Standing Committee on Official Languages

Comité permanent des langues officielles

For immediate release

Ottawa, May 06, 2021 -

Today, Emmanuel Dubourg, Chair of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Official Languages, presented a report in the House of Commons entitled: Conference interpreters: the cornerstone of bilingualism in parliament.

The committee recognizes that holding virtual or hybrid parliamentary meetings and House of Commons sittings – while necessary in order to comply with physical distancing rules – could pose health and safety risks to conference interpreters. Conference interpreters ensure that parliamentary debates and proceedings are accessible simultaneously in both official languages at all times. To do their job, they must hear speakers clearly. Yet the quality of the sound chain in virtual or hybrid mode is not always optimal.

The committee therefore recommends that the House of Commons Administration take further steps to improve the quality of the sound that reaches interpreters in virtual and hybrid meetings. The committee calls for the mandatory use of high-quality headsets with built-in microphones for Members of Parliament during House of Commons sittings and for all witnesses appearing before parliamentary committees. The House of Commons already provides headsets to witnesses who are called to testify. The committee also calls on the House of Commons Administration to consider the possibility of requiring Members of Parliament to use a wired Internet connection and to urge witnesses to do the same where possible.

Finally, the committee recommends that the Translation Bureau adopt a broad definition of remote interpretation so that an interpretation assignment is deemed “remote” whenever a participant communicates via video conference software. In keeping with its mandate, the Committee will let concerned organizations to address the issues related to the working conditions and equipment necessary for interpreters to provide, at all times, a high-quality interpretation service in both official languages in a safe environment.

The report can be consulted on the committee’s web page on the Parliament of Canada website at http://www.parl.gc.ca/LANG-e. Anyone unable to access an electronic copy of the report can obtain a paper copy by contacting the committee clerk.

The House of Commons Standing Committee on Official Languages is composed of 12 MPs. The Chair is Emmanuel Dubourg (Bourassa) and the Vice-Chairs are the Honourable Steven Blaney (Bellechasse—Les Etchemins—Lévis) and Mario Beaulieu (La Pointe-de-l’Île). The other members are René Arseneault (Madawaska—Restigouche), Alexandre Boulerice (Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie), Marc Dalton (Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge), Paul Lefebvre (Sudbury), Joël Godin (Portneuf—Jacques-Cartier), Marie-France Lalonde (Orléans), Patricia Lattanzio (Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel), Soraya Martinez Ferrada (Hochelaga) and John Williamson (New Brunswick Southwest).