Official Languages committee  Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman and committee members, for your strong interest in this. It is very appreciated.

Official Languages committee  Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. This goes in part to answer Madame Lattanzio, who wondered what can be done. I think it would be very helpful for this committee to acknowledge that the bilingual character of our country, in the highest institution of our democracy, is under thre

Official Languages committee  We have been impressing upon the department and the political leadership in the department the importance of safeguarding interpreters. We've had not a lot of feedback from that level. We have had spokespeople, as you have noted, from the department talking about things in the pr

Official Languages committee  The comparison that we presented to you was done by an independent sound engineering firm in Germany for AIIC International, and it compared, on four or five parameters, the audio performance of these nine different platforms. There was one of them that was compliant with all o

Official Languages committee  Thank you. I want to start by quoting from the transcript of the PROC from a meeting at the end of April last year. Harry Moseley, from Zoom, was asked about the suitability of Zoom as an interpretation platform, and he said, “Madam Chair, thank you for the question. I'm not sur

Official Languages committee  It's also important to understand that this is a free market. These are freelance suppliers to the government. The government sets the rules, and the freelancers bid. In keeping with the very strong demand for this service and the very limited supply, you have to take that into

Official Languages committee  The headset is just one part of the audio chain. There is the headset, the microphone, the Internet connection and the platform, Zoom, through which the sound goes before it finally reaches the interpreter. Because of that, addressing one broken part of the chain doesn't fix the

Official Languages committee  I would add to that, and it relates to the decisions that Public Services and Procurement are making now that would, we fear, increase the time that freelance interpreters will be exposed to the toxic sound Nicole mentioned is coming through Zoom. This is a time for caution. We

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I would just add that when interpreters are straining to hear, if somebody is connecting by phone or a cellphone from the back of a car, they turn up the volume. In cases where there is feedback—that screech you hear, as you know, when you get too close to the microphone with you

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I would just like to add to check out our recommendation because it includes specifications as to the hertz that are delivered by your microphone.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Nicole.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Could I just add to that?

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Mr. Richards, I wanted to let you know that, because the Zoom platform is not a stand-alone platform that interpreters plug into via their own laptops, they need to go to a place—in this case, the Hill—where there is an interface that connects Zoom to the consoles they normally w

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Yes. Sorry to interrupt, but I do not have the option on my screen to choose a “floor” channel.