Procedure and House Affairs committee  If I may, I would turn it over to Bastien Tremblay-Cousineau, who is an interpreter. If he's comfortable answering that, he could give you exactly what the qualifications are.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  That is the ongoing concern. There are about 70 staff interpreters working in official languages. There are another dozen working in foreign languages and sign languages. Of the 70 staff interpreters in official languages, during the pandemic, there are about 40 interpreters wh

Procedure and House Affairs committee  It's my understanding that they're still working in the booths on Parliament Hill. They used to work in the same booth; they would be close by. Now, because of COVID and physical distancing, they're not in the same booth, but they're still working out of the booths.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  My belief is that it's just based on demand for services. For the interpretation services, there are a lot more people who need interpretation services here in Ottawa, because this is where the government is. There might be a lot less need for interpretation services out of Calga

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Good afternoon, Madam Chair and members of the committee. Thank you for inviting me to testify today about the strain and injuries that government interpreters have been sustaining during virtual parliamentary meetings, and how it's hurting their ability to effectively champion o

Government Operations committee  Competitive pay and also training. A lot of word of mouth is given to training in the public service. I touched on it in my presentation. Language training has really suffered. People see a roadblock. They don't meet the linguistic profile. Competitions at the higher level are

Government Operations committee  Thank you.

Government Operations committee  It's really case by case. It depends on the department. It has to be operationally feasible. Sometimes you actually have to be in the same room with people to work on things. Translators are a good example. Our translators work all across the country. You give them work, and as l

Government Operations committee  I like the idea of pools. These pools have an expiry date. You have a candidate. They have met all the criteria, have gone through the interviews, have scored, and as a result, they're in the pool. But sometimes these pools expire in a year. I know some managers can extend that

Government Operations committee  If you extend the length of that time period and open it up to a wider period.... We often hear of pools that expire, and everybody who was sitting in the pool just leaves and then has to enter another competition. That's a major problem.

Government Operations committee  In the PSES we've been talking about, the results for that actually—

Government Operations committee  That's an astronomical number. They have grounds to file complaints. One of the big problems that we face in our union is that a lot of our members, when we meet with them and say that they have perfect grounds to file a grievance or a complaint, and they'll say, “Well....” The

Government Operations committee  When you are successful, the best thing they can do is put you back in the pool. But if there's a competition where there are only three jobs and they put you back in the pool—

Government Operations committee  —five months later, all those three jobs are gone, or the best three jobs are gone.

Government Operations committee  In my group, we don't really have a whole lot of knowledge about that. Maybe Debbie can help me. Do you know something about using...?