EditorThis is a transcript of an in-person interview I did with Nicole Fernbach in Ottawa, ON, on June 9, 2017, as part of my project to compile an oral history of the plain language movement in Canada between 1980 and 1995. In 2026 she reviewed the transcript and made some minor revisions. Although this transcript reflects her views at the time of the interview, those views might have evolved since the interview took place.
***
NF: I went to law school in Bordeaux (France) where, after 4 years, I graduated (Licence en droit) in 1971. In parallel, I did a Licence en lettres in the Faculty of Linguistics and Literature, also in Bordeaux; I majored in English literature and Anglo-American civilization, as well as Scandinavian studies. After graduating, I felt there was a future in law and language, especially in a multilingual or non-civil law context. The field was not developed academically in France where it would appear somewhat “transversal.” There were translators and interpreters in international institutions—for example, the United Nations (New York) or the Council of Europe (Strasburg)—but access was limited.
Since 1969, I had been following the political and linguistical developments in Canada. I was given an opportunity here when the University of Western Ontario (London, Ontario) gave me a scholarship. In August 1971, I became a graduate student and teaching assistant in Political Science. Meanwhile, some factors were at play. At the time, under the Official Languages Act, Canada had instituted official bilingualism. More practically, it meant a statutory obligation to translate government, judicial and legal documents in both official languages, English and French. A legal translation industry was burgeoning and lawyers were needed. I changed plans, more precisely the opportunity to study for a Ph.D. in political philosophy in Queen’s University (Kingston, Ontario). I opted for a position as a legal translator in the private sector.
A drastic change indeed but I felt I would contribute more to the knowledge of the law and to political evolution in bilingual jurisdictions. I was to create templates and lexicons and establish a methodology for legal translation—a promising career in Canada.
Among other assignments, I started working on the review of the Supreme Court decisions and, in 1974, I was hired by the Secretary of State, Translation Bureau.
Until 1982, I was a legal revisor in the federal government. I devoted much time to training translators in drafting and terminology—the language of the law—but I wished to return to a more formal university teaching environment. After having resigned from the federal government, I opted for a more diverse schedule with three occupations: professional legal translator, part-time university lecturer, and private consultant.
In 1984, I was accepted in the Master in Law (LL.M) program at the Université de Montréal, but I kept on working as a translator, this time, in my own company, Juricom. I graduated in 1987. The thesis topic I chose unconsciously reflected what was to become my key interest thereafter—the plain meaning of words. I was to discuss the plain meaning rule in court or statute interpretation. In my research, I found about a growing movement in the English and American legal culture: the search for clarity in legal writing. Indeed, I found that one could be an excellent legal translator but that clarity—as proposed by the growing plain English movement—was so essential that it was to be analyzed further academically. My interest in clear and simple legal communication became predominant in my practice.
During that time, the Government of Canada had created what was then the Canadian Legal Information Centre; one division was the Plain Language Centre. It was managed by two pioneers in the field: Gail Dykstra, an American—she was a law librarian—and Dr. Mark Vale, who was a Stanford graduate in information management. They were both part of a growing academic circle in the US that was interested in consumer protection and access to legal information (that was before the internet). Our models were on paper only. We exchanged documents by mail. Can you imagine? We worked on lexicons with pen and pencil, but very soon these tiny cards were to form the basis for a future Canadian bank of terminology. It was just very rudimental, very simple.
Dr. Mark Vale as the head of the Plain Language Centre hired me as their French consultant. I started to write a book on the subject [La lisibilité dans la rédaction juridique au Québec] and we also constituted a catalogue of plain language resources then available. In 1988, a British company invited us to a conference on Plain English in Cambridge University. Called “The Plain English Campaign,” it had launched a fight against gobbledygook in law. There, we met American and Commonwealth lawyers and law professors, e.g. Mark Adler, a well-known attorney in England, Professor Joseph Kimble, Cooley Law School, Michigan, Professor Reed Dickerson. Mark Vale, and myself, we then joined what was to become an international network, Clarity. Then, they all came to Canada where we organized a conference here at the Château Laurier in Ottawa. The beginning of an international movement for clarity in law.
