Procedure and House Affairs committee  What safeguards should be put in place to protect interpreters from the problems associated with audio from remote participation?

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Yes, it is.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Thank you so much for that. I will go now to Professor Fournier, if I could. You said earlier “adapt better”. If you could explain what that means, it would be helpful.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I'm married to a politician as well, so I have a husband who is rarely home because of his political commitment. One of the biggest challenges when our kids were still young enough that they needed caring for was trying to figure out how to balance that when I had to physically be away.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I think this is really about just providing a little more choice, and I think that is really important. Oh, my time is up.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Thank you. I'll go to The Honest Talk. Go ahead.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Thank you so much, Madam Chair. I thank all the witnesses for being here today. I find this incredibly interesting. It really brings to mind a day that I spent in the riding with a woman named Karen, who invited me to spend the day with her. She lives her life in a wheelchair.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Thank you, Madam Chair. I'm very grateful to hear from the Speakers today—of course, with special recognition to Speaker Bennett. We spent some time together in Turkey not too long ago, recognizing the incredible sacrifice of Newfoundlanders and the last section of the Trail of the Caribou.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Thank you so much. Speaker Arnott.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Thank you for that. I think we're hearing really clearly from most people that there should be some sort of criteria for why people could be away and participate virtually. I think of testimony several days ago from one of the MPs who talked about being pregnant and not being allowed to travel toward the end of her pregnancy, and what a difference it made for her to be able to continue to participate virtually, even though her health concerns made it impossible for her to be here.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I'm sorry. I only have a little bit of time so I just wanted to give the last minute to Carol. You talked about the amount of foot surgery and you don't always know when it's going to happen. I know that's a challenge too. Could you talk a little bit about how this opens up the opportunity for you to participate as an MP?

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Thank you, Chair. I want to thank all of the folks who are here to testify. For me, as we go through this, I'm really interested in having concrete discussions about how we can come together on this, because I don't think it is an all-or-nothing. I personally like being here better.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Thank you so much. I have only a minute and a bit left. I want to take the opportunity to ask a question of CAPE again. I'll let you decide who wants to answer. I have two questions. First, there was mention of hearing issues. Can you elaborate a bit on what types of issues there are in terms of hearing issues?

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Thank you, Chair. I thank all of you for being here. I have a great respect for the interpreters. They make my life a lot easier, and I am very grateful to them. My first questions I'm going to hand over to the International Association of Conference Interpreters. I'll let you decide who should answer.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Okay. Thank you for that. One thing I'm interested in, and you mentioned it earlier, is that freelancers are not putting in safety applications and so on. Are you guys tracking in any way what's happening for freelancers?