Evidence of meeting #101 for Procedure and House Affairs in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was gaelic.
A recording is available from Parliament.
11:50 a.m.
Liberal
Scott Simms Liberal Coast of Bays—Central—Notre Dame, NL
So it's not based on experience but on certification.
Can the certification vary from province to province?
11:50 a.m.
Co-Chair, Board of Examiners, Canadian Translators, Terminologists and Interpreters Council
In that particular case, in B.C. the certification is provided by our provincial affiliate.
11:50 a.m.
Liberal
Scott Simms Liberal Coast of Bays—Central—Notre Dame, NL
Now predominantly, of course, in this country when we talk about certifications or rate of pay or collective agreements, to the degree they exist, it's always based on the English-French paradigm.
11:50 a.m.
Co-Chair, Board of Examiners, Canadian Translators, Terminologists and Interpreters Council
That's correct.
11:50 a.m.
Liberal
Scott Simms Liberal Coast of Bays—Central—Notre Dame, NL
What is the situation regarding indigenous languages? Does this area fall under the same form, or is there something different for this when it comes to certification or rate of pay?
11:50 a.m.
Co-Chair, Board of Examiners, Canadian Translators, Terminologists and Interpreters Council
For interpreters, it's all based on the length of the speech or the length of the dialogue; we're not counting words anymore, if that's what you're getting at. I'm not sure whether....
11:50 a.m.
Liberal
Scott Simms Liberal Coast of Bays—Central—Notre Dame, NL
I guess what I'm asking is whether the paradigm by which interpreters exist, when it comes to certification, primarily, is the same for those who put themselves forward as indigenous language interpreters.
11:50 a.m.
Co-Chair, Board of Examiners, Canadian Translators, Terminologists and Interpreters Council
It's the same paradigm, because they'll be working from or into their language.
11:50 a.m.
Liberal
Scott Simms Liberal Coast of Bays—Central—Notre Dame, NL
Our study is based on seeing how we can incorporate more indigenous languages into our Parliament. They will follow, then, the same rate of pay and the same levels of certification and so on and so forth as interpreters putting themselves forward as English-French translators.
11:50 a.m.
Co-Chair, Board of Examiners, Canadian Translators, Terminologists and Interpreters Council
I would expect that to be the case. Yes.
11:50 a.m.
Liberal
Scott Simms Liberal Coast of Bays—Central—Notre Dame, NL
That's all I wanted to know.
I have a genuine interest here, because, of course, there is a very small part of the population of Canada with indigenous languages.
For our friends in Scotland, I understand that there is what I'll call a dialect called “Shetlandic”. Is that correct?
11:50 a.m.
Voices
Oh, oh!
11:50 a.m.
Head of Broadcasting, Scottish Parliament
What place did you hear that about?
11:50 a.m.
Head of Broadcasting, Scottish Parliament
I'm sorry. We had to mute you for a minute, because our division bell was going off calling members to vote.
11:50 a.m.
Liberal
Scott Simms Liberal Coast of Bays—Central—Notre Dame, NL
That's all right; I am muted often. It's okay.
11:50 a.m.
Head of Broadcasting, Scottish Parliament
I was just asking what place you had heard that about. We'll need to check that one, I think.
11:50 a.m.
Sub-Editor, Official Report, Scottish Parliament
People in Shetland do speak a pretty...is it a dialect? I'm not sure. It's certainly very broad—
11:50 a.m.
Liberal
11:50 a.m.
Sub-Editor, Official Report, Scottish Parliament
It is, and it's very broad. It has a very specific vocabulary. Much of it is quite related to Norwegian and Scandinavian languages, because there's a lot of Scandinavian influence, and obviously—
11:50 a.m.
Liberal
Scott Simms Liberal Coast of Bays—Central—Notre Dame, NL
The similarities are there. As I mentioned to Mr. Williams about indigenous languages being very small, obviously 1% of the population speaking in Gaelic is a very, very small portion of the population. If I said to you that I want to speak in Shetland when I stand up in the House, how do you make accommodations despite the size of the population that speaks that language?
11:50 a.m.
Sub-Editor, Official Report, Scottish Parliament
I think if someone spoke in Shetland, it would be a bit like someone speaking in Scots or Doric or something like that. It would simply be included in the record because it is very close to English. It's not sufficiently different. You're going to get different spellings and you're going to get odd vocabulary words that are unusual, but fundamentally, if you speak English, you can understand Shetland, so it's not that radically different.
There's a range of languages in Scotland that we just include and people can use as and when they want. The Shetland dialect would be one; Scots is another; Doric is another.
11:50 a.m.
Liberal
Scott Simms Liberal Coast of Bays—Central—Notre Dame, NL
Where I come from in Newfoundland, sometimes we need interpretation, so I have an affinity with the Shetland people.
11:55 a.m.
Head of Broadcasting, Scottish Parliament
I have a brother-in-law who's a Shetlander. I understand him.
11:55 a.m.
Liberal
Scott Simms Liberal Coast of Bays—Central—Notre Dame, NL
Good, and I'm glad you understood me. Thank you.