Declaration of Emergency committee  To give you some details, I would say that there are several types of documents. Documents intended for the public must all be translated. However, the same standard doesn't apply to internal documents. Using a department as an example, under the order in council, the final report had to be translated.

Declaration of Emergency committee  It's an index defined in a certain way.

Declaration of Emergency committee  What we tried to create was a bit of a sense of what's in those documents. I gave you those four large categories. Within those, we can give subcategories of the types of documents. We found that we have this ability, depending on the database used. The government documents are in what's called Ringtail, which is a legal software that we use for many different purposes.

Declaration of Emergency committee  The 8,000 on the website would be evidence submitted in one language or another. We know what that is. We can translate that. We've told you what the cost is. For the other documents within the 152,000, we believe we could work with the committee to come up with at least a list of what the documents are.

Declaration of Emergency committee  I appreciate the opportunity to finish the thought. We could give these file names. We believe that in some cases they would be quite helpful in determining what's in the document, and of those 152,000, perhaps there are only 5,000 you may select that are truly of interest. Then we can focus our attention on translating and reviewing those documents, rather than this really large group of documents that, as my colleague mentioned, would take years and large amounts of taxpayer-funded contributions to be able to translate.

Declaration of Emergency committee  I think the main question—and I'm not asking for an answer clearly here—would be whether it needs to be translated. If it doesn't need to be translated, we think we could do it relatively quickly—we're talking within weeks. We would want to go through that and do a quick check to make sure there are no titles that have, for example, personal or confidential information that we need to be cognizant of.

Declaration of Emergency committee  Speaking for PCO, I've now supported four commissions of inquiry. I'm supporting the current commission of inquiry into foreign interference. I've never seen a request to get all documents. As I mentioned, our role is really just providing arm's-length support. We happen to hold on to these documents until they go to the archivists at Library and Archives Canada, so that the public, the media and others can access them after review.

Declaration of Emergency committee  We worked with them. They—

Declaration of Emergency committee  Thank you very much for your question. Perhaps I'll give a bit of context in terms of our role and the role of the commission. A commission is completely independent. They run their information management and internal email. We provide support, systems and advice. At the end of a commission, effectively, we're handed those files in electronic and paper form, but there's not necessarily a lot of information about what's in the individual files.

Declaration of Emergency committee  The commission makes that determination.

Declaration of Emergency committee  Good evening, joint chairs and members of the committee. Thank you for inviting the Privy Council Office, PCO, to discuss the translation of evidence from the Public Order Emergency Commission. My name is Matthew Shea. I am the assistant secretary to the cabinet for ministerial services and corporate affairs at PCO.

Government Operations committee  Yes. I believe those who drafted it and approved it would have not only anticipated it, but expected that those key things, like cabinet confidence and national security, would be protected.

Government Operations committee  I won't speak to strategy and how this would play out at a parliamentary committee.

Government Operations committee  I would not seek to give advice to the committee on how to move forward, but I would reiterate what I have said before. We are happy to work with parliamentary committees. In fact, “Open and Accountable Government” encourages departments and ministers to work with parliamentary committees to find consensus and to find compromise.

Government Operations committee  I'd be pleased to read that into the record later.