Procedure and House Affairs committee  Madam Chair, if I may, I'd like to ask Ms. Caroline Corneau, the Acting Vice-President, to answer that question. I don't think it's going to be very easy to answer it. As the member just mentioned, there are 57 meetings a week, but it varies enormously. Of course it also depends

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I'm going to ask Ms. Corneau to answer that.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I'll ask Ms. Corneau to provide some information about that.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Madam Chair, we've done a lot. In the immediate aftermath of the pandemic, we were really scurrying; I will admit it. Over the last two years, we've launched quite a few initiatives. I can speak to them briefly. We've developed and implemented an interpreter hearing protection p

Procedure and House Affairs committee  We have asked the National Research Council to test the models of the directional microphones that the House of Commons is using. That is correct.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Yes. There was a series of first tests. We're conducting more tests in October and we hope to get results shortly thereafter.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  It's a difficult question for me to answer, Madam Chair. Yes, people take retirements, as they have. I would be speculating as to the cause of how much or how often our freelance interpreters are working for us. I could maybe speak anecdotally. Working in the pandemic was a cha

Procedure and House Affairs committee  We are working on multiple fronts to increase our capacity. We support teaching at the University of Ottawa and at Glendon College. We are doing accreditation exams annually. Last year we ran an exam and had about 10 new interpreters. We've hired 10 new interpreters this year, re

Procedure and House Affairs committee  May I answer the question? We were doing remote interpreting services prior to that. I wouldn't say it was better. I hesitate to describe or speak with any authority on sound quality issues, but anecdotally we had problems prior to the pandemic and prior to the adoption of Zoom.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  If I may answer the question, the bureau's mandate is to serve parliamentarians as they see fit. We're not privy to conversations in camera and, as I said, we do our best to work in collaboration with the House administration. Our first priority is the health and safety of inte

Procedure and House Affairs committee  If I may, Madam Chair, if I understand the question correctly.... Sorry; could I get the question repeated? I'm not sure I understood the nuance.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Thank you, Madam Chair. My name is Matthew Ball. I'm the acting CEO of the translation bureau. We're part of Public Services and Procurement Canada. With me today is Caroline Corneau, who's the acting vice-president of service to Parliament and interpretation. I'd like to begi