Official Languages Committee on June 1st, 2006

[The Chair, Conservative, Guy Lauzon]

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to our guests. We will be beginning our meeting with a reduced quorum since there's one member missing. We will begin hearing from our witnesses, beginning with Ms. Achimov.

[Donna Achimov, Assistant Deputy Minister, Citizen and Community Services, Service Canada]

Mr. Chair, committee members, good morning.

My name is Donna Achimov; I am the Assistant Deputy Minister of Citizen and Community Services at Service Canada. With me today is Ms. Francine L'Espérance, who is the Acting Director General of Labour Market Information, also at Service Canada. Thank you for inviting us to appear before the Standing Committee on Official Languages. This morning, we will share our experiences with and the results of Job Bank's automated translation system, as well as present a solution we are exploring to improve the quality of the service.

The objective of the presentation is to inform members of the Standing Committee on Official Languages about Job Bank operations and the Job Bank translation service. We will present a solution to improve the quality of the service and respond to questions from committee members.

As indicated on page 4, the National Employment Service, maintained by the Commission and under the Act, provides information on local employment opportunities in all regions of Canada for the purpose of assisting workers in finding suitable employment in their community, their province or in other regions of Canada. The National Employment Service also assists employers throughout the country to find workers who meet their needs by providing information on available positions and the skills that they seek.

[Yvon Godin, NDP, Acadie—Bathurst, NB]

Pardon me, Mr. Chairman. Which document are we looking at?

[The Chair, Conservative, Guy Lauzon]

Indeed, we are having some trouble following your presentation.

[Francine L'Espérance, Acting Director General, Labour Market Information, Service Canada]

It is the French text of the document submitted by Service Canada.

[Donna Achimov]

Employment Assistance Services have existed for over 40 years and were first provided through local offices. Following progress in technology, Job Bank became one of the first on-line job posting and job search services. It is available at no cost to employers.

[Paule Brunelle, Bloc, Trois-Rivières, QC]

Pardon me, I want to point out that the text she is reading cannot be found in the document.

[Francine L'Espérance]

Indeed, some of the remarks are not written on the slide. The presentation contains only the essential. You will therefore have to listen to us.

[Donna Achimov]

Under labour market development agreements, all provinces except Quebec and Saskatchewan have decided to continue using Job Bank for their online employment services.

As it is a national service, we upload the offers from Quebec and Saskatchewan, which are then made available to all job seekers in Canada. Employers post job offers online using pre-translated skills checklists and some free text for additional information if required. Job seekers fill out job profiles using the same skills checklists and are then matched with employers.

I am now on page 4, where we talk about the problem. To understand why we have adopted an automated translation system, it is important to know the scope and nature of the service. I believe this to be the main issue of today's discussion. With approximately one million job offers averaging two to three positions per offer, job seekers had access to three million job opportunities last year. In addition, Job Bank logs over 60 000 user sessions per year.

Over the past two years, we have seen an annual increase in demand of 30%. The objective of Job Bank is to respond to the pressing needs of job seekers and employers—hence the quick posting, limited lifespan, and simple and repetitive language of job offers. The service is transactional in nature. I would point out that this service is always very urgent for employers. We receive a very high volume of texts, and documents that come to us externally differ greatly from the static content for official publication by a department.

Further, in order to meet our service standards, we have a short turnaround time for the translation and revision of free text. The turnaround time is approximately four hours per text. As the lifespan of offers posted is approximately two weeks, the level of translation quality we demand is different from that of larger texts that are available over longer periods. The translation system has equal capacity in both official languages and depends above all on the language quality of the source text.

I am now on page 5 of the presentation, on which we talk about challenges in relation to translation. As these texts are written by a third party, Service Canada is not legally required to translate them under the new directive which states that third parties are not subject to the OLA. Service Canada does so, as requested by the Commissioner of Official Languages, in order to support official language minority communities and to encourage workforce mobility.

In 2002, when Job Bank gave access to employers to post their own offers directly online, we identified problems related to the translation of job offers. We approached the Translation Bureau, which estimated the cost of translation of the 450,000 jobs offers available on the site at the time without relying on technology to be $25 million. Given time and cost constraints, and considering the large quantity of offers to be translated on Job Bank, we opted for the use of pre-translated checklists as well as an automated system accompanied by human revision to review free text, and hired a team of revisers.

