Mr. Chair, I would like to be given the time he just used. Thank you.
I would like to thank Ms. Lemay and the other witnesses present.
I come from the private sector, where a person can be called upon to manage growth and negative growth. I've had the opportunity to do both, and I can tell you that growth is much more manageable than negative growth. That's pretty obvious.
It's never good to eliminate positions or apply budget or other cuts. I'm not excusing the behaviour of the government at the time, which I was a member of. We had decided to apply cuts, but very rational elements were at the root of those decisions, which affected every department and were sometimes difficult. That said, one very important factor, I think, that has contributed to the decrease in the number of translators and interpreters is the contribution of new technologies.
As I understand it, the number of words translated in a year went from 28 million to 60 million, but the number of employees remained the same. I think these people should receive a bonus, since their workload has increased so much.
So I'll reiterate my question. Has the technology contributed to the considerable reduction in people required to do the same work?