With the tools then available, it was not easy to collect information, but we managed to find corresponding bodies all over the world, in several languages. In France, there was some research on readability by François Richaudeau who analyzed teaching manuals and referred to readability formulas. Belgium had more to offer due to bilingualism and bilingual government operations. They had developed resources in English, French, and Flemish. Michel Leys had produced a booklet Écrire pour être lu about clear writing; it was used in his government department. Some judges and magistrates were interested in the debate about clarity in law and contributed to the future network. Our common interests were in government communication, judicial training, and statutory interpretation. We started sharing the tools and manuals available at the time.
That was 1990. I was to publish a book on plain legal French in Quebec, and we had the federal funds to create a library. Our Centre was to be a kind of clearing house for plain English initiatives and teaching material. We had found some very good publications in Scandinavia. At the time, Sweden was beginning to work in English–Swedish translation and adaptation of government material. Then we were in 1992. And the Clarity group, since 1985, 1986, had been publishing a journal that was to become an essential instrument to make connections. Its notoriety was growing and by 1992, 1993, it reflected a world network in its membership—including New Zealand and Australia—and a successful conference, Just Language, was held in British Columbia. That was the first important international conference on plain language in Canada. Then, you know, 1995, we saw the birth of PLAIN—the association of plain language you know. I was part of that conference as well as in another Winnipeg.
Canada then took an important role on the international stage.
When government subsidies ran out after 1992, I had personally gathered enough material in French to allow research on the topic. I created the Centre de lisibilité, Inc. It was to be a specialized library where students and writers could get information on our international movement and in turn contribute with their exchanges. I would hold conferences and seminars there. The federal government, soon joined by the Ontario and the Quebec governments, started plain English and plain French writing and training sessions for its civil servants. I prepared practical training material based on the new material offered everywhere.
Among the first entities to be interested in plain communication with the public, the federal Ministry of Revenue and the Quebec Minister of Revenue. The latter had already developed some simplification projects in the ’70s (tax forms); they wished to help citizens better understand their tax kits… By getting more information about the solutions we proposed in our movement—for example, newsletters and seminars, organizations, public and private—they could improve technical communication for the average reader. Other departments and agencies followed suit, and soon there was a strong demand for plain language training.
I also developed a teaching program for a Quebec entity, the Régie des Rentes in charge of the Quebec pension plan. Then, other departments and public or private organizations followed suit to train their staff, including banks and insurance companies. A Quebec non-profit organization, Éducaloi, had already developed its own programs for 20 years and it became a leader in French legal communication. They gained notoriety internationally and, in 2010, they organized the Montreal conference, for what had become the Clarity network. That was seven years ago. And the next Clarity conference is to be held by Éducaloi in Montreal next year—in 2018.
For our movement, 1992, when federal subsidies ended, was a turning point. I don’t know if that completes what Michel Gauthier told you, but Michel Gauthier intervened in the late ’90s. However, the seeds had already been planted by the federal government with the publication of a now-famous booklet Plain Language: Clear and Simple (1991). I don’t know—it would be interesting for you, for your statistics, to know how many copies have been sold. Personally, I have distributed it all over the world in French and English, and it had a lot of success. It was a cheap, $10 tool that would help conceive teaching material and university research. In 1990, the Faculty of Law of the University of Montreal had decided to offer a course on simplification of legislation and contracts at the third-year level. I taught it for three years, a three-credit course. For me, it was both a challenge and a joy to teach the language of the law in the Faculty of Law because it would challenge traditional legal expression. My part-time teaching was at the Faculty of Linguistics and Philology, University of Montreal (legal language). I did it altogether for 25 years, two or three classes a year but, in the early 2000s, I decided to opt out and devote more time to research.
It was therefore through legal translation that I found a need to promote clarity in legal communication. Now when you look at the plain language movement, you cannot avoid asking: “Is plain language achievable in law or not? Is it utopia…?” See, because you, as an editor—you almost take plainness for granted. You know what good writing is. If plain is good, then you will do plain. But, in law, plain writing raises some issues. And I found it difficult to transfer our plain language solutions for the English language into the French culture in Canada, the Canadian legal culture. Both linguistic groups would have to critically compare solutions, sometimes, with different approaches. Common law is mostly expressed in English whereas civil law is mostly in French. Writing rules may be different; so are the presentation of evidence in courts, or reasoning, or interpreting.
