Procedure and House Affairs Committee on May 3rd, 2018

[Malcolm Williams]

I'm sorry for interrupting you, but as I said, certification is not a requirement in Canada. It's a nice thing to have, but it's not a requirement.

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Banff—Airdrie, AB]

Got it.

How many interpreters within your association work with indigenous languages? What percentage or what number?

[Malcolm Williams]

None.

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Banff—Airdrie, AB]

None? Okay.

Can you tell me a bit more about the proportion of the assignments? You mentioned a number of the different assignments that you do, whether it be court work, etc. Can you tell me a bit more about the proportion who would work with health care assignments, say, or government assignments, or justice- and court-related assignments?

[Malcolm Williams]

I hesitate to give a percentage, but a significant proportion would involve health care and visits with physicians, and a significant portion would also involve attorneys with immigrant or refugee families.

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Banff—Airdrie, AB]

Those would be the two main ones, then; you're quite certain of that. I know you're hesitant to give a percentage, but would they be in the majority? Would they be more than 50% between the two of them?

[Malcolm Williams]

It would be in the 40% range, but that is really a guesstimate, and that's just for community and medical interpreting. I'm not talking about conference interpreting.

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Banff—Airdrie, AB]

It might not be fair to ask you this, given that you have no indigenous interpretation under your association. You might have some familiarity though, so I'll just ask you, and if you don't have the expertise that's fine. Would you know if the same patterns and proportions would exist with indigenous interpretation?

[Malcolm Williams]

Knowing I was going to be at this meeting, our Manitoba representative did some research. He came back to me two days ago, informing me that community medical interpretation services in indigenous languages in Manitoba are managed by an agency called Indigenous Health. The main languages interpreted there are Cree and Ojibwa, so that would be very much in a community interpreting environment. He also informed me that Nunavut manages a centre for Inuit needing health care services in Winnipeg. That centre provides interpreting services in Inuktitut.

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Banff—Airdrie, AB]

Do you know, in terms of their interpreters, what percentage would be involved with those medical services?

[Malcolm Williams]

No, I have no numbers on that.

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Banff—Airdrie, AB]

Okay. We've obviously been talking about various types of interpretation methods: relay interpretation, remote interpretation, and a couple of those things. I know they're generally not considered ideal situations by interpreters, obviously. I want to get your opinions on that, and whether that's something we should or should not look at and why.

[Malcolm Williams]

They're not ideal, but why not look at it? Remote interpreting is becoming very popular.

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Banff—Airdrie, AB]

What do you see as the challenges in that?

[Malcolm Williams]

I still go back to the question beyond the technical aspect, which is of the certification itself. How are you going to guarantee quality interpreting? That is a question that should be asked.

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Banff—Airdrie, AB]

All right. I was going to go to our Scottish officials, but with the 45 seconds I have left, we wouldn't even get started.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

Mr. Saganash, please.

[Romeo Saganash, NDP, Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik—Eeyou, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to our guests.

I want to start with the Scottish Parliament. I wanted to ask the question Mr. Simms asked about rule 7.1.1, so I got the answer for that.

The other question I have is about that notification requirement. How much time is that? Is that a 24-hour or 48-hour notification that you require?

[Linda Orton, Head of Public Information and Resources, Scottish Parliament]

Hello. I'm Linda Orton. I'm head of Public Information, and it's part of my remit to find the interpreters.

We use an external contractor who has access to any language we might request. Generally speaking, we like two weeks' notice, I'm afraid. We need that long-term notice, really.

[Romeo Saganash, NDP, Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik—Eeyou, QC]

Okay. Thank you.

Mr. Williams, I listened to your enumeration of your provincial affiliates. Was Quebec part of it?

[Malcolm Williams]

Quebec is not part of our—

[Romeo Saganash, NDP, Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik—Eeyou, QC]

Is there a particular reason for that?

[Malcolm Williams]

Quebec was a member until 2011, and then decided to go its own way. Only Quebec can tell you why.

[Romeo Saganash, NDP, Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik—Eeyou, QC]

All right.

You also talked about the certification requirements you have for different provinces and interpreters and translators. Public Works and Government Services informed us on Tuesday of this week that they have a list of 100 indigenous interpreters who can interpret some 20 languages. Would you recommend that these people become members of your council?

[Malcolm Williams]

It would be great if you could encourage them to do so, yes.