Procedure and House Affairs Committee on May 30th, 2024

[Marie-Hélène Gaudreau, Bloc, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

I gather, then, Mr. Ball, that there's no policy on avoiding certain words, which would require the interpreter to say that they didn't hear what was said when they in fact did but don't want to render it into the other language.

[Matthew Ball]

That's right. If the interpreter hears what is said, the interpreter has to render it.

[Marie-Hélène Gaudreau, Bloc, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

So, let's say that I'm an interpreter and tomorrow morning, I hear some insulting, misogynistic or other words. What do I do?

How do interpreters experience incidents like the ones that occurred? There's collateral damage. I want you to be very frank about this. I have serious concerns about this issue.

[Jean-François Lymburner]

I understand what you're asking. There are several aspects I would like to address.

First of all, the work is intense. I believe you've recently noticed that our workload had been increasing in terms of translating your documents, the number of hours of interpretation, and the various requests from the committees. The work is done in a rather short time span. We won't deny that we can feel the pressure during certain events or meetings. It's something you feel, and I think—

[Marie-Hélène Gaudreau, Bloc, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

I'm sorry to interrupt you, but I don't have a lot of time.

My question is about the mental health of the interpreters, who are sometimes required to interpret comments that cause them distress and that conflict with their values. The work of interpreters has evolved considerably. Interpretation is now done with more emotional content and I appreciate that. I've done some theatre acting and I understand that it's just interpretation, but I'd like to know how the interpreters feel in similar circumstances.

What we want to do here is introduce a policy that would basically have an impact on all staff. What do they tell you when the situation worsens? To be blunt, it's not going very well right now.

[Jean-François Lymburner]

I understand the mental health side of the question.

I could add that the main impact on our interpreters in terms of mental health is worrying about potential acoustic incidents.

The interpreters show professionalism and understand how discussions can go, whether on one of the committees or during question period in the House, for example. I haven't felt the concern that you raised. But within the department and the Translation Bureau, we make every effort in terms of mental health.

To me, what affects the mental health of interpreters the most is not knowing on any given day whether there will be a Larsen effect that could have an impact on their hearing.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ben Carr]

Ms. Gaudreau, you have 60 seconds left.

[Marie-Hélène Gaudreau, Bloc, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

Okay. Thank you.

I'm going to explain where I'm headed. For our study, I think we need to have a proper overview of the situation. We could conduct a survey of interpreters to know how they would feel about having to do their work in a different context, one which is disrespectful, in which they would have to interpret hurtful comments. For the purpose of our study, it would be important to know how our interpreters feel about it.

I'm putting myself in their shoes. I know that they're looking at me now. So I imagine myself in their shoes and for me, I would worry most about my physical health. Nevertheless, I would like to know how the interpreters feel when they go back home after having interpreted some disrespectful debates.

Would it be possible for you to get this information?

[Jean-François Lymburner]

We have services in the department—

[The Chair, Liberal, Ben Carr]

Briefly, Mr. Lymburner.

[Jean-François Lymburner]

Okay.

We can check to see if there's any feedback of this kind from our interpreters. I would also include the translators, because it's the same for them. We also have interpreters at the Supreme Court, where there are all kinds of issues like that.

Once again, I would point to the professionalism of the interpreters. They are used to working in all kinds of circumstances.

[Marie-Hélène Gaudreau, Bloc, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ben Carr]

Thank you, Ms. Gaudreau.

Ms. Mathyssen, the floor is yours for six minutes.

[Lindsay Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to the witnesses.

I want to continue in that vein. We did hear from the last meeting's panel about the impacts. You're not only interpreting but you're also part of this institution. As a former staffer, I was always amazed at how, while I wasn't directly the one in the line of fire, per se, there was a great deal of impact. There's a feeling on the Hill that gets translated down—excuse the pun—and on to others.

I appreciate that there is an attempt to have that separation, and that interpreters do separate themselves, but is there specific training that comes with that? Is that part of the training in order to become an interpreter?

[Jean-François Lymburner]

As the question is about training, I'm going to ask Mr. Ball to answer it.

[Matthew Ball]

Yes, it's part of the interpreter's job to separate themselves from the speech. As interpreters, we are all public servants. Our job is to represent your thoughts faithfully and accurately to the listeners in the other language group. That is part of the training at the university.

Yes, interpreters do have to hear sometimes horrific things. Political debate is probably not the worst of things that many interpreters hear. Yes, it's part of the training. Interpreters form a community. They speak to each other afterwards. If there's a particularly difficult meeting, they talk amongst themselves in the booth and they debrief. I know this because I've lived it.

I would say that I'm not overly concerned about their mental health from that perspective. I would agree with my boss—not just because he's my boss—that the bigger concerns for them are more around the health and safety stuff. As Mr. Lymburner says, we've made great strides, and I think they're reassured by that. I think from a mental health standpoint, for us it's health and safety that's the greatest.

As I said earlier, most interpreters understand that they work in a highly politicized environment. They are able to separate themselves and what they speak into the microphone from you. I'm not overly concerned about that. It's part of the job. When you become an interpreter, you accept that.