In Canada, the language of the law reflects both systems, common law and civil law. But they intertwine; for example, we have French-speaking common-law provinces. It was necessary to develop plain legal writing for common-law bilingual provinces, such as Ontario or, in a more challenging case, for the “officially bilingual” New Brunswick. Legislative drafters, mostly English drafters, would be receptive to a model based on plain language principles regarding clarity. As a consequence, their French-writing colleagues, whether in a bilingual co-drafting context, or the French legal translators, for instance in Ontario, had to follow plain language principles. The goal was always to be clear in both languages.
This type of challenges does not seem relevant in unilingual French jurisdictions, where the law is only expressed in original French. However, in supranational and plurilingual contexts, French documents are often official translations into French. For instance, in the European Union, 23 languages are at play and the source is mostly English. In that case, French lawyers want to write clear and simple French, although they have to deal with translations from English or other source language. Plain language requirements apply to all languages officially in use, whether source or target.
One must mention the French cultural resistance to the idea that clarity would be the result of certain skills or techniques that have to be developed and applied. Critics argue that good writing is the product of quality teaching, at school or college level. No need for a specific approach as promoted by plain language writers. The situation is simple, “Well, if you know how to write, then obviously you write clearly.” In their perspective, there are only two types of writers: good writers and bad writers. And the bad writers are not supposed to have their say, because they are usually not hired, so you only hire people who know—it’s their trade. They were properly taught. They went to good schools. They followed the curriculum and eventually went to college and graduated. So, if they have learned the language—in this case, French—and if they are real professionals, they have learned a trade—law, for instance, but it could be accounting or medicine—they are therefore going to write in a clear way, because it was needed for academic achievement.
And this is where my research into plain legal French hit a roadblock. From a Canadian perspective, France, as a country of more than 60 million people and many prestigious universities, seems reluctant to join the movement. First, it’s a problem of labels. My fellow lawyers in France resent “plainness.” Simple language sounds simplistic. Then, when you point some intricate expressions in common words or phrases, they say, “Well, anyway, if you know how to write, you have to use traditional formal legal language, which is not that bad, after all. Be formal because it shows respect for your reader, and try not to be too technical. But, anyway, French is a clear language if you manage it properly. If you have had the right education, you will express yourselves in a clear way that probably the reader will appreciate and understand.”
To be fair, in the past 10, 15 years, some French editors in France have realized the quality of government forms needed some work and defended their ground. They said, “Let us look at what we publish or put online; we get poor answers when readers have to fill out the forms. So maybe we should try and simplify our system.” This official approach was exactly in tune with our plain language initiatives. They said, “We will simplify. We will reduce the number of forms, be more to the point.” A form-simplification program was launched by the French government, with a view to improve relations between the government and its citizens and it was a success. Some university research projects were also organized, clear administrative lexicons were published, and online government communication thus improved. Citizens were seen as an audience who needed more clarity in online exchanges.
But resorting to plain contracts for consumer protection, among other goals, to protect a right to understand is not readily accepted in the French culture.
But in Quebec, the reaction to plain language solutions was different. Because Quebec, being part of North America, shared some clarity objectives in public communication, it could find its inspiration in government entities such as the Minister of Revenue, the pension plan agency… And, numerous multinationals located in Quebec have their own plain language editors in the English part of their operations; and they apply the same approach and standards in their French communications, for their private organizations. Quebec has evolved in an original way, so much so that European French have picked up these brochures and government teaching aids, and I don’t know, maybe it’s going to allow to expand in technical writing groups in France. And there, Quebec has showed its international appeal, you see. It developed an original approach to better writing and understanding.
It is not necessarily tied to the law. The reason may be that writers and editors have an important role to improve government communications; same for private companies. We can mention the case of simplified insurance policies, for instance, which is also linked to consumer protection; they are to follow the North American—Canadian and American—model and promote the “right to understand” approach. The idea is to communicate clearly in order to allow the average citizen to participate. Government or non-government or private sector entities, they all must try and improve their writing style.
Now, when we had the Canadian Legal Information Centre, everything could be centralized, but now we are bit scattered around. So, for the new generation like yours, who want to know and use previous research and solutions, it is important to go back to history: we were able to create a movement because the government helped and was quite progressive about it. It was a public initiative and a public will.
Similarly, in the United States, when President Clinton and also President Obama used executive orders to foster a clarity movement, they chose to operate from the top, and, you see, it has helped the use of plain language in law. Professors are supposed to find inspiration, for their standards, from these high-level institutions. It is clear that government has a key role to play. For instance, by enacting plain language acts as we had in Ontario. The university curriculum also reflects it, for instance—it is useful if you are a graduate student. Well, if Simon Fraser University gave some seminars on plain English teaching, that could also be spread all over Canada, you see, and generalized as a model.