In addition, we followed the recommendations of experts at Technolinguistic Services at the Translation Bureau to develop our system.

In most cases, automated translation is not appropriate; however, where there is a large volume of texts to be translated in a very short time, it is impossible to use human translation to deliver texts quickly enough and costs become exorbitant. In addition, since the messages are simple and repetitive in nature, fast revision of translated texts is possible in order to ensure comprehension.

Now on to page 6, where we talk about our three-year action plan and objectives. To resolve the problem of translation quality, in 2003 the Office of the Commissioner of Official Languages and the department approved a three-year action plan. The objectives of the plan were to reduce the quantity of free text to be revised by expanding the pre-translated checklist, to improve the translation system by adding a translation memory, to integrate quality-control mechanisms and to increase the proportion of offers being revised, all the while ensuring consultation and evaluation processes.

To ensure effective service management, we adopted a segmented service approach, providing priority service to bilingual communities and positions requiring bilingual capacity, thereby concentrating our efforts where they are most needed.

I am now on to page 7, which further talks about the three-year action plan. The creation of a revision team along with the combination of various technologies has enabled Job Bank to optimize the performance of its translation system. In fact, almost 90% of all job offers currently posted are of good linguistic quality in both official languages. This percentage covers 100% of bilingual communities and positions requiring bilingual capacity.

These results were achieved through improvements to the translation system, specifically by increasing the pre-translated checklist to 95% of offer content, limiting free text to 300 characters, adding new components—specialized dictionaries, a recurring text database, a translation memory and a new spelling and grammar checker to support employers when creating job offers, and increasing the number of revisers.

We have not only saved millions of dollars through our automated translation system complemented with revision, we have also put in place a system that is recognized as a leading example by language technology experts in Canada and internationally.

Now on to page 8, on which we talk about where we are now. The number of complaints has decreased drastically, from 16 in 2003-2004 to seven in 2004-2005 and falling to three in 2005-2006. Problems in terms of quality that we currently face are restricted to the 13% of offers that are not revised due to time constraints.

To conclude, let us move on to page 9 where we talk about considerations. I hope that we can ensure translation and revision for all jobs requiring bilingual capacity and all jobs for bilingual communities. Our goal for next year is to improve the translation system and reach our 100% goal.

I am now on to the last page.

Our goal is to review 100% of job offers. However, even if we were to increase the number of revisers, given the constant increase in job-offer volume, on certain days we would be unable to review all offers within our four-hour turnaround time.

I hope that you consider that our very specific goals for next year, as outlined in our action plan, will indeed contribute to improving the process.

I conclude my presentation, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Guy Lauzon]

Thank you for your presentation, Ms. Achimov.

We will begin our first round of questions with Ms. Barbot.

[Vivian Barbot, Bloc, Papineau, QC]

Thank you very much for your presentation. It was very clear.

I wish to make a comment. The reason why we request documents in French is because we live in a bilingual country. To my mind, this means that information must be available in both French and English, and when I talk about French and English, I am also, necessarily, talking about the quality of language.

As a French speaker, I find it unimaginable that a government website should contain text in unintelligible gibberish. This is a matter of respect, of rights, and of the role that I play in this society. I am constantly receiving letters from people who tell me about what they have read on a Government of Canada website, whether it be Job Bank or elsewhere. This is very serious, especially because I know that we have highly competent translation services, with people who know what they're doing and are able to do it.

You talk, first and foremost, about cost. There are costs associated with living in this country and we must assume them. It is obvious that we are dealing with this situation in Quebec. We understand time and time again that it is impossible to receive equivalent services, and we want to bail out. However, so long as we are here, we are perfectly entitled to make sure that things are done right.

I would like you to meet some of the people who write to me. Those people feel hurt, troubled and devalued. If you say that there are fewer complaints, it is because people have given up. People no longer bother to lodge complaints or write letters to their MPs or newspapers. For those people, it is mission impossible. You admitted so yourself when you said that it was impossible to revise everything. For me, this is a sign of failure.

What I am calling for is not revision. I expect to be addressed in language that is correct, idiomatic and grammatical. That is my first comment and it comes straight from the heart, because it is our very presence in this country that is at stake. However, time and time again, we find ourselves dealing with this problem, it becomes very demotivating, and even more so for those looking for a job. When I visit the website to look for a job, which is supposed to be drafted in French, and I am unable to understand it, it is even more demotivating.

