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

[Christine Normandin, Bloc, Saint-Jean, QC]

You spoke about disastrous experiences in certain places, particularly in Moncton. To your knowledge, have any other parliaments around the world dared to use artificial intelligence for interpretation?

[Marina Mistral]

There have been internal tests. For now, the AIIC Science Hub's research shows that no one has yet dared to use publicly available artificial intelligence‑powered interpretation. So far, the trials have been limited to internal communications that have not been made public or broadcast. As I said, the current test results have been absolutely disastrous across the board. We don't really know when this issue will be resolved. Security is also an issue, of course. At this point, the security protocols aren't really strong enough for institutions to fully commit and become that dependent on a provider or technology for important and confidential matters.

[The Chair, Liberal, Chris Bittle]

Mr. Moore, you have five minutes, please.

[Rob Moore, Conservative, Fundy Royal, NB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to the witnesses for their important testimony today.

I marvel at our interpreters and how, in real time, they're able to give a translation of what we're saying in the House, whether it's during question period and some of the very heated exchanges that happen there or whether it's in a setting like this at committee.

You touched on this a bit. I don't know if you're in a position to say, but I want to get your thoughts on, basically, the loss of human capacity. You mentioned some examples where AI was tried and was a dismal failure. I think you already mentioned the chilling effect it has on someone considering this for a career path, but I could foresee very quickly a loss of that human capacity. We're worried about that in other areas, but should there be a widespread adoption of AI for this particular service....

It was interesting. I was talking to someone yesterday, and they mentioned whether something was a good translation or a bad translation. Once we lose that capacity, who's to even say whether something, from a human perspective, is a good or a bad translation if we were to turn all of that over to AI? I want to get your thoughts on that. It's a very specialized field.

Could you speak to how people get into that field and to the sustainability of having people like you able to do the job you do?

[Marina Mistral]

I think everybody in our profession is worried right now, even the people who are already employed and my colleagues at the UN institutions, about the decisions that are being made by management. We see it in the translation services, where professional translators are now having to spend their days reading what sometimes amounts to AI slop and very bad, convoluted translations. Everybody in our profession is absolutely worried about the decisions that management everywhere is going to make.

One of our two Canadian programs, the one at Glendon campus at York University, is right now experiencing extreme difficulties. It has been paused for a couple of semesters. We're having issues everywhere with recruitment.

There is absolutely no doubt that the climate we see right now.... There is also even some discourse that we hear about some contexts deserving good interpretation and some contexts deserving less good interpretation—not professional, accredited interpreters but people who are in the market and who have not undergone the training we undergo or do not have experience and are now being employed by the federal government.

Of course, it is a worry, and it is very difficult now to convince somebody to choose this profession that we absolutely love and hope to be doing until we retire, basically.

[Rob Moore, Conservative, Fundy Royal, NB]

Thank you.

Do you have a sense of where Canada stands globally amongst peer countries in adoption? If one is a 10 and another is a one, with one being no adoption whatsoever, where would you say that Canada stands right now?

[Marina Mistral]

I would say that, in Canada, we have the ICAO, which is an agency of the UN. It follows the UN policies for AI adoption, so it has its own rhythm. I wouldn't say this is necessarily representative of Canada, but it has started doing some big groundwork on translation only. There is no talk about AI interpretation yet, even if some members would like to investigate the question.

Here we know that just about everywhere in the world, and in Canada as well, we are doing some automatic translation that in most cases has to be verified by a human. That is really important because we don't know what comes out of AI because it's such a black box. I think just about everybody has started doing that.

I would say that the bigger institutions in Europe have more power or more budget to try to really do some studies and research, as the WHO has done and I have mentioned. It was a very large study that was conducted last year about AI interpretation in a real context.

I would say that we are behind in the sense that we do not have this very large body with many languages that the UN and the European institutions have.

[The Chair, Liberal, Chris Bittle]

Thank you so much.

Ms. Vandenbeld, you have five minutes, please.

[Anita Vandenbeld, Liberal, Ottawa West—Nepean, ON]

Thank you very much.

I'd like to direct my questions to Mr. De Vrieze.

Franklin, it's good to see you again. Most of your experience—for more than 25 years—has been with parliaments, and then AI is secondary. Parliaments are a very unique kind of place. We're not the same as other institutions that might be adopting AI. What would you see as a difference for the adoption of AI by a parliament?