[Lindsay Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

In terms of the supports that you referenced briefly at the end of the last question in terms of that mental health support, there certainly is a greater understanding as we move forward, even over the last year or so, of what the mental health challenges or impacts are for anybody in any workplace, but specifically this one.

Could you go into a bit more detail about how you're ensuring, in terms of that greater understanding and that evolution of our understanding of mental health, that this is in place for interpreters? Is there anything we can do to ensure that within this institution it's more in line with what is needed?

[Jean-François Lymburner]

Mr. Chair, this is a very good question. What we did, as I mentioned in my opening remarks, is we created a position, a director's position, for the well-being of interpreters. This has never been done before in the history of the translation bureau, so we've put somebody in place whose only focus is on that—and part of the well-being is definitely mental health. It goes through many types.

We have numerous discussions. We meet them, we bring them together to get their feedback, and we're making sure that we have plans to improve our services.

I would like to highlight that we do 50,000 hours of interpretation every year for Parliament, which is tremendous. There are a lot of things that are going well.

Again, it's that prediction of any type of incident. What I would say is causing the most stress right now when you walk into work.... If you would walk to work and you don't know if today something's going to happen to you, it creates some anxiety, but it's not the only thing.

The relationship with our colleagues in the House of Commons and the Senate is paramount. Doing what we do is a team sport because there are many people who are not even from the same organization who all come together to support what we're doing here.

We're paying a lot of attention. I mentioned the ombudsman of PSPC, which is an amazing service that they can go to talk to. In addition, because of what happened....

And, of course, we also have instructions from Labour Canada.

It's very serious, so we want to make sure that everybody understands what we're doing, and being transparent and having a discussion is our main tool.

[Lindsay Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

In terms of how members can do better in this—our improvements—I think of certain instances.... I play with a pen; I don't play with the earphone, but I have certainly seen instances where specific members purposely scream into their mics in the House of Commons. It's a shtick. It's their effect. What do you do in those instances? How do you deal with that? Is there a protocol? Has that been used in these particular instances?

[Jean-François Lymburner]

Mr. Chair, as part of our measures that we've put in place, the sound is controlled behind the window as well, so we're trying to put in everything that we can to mitigate those situations. Interpreters can also adjust the volume they need to work with, for sure.

Matthew, do you want to add anything?

[Matthew Ball]

As you know, our goal is not to hamper your debate. Our goal is not to impede how members of Parliament work.

With the instructions, the directions that have been put in place, we understand that they're having an impact on maybe how MPs feel about the service. But really, we've directed interpreters to make sure that they look after their health and safety. If someone's yelling in the microphone, obviously they need to turn the volume down.

We understand that at the end of the day, MPs believe, probably, that it's more important to have healthy interpreters who can continue to support them and can make sure that the capacity is there, rather than maybe missing a word because the volume was turned down.

We're there to support them and to make sure they work as safely as possible.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ben Carr]

Thank you, Madam Mathyssen.

Mr. Berthold, you have the floor for five minutes.

[Luc Berthold, Conservative, Mégantic—L'Érable, QC]

Thank you very much, Mr. chair.

Five minutes is not very long.

I'd like to begin by underscoring the Translation Bureau's 90 years of existence, and the 65 years during which the translation of debates has been compulsory. That's extremely important, particularly for a Quebecker like me who speaks French 99% of the time in committee and in the House. I find it interesting to learn that my colleagues can hear, understand, and feel what I'm saying. Indeed, I'm very pleased to have learned more about this new way of understanding interpretation and the ability of the interpreters to also transmit the emotional content of those whose comments they are interpreting. I have, at international meetings, been exposed to the European style of interpretation. I can tell you that it's much more interesting to hear excerpts from our debates, into which the interpreters inject a degree of emotion. I'm not talking here about extreme emotions, but a layer of emotions. I would say emphatically that our interpreters do excellent work, and I'm very grateful to them for it.

As an MP, I tended to speak very quickly, but I think I've slowed down considerably since learning more about the work interpreters do. I was able on a number of occasions to have discussions with a few of them. For a 35-second question in the House of Commons, I slowed down from 130 or 135 words to 100 or 105 words. I believe everyone was very happy about it.

I can't say enough about the excellent work you do.

Having said that, I'd like to know how many complaints you've received from MPs about interpretation over the past five years.

[Jean-François Lymburner]

Thank you very much for your glowing praise of the Translation Bureau's services.

Since my arrival, the emphasis has mainly been on sound incidents. However, people frequently met with me to discuss preferences or to tell me about certain comments. I must say that the number is rather small. I even received some comments from people who said they really liked the new earpiece, while others didn't like it at all. It's therefore rather difficult to have—

[Luc Berthold, Conservative, Mégantic—L'Érable, QC]

So there weren't—

I'm sorry; we're not supposed to talk at the same time. I'll do my best to avoid it.

What I wanted to know was whether you had received any official complaints from members about your work.