Procedure and House Affairs Committee on Oct. 20th, 2026

[Arielle Kayabaga, Liberal, London West, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

I'll turn to the interpreters first.

You have said a great deal. To some extent, I agree with you on interpretation. I think that you said earlier that no progress could be made, even in the future. I would like you to explain why you're so certain that we'll never reach the point where artificial intelligence can work, despite the current trends.

That said, do you have any recommendations for our committee? What specific measures, in order of priority, should we consider?

Our colleague asked you to provide information on the results of the tests you have already carried out. We would also like to see this information.

I would like to hear your thoughts on the future advancement of artificial intelligence in interpretation and then hear your recommendations for this committee.

[Marina Mistral]

I'm well aware that artificial intelligence is advancing rapidly. That's why I didn't provide any examples of funny things that artificial intelligence is saying right now. The situation is sure to improve. My examples were more about human reasoning. The machine can never do this because it's a statistical black box that relies on statistical models and simply doesn't think. My examples concerned comprehension or rephrasing, for instance.

There's also the matter of realizing when we make a mistake. When we realize that the context doesn't quite match the output, we can make a correction. The statistical black box will never be able to do this type of thing. It's designed to generate a probable result. I think that certain situations in simultaneous interpretation absolutely require human judgment and that the machine will never be able to make that judgment.

In terms of priorities, I think that Canada should take the lead, as it has been doing. When it comes to interpretation, Canada is already seen as a role model for bilingualism. We have an incredible collection of bilingual documents. We truly set an example for other countries around the world. I think that we should continue to integrate artificial intelligence responsibly and to demonstrate how artificial intelligence tools can be used for preparation and for terminology extraction. It's really about helping interpreters get on board with this technology and giving them training. On the administrative side, it’s also about using artificial intelligence to manage interpreters' work and to help allocate resources.

I'm sure that artificial intelligence can become more powerful. A 60‑second delay could be reduced to 30 seconds or 20 seconds. However, can we really expect this delay to decrease sufficiently in the near future?

Furthermore, can we really accept that the members of Parliament, who use a rich variety of expressions, have their remarks interpreted by completely impersonal machines? As we know, the lack of intonation significantly increases the cognitive load, making it difficult to listen to a machine‑generated interpretation for more than a few minutes. Is it acceptable for your words to be interpreted by an automated process? I don’t think so.

[Arielle Kayabaga, Liberal, London West, ON]

I agree with you. There are different accents in Canada. I'm a francophone from southwestern Ontario, so my accent is different. Even our vocabulary differs from the words used in Quebec or Acadia, for example. I agree with you and I'm really glad that you're here today.

[The Chair, Liberal, Chris Bittle]

Thank you so much.

I'd like to thank all of our witnesses for appearing today.

This meeting stands adjourned.