It’s coming and going. For example, Université Laval distinguished itself with a group called Rédiger, and included plain French in the Master’s program, which was very interesting. However, in order to be effective, it must be a permanent program in institutions, not only when it seems fashionable, in a way.
Every time we can, we organize and join international conferences to promote the movement. Belgium, a French-speaking civil law jurisdiction, has been a key player for French in Quebec, because we look at their practice for inspiration, and we have interactions and exchanges. So that’s what I could tell you, how the past can influence the future. We see that everything started with a grassroots movement in England and some scholarly research on the statutory interpretation in law faculties. And when the two initiatives combined, the grassroots movement spread out all over the Commonwealth and the Anglo-Saxon world, and they managed to combine their energy in a single model—evolving from plain English to plain language—because it then became multilingual. And along the way, they picked up the French in Quebec.
That was the first non-native English group. Then, we expanded into Spanish. In the ’80s and ’90s, various parties, especially in local government for the Basque Country in Spain expressed their interest to join the movement with their own publications in their native language and in Spanish. It was an embryo of international cooperation. The European Union later became involved with its numerous languages in plain language initiatives in general—not only plain English—and it all contributed to produce an international movement.
I can only tell you about plain French now, but for instance in Mexico, we have plain Spanish; in Brazil, we have plain Portuguese; and in Portugal also plain Portuguese, which is the same. And that is another concern that we have: which standard of… which type of language, which standard is the plainest? Are we going to use the widest-audience language, which means Spanish from Spain, Portuguese from Portugal, French from France? Or can we also work with each local entity? There is always that type of tension at a multinational level with local parameters; we can see how the United Nations translation bureau resolves the issue, where they try and develop an international standard for the language. Sooner or later, we will have to define what is the standard of quality. Is it local and regionalized, or an international segmentation? Localization, is that what is at stake? Or can we settle for the international language, the one spoken by most people? And that will also include, I didn’t tell you about it, but there is also quite a lot going on in our movement in Asia, and Asiatic languages and the use of Mandarin, also—legislation in Mandarin—also in Hong Kong. That is also a whole new area where we could develop comparative law, and court decision style, and so on—Mandarin and English—that that is done, we have an international cooperation of legislative drafters for that purpose. So that’s what I can tell you. I imagine that’s what you wanted to know.
What are we proud of? I think we are proud, in Canada and in Quebec, to have been able to include such an approach in our daily writing practice, wherever, because we are flexible. We accepted solutions that were given by other jurisdictions. And that I am proud of, because we have adapted what we saw as good practices, exemplary practices. And we have made them Canadian and Quebecois. So that was good. And my dream would be to make it universal now. That, in all languages, we would be able to have the same research and then compare our results and see how we can help one another, because on the net, if you know a language, you can go on any website, clarity will be a factor, whatever the language support. We do have to develop solutions for the internet that go beyond language—also colour, use of colour, use of tools, of props [laughs]. It’s writing for the web, and I think this is what the future will bring. It will be a combination of the old craftsmanship with the new technology and artificial intelligence. We’ll have to adjust to that to see how we can best communicate and how we can teach the best body of knowledge, you see, for the young people to be able to master the language, not to make it poorer. Oversimplified.
That’s for the post-future. It could be robotic language. [Laughs]
IC: You mentioned the role of government a few times and about how sometimes leadership comes from the top, and you’ve mentioned some legislation—like the Plain Writing Act in the US, for instance. Do you think that legislation like that would help in Canada, like a federal plain language legislation, or do you think that government needs to take more of a leadership role in promoting these practices?
NF: Yes. Dominique Joseph is really the person who has worked the most on that, because she comes from the generation after mine, you see. In 1992, when the federal government disengaged, even in British Columbia, also the same thing, because it was helped by the British Columbian government, it lost ground, that kind of help disappeared. If and when government decides to go plain in its writing, it creates a level playing field, and then we have a skill that must be present… it’s a level of quality that has to be met when you source your work, whereas… where it could be by hiring people on a contract basis or for your civil servants. Because the government communicates a lot, and we need to use our government forms, government literature, government pamphlets, brochures. So the government has a big impact on our daily lives, and it also sets the standards, checks them and improve them, and then updates them. Makes them evolve. Whereas if you leave it to the private sector, there are some para-public—some companies that are so important that whatever they do, it will have an impact outside, like Bell Canada, and if they simplify their monthly statement, or like Visa, the credit card contracts. When they have simplified, that was… it became the new standard, and now banks look at this type of contract, simplified contracts, and it has become a model.