You mentioned that we're not interpreting legislation; we're drafting legislation. We have privilege. We have in camera testimony that needs to be taken into consideration, but we are also responsible and accountable to the public. How do you see the differences for AI in a parliamentary setting?

[Franklin De Vrieze]

Thank you very much. It's good to see you, Ms. Vandenbeld. Thank you for the question.

Indeed, parliaments are very unique institutions. I think the introduction of AI is at different levels. It is about the introduction of AI in the functioning of a parliament, but it's also about the role of a parliament in overseeing the policies and the legislation with regard to the introduction of AI to society as a whole and to the public sector as such. I think that is a main difference.

The second thing I would say is that the introduction of AI in a parliament is very much a change process. It's not a tech project. We should not consider the introduction of AI as something that has to do with IT only or procurement. It is really about an institutional change process. It means that in deploying tools without addressing the underlying issues of data quality, governance, skills and also organizational culture, the results and the gains will be marginal and could even undermine trust.

I would say that effective change in a parliament with regard to AI is very much about establishing cross-parliamentary governance bodies, establishing a parliamentary consensus on the introduction of AI—and consensus among the different parties but also consensus between the political level and the administrative level—and also establishing what I would call continuous learning rather than one-off training.

Indeed, as was mentioned before, the development of AI is going very fast, so it is really about institutional learning. We have been developing quite a number of tools around that, including some AI guidelines for parliaments—initially drafted in English and now translated into 10 languages. That was also quite a unique experience, discussing it in so many different parliamentary contexts. Some parliaments are still at the level of digitalization, and others are very much on the AI trajectory. I think that, in Canada, you're very much ahead of the game on that.

There are also very serious risks, which we haven't really grasped yet. There is the risk very briefly mentioned with regard to cybersecurity. I mean, when we speak about cybersecurity, it's like a time bomb. Cybersecurity, for Parliament, is like a time bomb that, with AI, is put on high alert. Before, a cyber-attack was something that a highly skilled IT person would be able to do after months or weeks of preparation. Now, cyber-attacks are happening on a daily basis against parliamentary infrastructure. We've seen that in a number of countries, a number of parliaments: Estonia, the German Bundestag, the U.K. Parliament, the Norwegian parliament and, of course, the Ukrainian parliament. This is a very worrying trend.

The head of cybersecurity in one European parliament told me that the parliamentary infrastructure is being attacked approximately 25,000 times a day, and then you have three or four ICT officers who are trying to protect the infrastructure. It's not just the email addresses or the phone numbers of the members of Parliament—the attacks go farther. The attacks go through the legislative database. When legislation is published, it's not being printed on paper: Is that not right? That's how it was published before. Publication of legislation, after months of debate and after proclamation, is then being published online. Now, what does it mean being published online? It's on a portal. If AI systems are being used to change the text of the legislation as it is published online, then, of course, AI is playing its most destructive role in the legislative process.

You, as members of Parliament, can debate policies and legislation and vote, but is the text you see on the screen really what you have voted for? I think that the question of cyber-protection of the legislation, as published online, is a critical issue, which at the moment is really underestimated. That's why the issue of the use of AI by malign actors looking for the weakest points in a state infrastructure and usually the offices of prime ministers—

[The Chair, Liberal, Chris Bittle]

I have to cut you off there. You have my apologies. We're a little bit over time on that round.

Ms. Normandin, you have the floor for two and a half minutes.

[Christine Normandin, Bloc, Saint-Jean, QC]

Thank you.

I'll once again turn to the representatives of the International Association of Conference Interpreters.

You spoke about the fact that some large institutions have enough money to research the effectiveness of artificial intelligence. However, I would like to hear your views on the reasons behind a parliament's potential decision to use artificial intelligence for interpretation. From what I'm hearing, it seems that the only good reason to do so would be to save a few pennies. It certainly wouldn’t be to increase efficiency.

Other uses of artificial intelligence show that it helps us become more productive, find and keep track of information, summarize information, and so on.

Aside from the financial benefit, is there any advantage to using artificial intelligence in interpretation?

[Alionka Skup]

No. The only benefit, really, is saving money. We're told that the goal is to address a shortage. However, it isn't a real shortage. The more artificial intelligence becomes widespread, the greater the shortage of interpreters will be. It's really just a matter of saving a few pennies. People will settle for “good enough” and will provide interpretation services only because they need to.

