Evidence of meeting #6 for Library of Parliament in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was documents.
A recording is available from Parliament.
12:55 p.m.
The Joint Chair Hon. Lucie Moncion
Within 30 days might be a little bit.... In any case, we will—
12:55 p.m.
The Joint Chair Hon. Lucie Moncion
We will discuss it. As I said, it's on my paper. You still have about a minute.
You're good?
12:55 p.m.
Liberal
Bernadette Jordan Liberal South Shore—St. Margarets, NS
Madam Chair, this isn't even my committee, but I find this fascinating.
12:55 p.m.
A voice
So do I.
12:55 p.m.
Liberal
Bernadette Jordan Liberal South Shore—St. Margarets, NS
I'm really struggling. I understand that you want this done, but for us to knowingly go against the Canadian Human Rights Act because we as Parliament can't be sued, I really struggle with this. That's just a comment because—
12:55 p.m.
Conservative
12:55 p.m.
Liberal
Bernadette Jordan Liberal South Shore—St. Margarets, NS
We're not because the information is available, to my understanding, it's just not available in an easily accessed format. It's a scan, so it is available. Sorry, that is correct is that not? Is the information available to everyone? What about people with accessibility issues now? How do they receive the information now if they ask?
12:55 p.m.
Senior Principal Clerk
We would provide them with a paper copy. That's all we have at the moment, or a scanned version.
12:55 p.m.
Liberal
Bernadette Jordan Liberal South Shore—St. Margarets, NS
You couldn't give a number, in terms of five or 20 or hundreds.
Does it matter?
12:55 p.m.
Law Clerk and Parliamentary Counsel, House of Commons
Well, I'm not the person making the ultimate decision on how to move forward, but what I've stated is that this is fundamental quasi-human rights, quasi-constitutional legislation. I'm not sure that it's the number of violations. If there is a violation, you can have one that's a serious one. You can have many that are small ones.
However, this is legislation that has been found to be quasi-constitutional by the Supreme Court of Canada. It's something that my office looks at very carefully, in terms of advising and ensuring compliance.
12:55 p.m.
A voice
[Inaudible—Editor]
12:55 p.m.
The Joint Chair Hon. Lucie Moncion
Not yet.
I am going to ask questions, if I may.
I have two questions for you.
We are still looking at what the government must do to make those documents accessible. Should the documents be published in their entirety in their own format or are they converted to a format accessible on the Internet?
12:55 p.m.
Senior Principal Clerk
That's exactly what we're studying. The proposed system for electronic and paper petitions is in XML, which would allow us to transfer data and generate a fully accessible document.
12:55 p.m.
The Joint Chair Hon. Lucie Moncion
Okay.
My second question is this. You always consider the government side. Do you also consider the users' side to see whether, with the equipment at their disposal, they can enlarge the documents in their current format, without having to adjust them in HTML?
Could we access the documents and see them simply by zooming in? I'm not sure whether you've studied this from the users' perspective and everything that's accessible to them.
12:55 p.m.
Senior Principal Clerk
I'm not an expert in technology, but I can say that's precisely why we prepared a Word version of Bill C-81. This makes it possible to make the font bigger.
I think we can do this with the tools currently available. It's not fully accessible, but we're improving and that's what we're moving towards.
12:55 p.m.
The Joint Chair Hon. Lucie Moncion
Okay, thank you.
Are there any other questions?
Otherwise, I would like to thank Mr. Dufresne and Mr. Rodrigue.
It was not easy for you, because I don't think you really have all the answers to the questions you are asked. We still thank you for doing the exercise. Have a good afternoon.
We will suspend for a few minutes.
1 p.m.
The Joint Chair Hon. Lucie Moncion
All right, there are a few options that we can look at here.
The first would be to propose that the analysts prepare a report and, in that report, a report that would be tabled in the House of Commons, we could find recommendations as to moving forward on the work that needs to be done for the accessibility issue. That's one proposition or solution. The other one is coming forward with a proper resolution which would be put into the report, and that would be tabled in the House of Commons and the Senate.
Mr. Lauzon.
1 p.m.
Conservative
Guy Lauzon Conservative Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry, ON
They already have the authority to act on this, right?
Do we need another resolution to give the direction, or is the other resolution acceptable? Maybe we want to suggest that they act on it rather than having a whole new resolution. What's the proper way to proceed?
1 p.m.
The Joint Chair Hon. Lucie Moncion
—or put that resolution back in the report.
Was that resolution tabled at some point?
1 p.m.
A voice
Not in the House.
1 p.m.
Conservative
Guy Lauzon Conservative Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry, ON
I think Senator Duffy's suggestion about having some of the disabled groups appear here is a good thing. Maybe we want to accommodate them, as to the best of our abilities under our current whatever we have.
I think it is important that we get moving on this seriously. I appreciate it, but I think they're being overly cautious, to be quite frank.