Alison Johnstone, the Presiding Officer of the Scottish Parliament, in Ottawa on April 17.Justin Tang/The Globe and Mail
A delegation of Scottish parliamentarians is so impressed by the seamless bilingualism of Canadian MPs – and their brevity at Question Period – they plan to head home and see if they should emulate them in Edinburgh.
The members of the Scottish Parliament – led by its presiding officer – are in Canada on an official visit to study how the Parliament in Ottawa and Quebec’s National Assembly work.
On Monday, the delegation watched Ottawa’s Question Period in action, where MPs and ministers have only 35 seconds to answer a question and respond.
In an interview with The Globe and Mail, presiding officer Alison Johnstone – who is the equivalent to the Speaker in the Scottish Parliament – said she plans to write a report with suggestions on what Holyrood could learn from Ottawa, including on how its system of bilingual debate could be applied to Gaelic speakers.
Many MPs in Ottawa speak in both English and French with simultaneous interpretation.
“We will go and we will speak with officials in Parliament and we will tell them what we’ve seen in action,” she said.
Conservative MSP Finlay Carson, who represents Galloway and West Dumfries, said Canadian MPs galloped through questions on “every topic you could imagine” because of the 35-second rule, at a faster pace than in Edinburgh.
“I went into Question Period thinking this will never work. How will they get through it? How can you have 35-second question and answers over a 45-minute period?” he said.
“For anybody to be able to do that, when asked the question in French and responding in French and the next minute being asked a question in English – I think that’s remarkable. And the pace at which the interpretation came through was very impressive.”
Ms. Johnstone said the brevity of questions and the way Canadian MPs shifted seamlessly between English and French when asking and answering was “incredible” and “fantastic.”
“We watched the session today and it’s certainly a different approach to the one we have. We don’t have timings,” she said. “We have some debates that take place in Gaelic.”
The Scottish Parliament reopened in 1999, with legislative powers devolved from Westminster. It followed a 1997 referendum where the Scottish people voted for Scotland to have its historic Parliament restored.
“We have a young parliament comparatively. We will be celebrating our quarter-century very soon. Even though we are young, we’re very, very keen to make sure that we don’t get stuck in our ways and we’re always looking at how we might better improve,” she said.
She said the Scottish Parliament currently arranges interpretation for Gaelic speakers but they must inform the Parliament first as the interpreters are not a permanent fixture.
Collette Stevenson, a member of the Scottish National Party, which is in favour of independence for Scotland, said the Canadian model of simultaneous interpretation is of great interest.
“There’s several of our members who can speak Gaelic,” she said. “We do try to promote the Gaelic language.”