Thank you Mr. Robert.
The decision wasn't an easy one. We made it in the spring, early on in the crisis. We immediately put together a team to size up what was being done elsewhere. As I mentioned a short while ago, we were also in contact with several other parliaments, and the Inter-Parliamentary Union, to find out how they were doing things and what options they had considered. For example, we worked with the British Parliament to find out how they were proceeding. They too had decided to use Zoom. However, I need to point out that the British Parliament does not provide any interpretation services.
We asked ourselves what platform we should choose to deliver quality services. We also took other important criteria into consideration, including security. We were also looking into how to integrate it with our existing systems. It's important for the interpreters to be able to use the existing consoles and booths, which are compliant with ISO standards. Zoom allowed for this integration and made it possible for us to provide the service without having to change too many things for the people working on Parliament Hill. These are a few of the criteria we considered.
We also looked into broadcasting. Zoom allowed us to integrate our broadcasting systems, and to provide other services to parliamentarians. For example, we use Zoom for press conferences, because it can function in different modes.
When we made our decision in March 2020, we also took the scale of events into account. Zoom was one of the only platforms that would allow us to have more than 300 people connected. That was another criterion we factored in.
Health and safety were other criteria. As I previously mentioned, we wanted to be able to integrate our systems and to comply with standards. The Translation Bureau didn't impose these standards on us, because we work in partnership with them. It's certainly a key factor for them. We held discussions and were told that they preferred for us to continue to use the existing systems on the Hill, because they provided the proper protection for their employees.
Those, Mrs. Lalonde, are all the criteria we took into consideration before coming to this difficult decision.