Translators who work on Parliament Hill say changes to their accreditation process risks worsening the quality of language interpretation in the federal government.
The Translation Bureau,
which provides translation and interpretation services to government organizations
, has quietly begun using an external consultant during accreditation exams instead of a jury of senior interpreters from within the bureau.
As of November, an external juror has carried the same weight as four staff interpreters combined previously. In the case of a disagreement, a Translation Bureau executive will break the tie, according to the Canadian chapter of the International Association of Conference Interpreters (AIIC-Canada).
AIIC-Canada is warning that the race to fill interpreter positions will result in lesser-quality interpretation of committee hearings, Question Period and beyond.
“I think really the most important thing is that it’s really sad to see that the Translation Bureau is giving priority to just filling in the spots over quality,” said Alionka Skup, president of AIIC-Canada.
“It’s really the impact on the quality of official languages, at Parliament of all places, where you need high-quality interpretation to make sure that parliamentarians understand one another and can do their job properly for their constituents.”
Michèle LaRose, a spokesperson for Public Services and Procurement Canada, said the Translation Bureau was now including “independent experts from the high-level conference interpretation community to provide an external perspective on the evaluations.”
“This allowed us to obtain a diversity of opinions from experts in their field, ensure greater transparency in the process, and inform any necessary improvements to the process,” said LaRose, who added
that there were “no changes to the evaluation criteria from previous years, and performance and quality expectations remain the same.”
In previous years, the bar for the accreditation exam was set so high that some did not pass at all, according to AIIC-Canada.
Since 2022, LaRose said, 193 external candidates had taken the accreditation exam, “of which only 22 were accredited, representing a passing rate of 11 per cent.”
LaRose added that 60 candidates took the most recent exam in November, but she said that the department could not provide the number of successful candidates “as the evaluation process is still ongoing.”
Critics of the change accused the government of seeking to suddenly increase the pool of working freelance interpreters following new procurement rules.
Skup said a “significant number” of freelance interpreters
had not bid for contracts since the new procurement rules came into effect
because they included an hourly pay model and other changes. She estimated that between one-third and one-half of interpreters in the association had chosen not to work in Parliament because of the new rules.
For Antoine Hersberger, vice-president of the translation group of the Canadian Association of Professional Employees and a translator with the Translation Bureau,
giving so much power to an external consultant over experienced staff interpreters was “a bit insulting.”
Hersberger estimated that the Translation Bureau was in reaction mode to “frantically trying to find solutions” after many freelance interpreters did not apply for contracts because of the new procurement rules.
“Freelancers care just as much as our staff interpreters about doing their job well, and so there’s a lot of them that don’t want to apply in these conditions,” Hersberger said.
For Hersberger, the changes will disproportionately impact French-speaking Canadians “that try to participate in their democracy and, just overall, set a lower bar for access to link to services in both official languages.
“If we’re lowering the bar in Parliament, you can imagine how low the bar can go in other contexts.”