Sure, the private sector can do a lot, but in order to give the impetus, I think it’s important to devise a standard, and it reverberates in different circles—for instance, university, recruitment of personnel, human resources. And the federal government now, what they do—I don’t know if you had this kind of discussion with Michel, is that they tell you, “This is written in plain language.” But most people, when they look at that, don’t understand what we mean by that. Because there is not enough visibility of the system. How anything could be written in a non-clear way; how many resources the government has had to put to make it clear, which is more difficult, because it costs more money. So, there is not enough visibility concerning the efforts involved. You see, this is what I would criticize. I would say that they talk about the end result, but they don’t say how people go about it. How did they do it? Have they trained people? Were they trained at university? Were they trained in college? Secondary school? Where did they learn? And how did they learn?
Because you have to follow the evolution of the product. If it’s going to be about best practices, then you must be able to access them. You have to know where they are, what kind of curriculum it is, and everyone has to agree on the details and nuts and bolts—which I’m not sure. You see, because we talk about the end product—“This is in plain language. Look at that, this is in plain language.” So, the government communicates clearly. They should give more visibility. If it’s in plain language, it has costed more money to produce, so for the average citizen, just show them how much you care and what are the efforts. Where did we have to put the effort?
And it is also important for children, for primary and elementary education. Because children have to know that you can make an effort to be clear. That clarity is not a given. Clarity doesn’t come so naturally. It’s something you work at. And you have to approach it, maybe at a second level, you start working spontaneously, and then all of a sudden, you realize that maybe you won’t be understood by a lot of people, so you go back to the drawing board and you do it all over again, and adjust to the audience. It’s a skill that needs to be taught.
That’s what I find a bit strange is that we talk about the results a lot. Then we have those international conferences where we are amongst experts, and we are happy because we know how to do it, but it is supposed to be more than a movement. It’s supposed to become the standard. Just like ISO. You know? That’s what I would really fight for. To make it a standard so it would be everywhere. But then you have to know how to use it and to make it evolve. It’s not a skill that belongs to a happy few. The learned who meet every second year to talk about how special they are. No, it has to be mainstream. Because it’s another approach to communication.
And then you get into politics. Sometimes, there are things you don’t want to say, and sometimes you don’t really want to be understood. And you have to go into motivation and access and transparency. Those are the philosophical motivations behind plain language. If we want to develop it as a profession, it’s already quite hard. We have difficulty writing manuals. Then applying it is also something else. You can apply it one day and forget the following day, but then when it becomes the standard, then… the standard for which type of communication? Only for forms? But then what about government budget literature? Accounting? Bank statements? When it touches the financial interests of people, sometimes one tends to be a bit more on the fuzzy side—not too clear—because you don’t know if it’s not going to backfire. This is what is at stake.
At least if it would be developed as a standard, just like the International Standard Organization literature, we could all agree, and that was something that PLAIN, particularly Neil James, wants to do—this kind of international standard. And I think we can reach it. We can reach a level amongst ourselves, whatever the language, where we assess what are, scientifically, the best conditions to understand writing. And there are some cues and solutions in science—check what they do at Carnegie Mellon. And personally, I looked into controlled language, also. The controlled language studies that were done at Carnegie Mellon, and I think that, with artificial intelligence also, there are some inroads that we can pursue, but the accessibility of language, especially for technical manuals, which has always been an issue—and interesting topic—for aircraft and aviation manuals, for also, well, spatial, also the international space agencies in different languages—how to make sure that there is clarity in aviation, especially, for safety, for security.
So technically, we have developed some tools, but I don’t think it’s well known. It’s not universal enough. You look at the training, the curriculum in technical writing, for instance, do people study that subject? See, this is what I would like to see. And lawyers, also, of course. It’s not included in the law curriculum, you know, writing. Plain writing is not, in Canada or in Europe. In the States, it used to be compulsory. Some bar associations would impose plain language training at the bar association, when standing for the bar, but that’s not the case everywhere. Not in all the examples that I can think of. It’s still marginal. So, you have a lot of work.
