Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
At the last meeting, I made a commitment to meet with the deputy minister of the department responsible for the translation bureau. That meeting took place last week. I am here to provide an update.
As a first step, I clarified that we were still awaiting the response from the translation bureau to the issues raised at the September 29 Board of Internal Economy meeting. This response was received yesterday and, as I understand it, has been distributed to all board members.
I also indicated at that meeting that we wanted to see some movement on the remote interpretation service.
I can report that since then, the translation bureau has put out a call for freelancers who are interested in doing remote interpretation to provide their availability for the January to June period, so there's been some movement on that front.
The other issue raised was related to the marking of exams that took place in early November.
I can report that half of the exams have now been marked. My understanding is that everyone who has qualified or was successful in the exam will be offered either employment or a freelance status.
The onboarding time, with respect to those particular individuals, depends on the circumstances. We can assume that there are going to be new people who will be able to embark with the bureau. At this time I'm going to say that it's too early to conclude that those advancements would provide for an increased capacity for January, for the return of the House after the new year. It is my hope that in the short term it would at least stabilize the 57 events scheduled, avoiding potential cancellations.
That's my update. I'm to connect again this week with the deputy minister, and we'll continue to update the board as new information becomes available.
Thank you.