How can you fully assume your responsibility to post job offers in French? You seem to be saying hat you do not have the resources. What must be done for things to change?

[Francine L'Espérance]

Thank you, Ms. Barbot.

You are quite right. We should not post poor quality text. That is not the intention of the system. I will explain to you why we moved to an automated system.

First of all, there were financial considerations. At the time, without automated translation, it cost $25 million to translate the offers. There were 450,000 at the time. Currently, we receive over a million and the number increases by 30% per year.

The limited life span of postings on Job Bank is another reason to move to an automated system. Job Bank is a transactional service. It allows employers to post their job offers across Canada. For them, the priority is to receive applications from job seekers as early as possible. It is the same thing for job seekers. They want to become aware of an offer, apply for the position and be matched with an employer as quickly as possible. The goal is to allow people to find employment as quickly as possible. Is that an excuse for poor quality? No.

We adopted an automated system after having consulted experts in the field. We took the existing translations and incorporated them into a translation memory. Every time a text goes through the memory and corresponds to another text held in the memory, it has no errors and can be posted directly without revision.

We have also begun to use pre-translated checklists. Using the National Occupational Classification, which is recognized throughout Canada, we have put together pre-translated checklists of skills. When employers post their job offers, they consult this list and check off the skills they require. All of this is pre-translated and there are no errors in the text.

It is in free text that we find errors. Free text is limited to 300 words. This is a space that is made available to employers so that they can add particular details concerning the offer, details that do not appear in our pre-translated checklists. Errors slip into this text.

When we started doing automated translation in 2002, we had a level of quality of only 20%, which was a poor result and things could not continue in that way. The deputy minister at the time approved a budget to refine our translation system. We went from 20 to 87% quality. We therefore have made enormous progress.

There are still 13% of the offers that cannot be revised. Some days, we revise them all. Other days, we receive up to 5,000 offers and we cannot revise them all. This is why we still have some of poor quality. Today, we are proposing not to post job offers that have not been revised, so that there will be no more poor quality texts in the system.

[The Chair, Conservative, Guy Lauzon]

Thank you, Ms. L'Espérance. We are short of time. It is now Mr. Godin's turn to ask a question.

[Yvon Godin, NDP, Acadie—Bathurst, NB]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I would like to thank our two witnesses for sharing their perspective with us.

It is shameful that a country like ours, that has legislation on official languages, publishes such things. I find it absurd, unacceptable and insulting.

I granted an interview to the magazine Paris Match last spring. These people gave us an example of the quality of work done by automated translation software. They published a photograph of Ted Menzies, whom the current government had appointed parliamentary secretary and, inset in the article, a photo of Stephen Harper under which it said something like “anglophone minister for the French language, Roberti Menzi”. That gives you an idea of just how ridiculous automated translation can be.

It is no news to you that I have already filed a complaint on this issue. Letters from the Office of the Commissioner of Official Languages prove that this situation is not a new one; it dates back to 2002, perhaps even earlier. In 1999, she wrote the following:

I have been concerned about this issue for several years; in 1999, the Commissioner published two studies on the presence of French on the Internet and on official language issues on government sites. In 2002, two other studies focused on the same issue and made 28 recommendations [...]

Alluding to the fact that I had submitted a complaint, she said in the first paragraph:

In fact you have given several examples in your letter. The cases you have identified have merit pursuant to the Official Languages Act.

If you are informing us today that unverified information will no longer be posted on the site, I conclude that that would be a very good thing. A poor quality translation that has not been checked does not deserve to be posted.

Imagine what the new members of the committee will think when they see this site. We are talking here about Service Canada's site, therefore the government. An article in the September 16 edition of the daily Le Droit, gives the following account:

Bidding on a federal government contract is not always an easy thing, particularly for a francophone contractor.

The MERX site, exclusive provider of the federal government's electronic tendering service, is fertile ground for dubious translations, some even literally incomprehensible.