IC: [Laughs]
NF: That’s it. Is there anything that I left out?
IC: Um, I don’t think so. You’ve covered pretty much everything that I wanted to ask. I was wondering if you might be able to say something more about Mark Vale’s work, because you knew him quite well, and of course I can’t interview him in person…
NF: No.
IC: So, would you mind? Do you have anything to say about his work or his contributions?
NF: Well, Mark Vale was a scholar. He was a very bright man. Young. And he had a very open mind. He was English speaking. He studied in the States, I think at Stanford. And at the time, when he studied information management, I think he had the idea maybe to make the link between information management and plain language. He already saw the use, you see, before what we saw in Carnegie Mellon, for instance. So, may be before Ms. [Karen] Schriver, you see, he knew… Now, he got involved in the federal government at such a level that he was very instrumental. He could influence—he had a lot of influence. And very probably we wouldn’t have a plain language movement the way we have it in Canada without him.
He was also very open to including the French parameters. You see, the difficulties to manage in both languages. How difficult it was to adjust. It was already difficult in English. How to do it in both languages and then translate clearly. So, write clearly and then translate the same message in English and fine tune. He knew the context, and he was also very keen to simplify in both languages at the same time. Now in his private practice—in 1992, he developed his own clientele, as I remember, he worked for insurance companies. Now, very probably, if you look at the Canadian style of insurance policy writing, it has been influenced very much by his way of thinking.
He was not a lawyer, but he hired lawyers. In my case I worked with him on insurance policies, and he could see all the implications that clarity in law would have—for the insurance company itself, for the insurer, and for the insured. So, I think he had quite a flourishing business in Toronto as I saw, and he also inspired a lot of people around him. In Clarica, at the time, I know that there was much more commercial activity in Ontario, at the time after 1992, than in Quebec. In Quebec it took a while—it took about five or ten years more to develop the same kind of visibility. But Mark Vale in Ontario was certainly a key leader.
And also, the other idea he had, and we shared that same scholarly approach, was to draw up a catalogue of resources. I like bibliographies, and he also liked them, so we liked to gather all the resources and make them in formal guides. Prepare them so that people could start, maybe to do some research at a higher level, and he was certainly going that way, you see. Taking plain language to a higher level. It could be the subject of a thesis. And I think that would be certainly in his honor, you know, if someone could do that. I don’t know of any work that has been done at such a high level. He knew his trade, and he had seen the future implications. What a loss.
IC: Yes.
NF: Young, young man. But I’m happy because I worked with him, and he helped correct the situation after we lost the public funding. He was dynamic enough to organize a business. I tried on my side, but I didn’t have the same availability because I had a lot of work with my translation company. I had to work on three fronts. It was difficult, I tell you. So that’s what I can tell you about him. I never really saw anything written on him, but if you could do some research. Someone who knew him is Phil… Do you know him? Phil in…
IC: Phil Knight?
NF: Phil Knight. In BC. Because the conference in BC, Just Language, was organized with Phil Knight. Phil Knight could tell you more about Mark Vale. Phil Knight was associated with all the conferences in Great Britain, by the way. So, this is the company and this is my card, you see. So that, I got the idea when the federal government decided to drop out. Mark Vale was doing the English part, and I would do the French.
IC: And the catalogues of resources that you developed, um…
NF: The catalogue was developed there. I have the reference here. Plain Language Resource Centre catalogue, 1992. We tried as much as we could—Just Language, Phil Knight with Christine Mowat. She had a lot [of contributions]. Christine is an important figure. And if we want to look at the English, very important was Martin Cutts. Martin created his own company after. And Cheryl [Stephens]—you know her. Yes, you have quite a dynamic influence over there in British Columbia. I don’t know—it could be even more important than Toronto. No? You think they are quite advanced in Ontario?
Those are the important… and I’m always in contact with Joe Kimble. I hope to see him in Austria. And, of course, Neil James in Australia is now becoming an important figure, because he has been there in the past, but he is also involved in the future. So, on the PLAIN… in 1995. And you have been a member for a long time?
IC: A few years. And when the PLAIN conference was in Vancouver in 2013, I volunteered and worked with Cheryl.
NF: Yes. I was there at the time and Dominique was there.
I hope you will have enough material.
IC: [Laughs] Thank you so much.