When the work suddenly dried up, Pamela Cousineau thought about leaving the country.
After three decades as a freelance interpreter, she was accustomed to setting money aside for just such a downturn.
But the spring of last year was different.
“It happened overnight without any prior warning — and it was bad,” she said. “People were anxious. Everybody was anxious.”
After Justin Trudeau resigned as Liberal leader in January 2025, Gov. Gen. Mary Simon agreed to prorogue Parliament while the party searched for his replacement.
For freelance interpreters — who provide live translation services at public meetings on Parliament Hill and for federal departments —the pause on Parliamentary business meant the sudden cancellation of months of work.
“We thought when (the federal Translation Bureau ) had cancelled, that meant they had no work,” Cousineau said. “It’s okay if that’s the case. The problem was that wasn’t the case.”
As it turned out, the work hadn’t stopped for everyone.
Instead, according to four interpreters who filed complaints with the federal procurement watchdog, the government breached the terms of the interpreters’ contracts “in secrecy” by awarding the available work to a subset of freelancers who were charging the lowest prices.
In a series of reports published earlier this year, the Office of the Procurement Ombudsman agreed that in doing so the government had violated its contracts with the interpreters and recommended Public Services and Procurement Canada (PSPC) pay out damages for the lost wages.
In each case, the office described “a strong suspicion of bad faith” on the part of government, but ultimately decided the evidence wasn’t strong enough to judge intent.
About six months later, Cousineau says she and the other complainants are still fighting for the wages they say they’re owed.
‘Carried out in secrecy’
According to a timeline laid out in the reports, three freelance interpreters sent letters to PSPC on April 25, 2025, expressing concerns over a “significant deviation” from the terms of their contracts.
Under those contracts, the government was required to award work to qualifying interpreters at random once it had determined enough suppliers met the requirements, including quality, for a given event.
Through conversations with colleagues, Cousineau got a sense those rules weren’t being followed.
“We know each other,” she said. “There aren’t many of us.”
Among the pool of about 70 freelance interpreters working with the federal Translation Bureau, Cousineau said all the work was going to just three interpreters, while the rest were getting nothing.
“Some of them were actually complaining that they were getting so much work that they didn’t have a single day off,” she said.
So, she wrote to the bureau, seeking an explanation.
After hearing nothing for weeks, one of the four complainants followed up on May 12, according to the ombud. In June, another followed up again.
They were met with silence until June 17, when PSPC promised individual answers to all the interpreters.
“It took a very, very long time,” Cousineau said. “It took about three months before we got a letter back from the government saying, ‘Yeah, you’re right. We haven’t been following the rules.’”
According to the ombud reports, PSPC admitted it “did not fully” respect the contract between Feb. 1 and April 28, 2025, saying the breach was due to a “misunderstanding” of one clause as well as “internal miscommunication.”
In a Feb. 24 response to the reports, PSPC said it “promptly conducted an internal review” after receiving the initial letter in April.
“Additional steps have already been taken to ensure compliance with contract clauses, such as centralizing the work attribution function under a single authority to ensure better oversight,” the statement read.
The interpreters were unconvinced.
“The pattern of conduct in the administration of this contract — as evidenced in this sworn statement — leaves no doubt: the violation was not accidental, but the product of intent to deceive, bad faith, and knowing and intentional wrongdoing — a deliberate course of action carried out in secrecy,” one wrote in their complaint.
In each case, the ombud found the department had violated the contract. Although the ombud suspected bad faith, the office didn’t have enough evidence to establish intent.
The ombud recommended PSPC reach an agreement within 60 days to pay damages to the interpreters.
Nearly 200 days later, Cousineau said she and the other interpreters have yet to reach a deal, despite lawyering up.
The problem, she said, is that only the department knows how much money the interpreters would have received had the department followed the rules — and it isn’t willing to share that information.
“The process has been long and painful,” she said.
PSPC spokesperson Mario Morneau said in an email that the department could not provide further details, citing ongoing negotiations.
In the coming months, Cousineau said the cases will move into arbitration-mediation, but she isn’t holding out much hope for a positive result.
Lowest-bid system is the new standard
Christine Pellerin, a freelance interpreter and member of the Canadian section of the International Association of Conference Interpreters, said evidence in the ombud reports “was overwhelmingly damning.”
“I think that the ombud provided a report that went as far as they could because a claim of bad faith is kind of nuclear in government circles,” she said.
Pellerin said the reports dropped shortly after the federal government finalized new procurement rules for freelance interpreters, which make a “lowest-bid system” the new standard.
The association has derided the rules, saying they will result in worse working conditions and lower wages.
“Parliament can’t get enough interpreters, but they’re not creating procurement tools that allow for the industry to sustain itself,” she said.
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