Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you for inviting our colleagues from the Translation Bureau and from Public Services and Procurement Canada to participate in this very important study.
The Translation Bureau takes very seriously the increase in the number of health and safety incidents. The vast majority of the Translation Bureau's salaried employees have reported incidents. The majority of them are reporting excessive fatigue and headaches, but also tinnitus, ear pain and hypersensitivity.
To deal with that, as Mr. MacKinnon mentioned, the bureau immediately implemented very rigorous measures. It also began a research program to obtain evidence on the impact that has on interpreters, not only in the short term, but also in the long term. As our colleagues from the IACI said when they appeared, on February 2, there is very little evidence, very little scientific data on the impact that has on interpreters' hearing health.
I will talk about a few of our initiatives. We are developing and implementing a program for protecting interpreters' hearing. The program includes training, research and tests in a variety of areas including acoustics, interpretation function and audiology, which are carried out by experts, by qualified physicians.
We immediately implemented and distributed internal and external sound limiters, which are used to protect interpreters from acoustic shocks. That is another measure we have adopted.
As the parliamentary secretary mentioned, we have shortened work days and have increased the rest period between assignments.
We informed you of the situation, and I am happy to see how seriously you are taking interpreters' health and safety. For instance, you do sound checks with interpreters beforehand. We really appreciate that.
In addition, committees have instructions: headsets with integrated microphones, as Mr. Blaney mentioned, cable Internet connections and awareness of our environment—in other words, minimizing noise and muting our microphone when we are not speaking.
In addition to the sound checks we are doing, there is now always a sound technician and a coordinator on site in case of problems, which is a step forward.
We have also instructed interpreters to interrupt the service if they feel that their health and safety are at risk. This is really important because we want to avoid them increasing the volume, which could lead to acoustic shocks.
I could give you more details on the research underway if you like, but we work closely with our colleagues from the House of Commons in charge of technological aspects.
Thank you.