I would also add that this really undermines the French language. You should know that 90% of the interpretation and translation in Parliament is into French. This is really just a way to pinch pennies at the expense of the equality of Canada's official languages and at the expense of francophones in particular.

[Christine Normandin, Bloc, Saint-Jean, QC]

How much does this heighten fears that the French language will suffer, given thePrime Minister's plans to cut the translation bureau's budget by 25% over five years, even if these cuts don't directly affect interpretation?

What message does this send, this desire to save money at the expense of the French language and the quality of the interpretation?

[Alionka Skup]

It seems a bit hypocritical to call bilingualism a priority while making these budget cuts. The translation bureau provides both interpretation and translation services. It's a 25% reduction for both these aspects.

Furthermore, this affects not only services provided to Parliament, but also services provided to the various departments supported by the translation bureau. The impact extends beyond parliamentarians to include the people of this country, who have the right to access high‑quality interpretation.

[Marina Mistral]

I would also like to add that the savings in question here aren't necessarily real. These savings are being dangled in front of us. However, we know perfectly well that, when we end up with a single provider for an essential service, we may see cost overruns that actually far exceed the cost of interpretation here today.

We've seen this happen here often. As soon as a supplier has a captive market of this nature and a major client such as the Government of Canada, I highly doubt that the supplier will be willing to help the Government of Canada save money.

[The Chair, Liberal, Chris Bittle]

Thank you so much.

We'll turn to Ms. DeRidder, please, for five minutes.

[Kelly DeRidder, Conservative, Kitchener Centre, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

My first questions are for you, ladies.

I agree that interpretation should remain human. That being said, can you identify any key areas where you think AI could be implemented to actually help you as a tool to increase efficiency in House business?

[Marina Mistral]

I think coordination is probably the main piece for House business. We know how difficult it is to coordinate the schedules here because of the many last-minute changes. We interpreters receive schedules very late at night. Usually the coordination team is making a tremendous effort to fit this puzzle together. It can be very difficult. You need a specific language combination. You need to prepare the teams. You need to give them a certain amount of time between assignments and so on.

I think AI is excellent for doing this. For example, the product of organizing an interpreting schedule for the House could be easily verified and the errors could be flagged. It could not only save hours; it would also make things run smoothly for everybody. It would make life much better for interpreters as well, because then they could maybe count on more stable schedules. They could plan their lives and basically have better jobs. That's especially for staffers.

Of course, the tools we use to prepare for assignments are very precious. If we could get access to these tools as providers and staff, we could also be trained on how to use them responsibly. That means confidentiality. It's important to educate all the users of AI that when we are dealing with confidential information, it's important to use the appropriate version of the products. It's important to educate people on how to use it in such a way that we diminish the risk of the message being lost. I think this would be very helpful.

Almost all of us use these tools already. They're very useful.

[Kelly DeRidder, Conservative, Kitchener Centre, ON]

Thank you very much.

You mentioned that internal testing is being conducted with AI interpretation, and the results are disastrous. Do you happen to have access to those reports?

[Marina Mistral]

Absolutely. I will send you all the links after this committee meeting is done. I have quite a few that science has produced.

[Kelly DeRidder, Conservative, Kitchener Centre, ON]

Thank you very much.

My last question is for Mr. De Vrieze.

You mentioned the speed at which technology is advancing and the lack of policy to keep pace with the advancement, as well as that the adoption within our own parliamentary systems is lacking. Where do you believe are two key areas in which AI can be adopted into our House business to improve public service?

[Franklin De Vrieze]

Thank you very much for this question. I think in the areas of citizen communication, citizen outreach, responding to citizens' queries, the participation of citizens and reviewing the input and the submissions of citizens, the responsible use of AI can be done.

Second, I would say that comparisons between legislation, and comparisons between amendments and existing legislation, are probably where AI could also be used responsibly. I'm not speaking about drafting legislation but rather about comparing legislation and amendments within the country as well as across different jurisdictions.

I think that's somewhere AI could be used responsibly and relatively safely.

[Kelly DeRidder, Conservative, Kitchener Centre, ON]

Thank you very much.

That's all I have.

[The Chair, Liberal, Chris Bittle]

Thank you.

We'll now turn to Ms. Kayabaga for five minutes, please.