Glendon College. We are doing accreditation exams annually. Last year we ran an exam and had about 10 new interpreters. We've hired 10 new interpreters this year, recent graduates, so we're constantly working to improve the pool of qualified interpreters.

This is nothing new for the bureau, because interpretation has always been a shortage group, even before the pandemic. I think the pandemic has been tough for getting people, as it has been for other professions, but we're working constantly on many fronts.

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Red Deer—Lacombe, AB]

Ms. Ballantyne, would you comment?

[Linda Ballantyne]

We would agree with what Matthew Ball has stated. There's a lot of attention paid right now to trying to increase capacity.

AIIC Canada conducted a survey in July and August and we have identified that indeed there have been people leaving the profession because of difficult conditions. We believe it's been very difficult. Even if all stakeholders are working to help increase capacity, there are big challenges. We only have two master's programs in Canada. We believe that in a bilingual country such as ours, there needs to be a much bigger investment to be able to train interpreters.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bardish Chagger]

Thank you.

Mr. Fergus, you have the floor for six minutes.

[Greg Fergus, Liberal, Hull—Aylmer, QC]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

I'd also like to thank all the witnesses here today, and particularly our interpreters.

As the chair indicated at the beginning of the meeting, their work is essential to ours. Our work is crucial to Canada's democracy. That's why the interpreters' work is so important, and I'm very sympathetic towards them given the conditions under which they are working.

Mr. Picotte, I may have misheard your testimony. Did you really say that the best solution would be to hold in-person meetings only?

Have I understood you correctly?