Since August 31 last, the Department of Public Works, for example, invites its suppliers to bid on “le mur de canal de Rideau repare” [the wall of canal of Rideau repair]

The document is careful to point out that the work involves “l'entree de garage de elizabeth de reine, la cinquieme avenue pour courber au parc de lansdowne et aux cochons soutient la route (chemin Hogs Back !) le pont de balançoire au pont fixe” [the entry of garage of Elizabeth of Queen, the 5th Avenue to curve with the park with the Park of Lansdowne and the pig supports the road (way Hogs Back!) the bridge of swing to the fixed bridge]

Imagine a tender like that appearing on Canada's website. The article also states:

The documents are also available, still quoting the call for tenders, “pour regarder aux bureaux de travaux et au gouvernement public entretiennent Canada dans Willowdale » [to look at the offices of work and the public government maintain Canada in Willowdale] The businesses interested in bidding on this project, whose value varies between $500,000 and one million dollars, must however keep in mind that “ la norme nomme de le et les conditions pour cette acquisition sont incorporées par la partie de reference et forme des documents tendre et de contrat ” [the standard names of and the conditions for this acquisition are incorporated by the part of reference and the tender shape of the documents and of contract]

I also have a document that dates from May 23, 2006. It calls for:

Slaughter, découpeur de viande, porcupine plain. L'employeur cherche slaughter ayant de l'expérience pour la viande empaquetant l'usine (la plant). Les candidats devraient aussi avoir la réduction de viande et la saucisse faisant la capacité. [Slaughter, carver of meat, porcupine plain. The employer seeks slaughter having experience for the meat packing up the factory (the seedling). The candidates should also have the meat reduction and sausage making the capacity.]

It is unbelievable!

[Sylvie Boucher, Conservative, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

One wonders what they want.

[Yvon Godin, NDP, Acadie—Bathurst, NB]

It's unbelievable! And you are telling me that we've made progress? Just imagine, these absurdities now represent only 13% of the total, and we are the laughing stock of the world. Only 13% such offers are left in English and in French. It's totally unacceptable for our country. We have an Official Languages Act. I would call upon the Government of Canada to stop this immediately. It's completely unacceptable!

At the end, it says:

A translation is provided for guidance only. Due to tight job posting deadlines and to the significant quantity we receive each day [...]

Just imagine, all they're saying is that they're trying to help us.

[The Chair, Conservative, Guy Lauzon]

Mr. Godin, you have 30 seconds to ask your question.

[Yvon Godin, NDP, Acadie—Bathurst, NB]

Mr. Chairman, we are at the point where there are no more questions left to ask. We simply want it to stop. We are asking the Canadian government to stop this immediately. If we are incapable of providing good quality translation or creating documents which are not as bad as these, this is not the type of thing we want to see on a Government of Canada website. That is simply the message I am trying to get through.

[The Chair, Conservative, Guy Lauzon]

Thank you. We will move on.

[Yvon Godin, NDP, Acadie—Bathurst, NB]

I still have 15 seconds left. Perhaps the witness could answer.

[The Chair, Conservative, Guy Lauzon]

Yes. Would you like to respond?

[Francine L'Espérance]

I would.

Mr. Godin, you are right. We are suggesting that we will not post badly written texts anymore and will only post those which have been proofread.

[The Chair, Conservative, Guy Lauzon]

We will now give the floor to Mr. Harvey.

[Luc Harvey, Conservative, Louis-Hébert, QC]

I was listening to Mr. Godin and I was, frankly, embarrassed. Since coming to Ottawa—which is recently—I find that the services provided to members of Parliament are excellent. I have met with officials who provided high-quality services in both languages.

Today, I find myself laughing at a job posting in which candidates for a meat cutter's job are asked to work on a “seedling”. Ms. L'Espérance, this is so ridiculous that I can only say, as Mr. Godin did, that it is unacceptable.

I worked in the field of electronics for many years. You said that your software has a translation memory. Perhaps you should add a bit more memory, because there are problems. If the quality of texts is currently in the order of 87%, I would be afraid to find out what it was when the quality stood at 20%. What a joke. When everyone is laughing, from the Bloc Québécois members to the members from the New Democratic Party, the Conservative Party and the Liberal Party, it's because it truly is a joke.

Today, I would be embarrassed to say that I was the head of your service, and I would be embarrassed to present this to the committee. I'm normally a calm person, but as one of my colleagues said, “It gets my goat.”

This is not rocket science. If the quality of a text is in question, it would not be difficult to get a red light to flash. So instead of proofreading every single text, people could at least concentrate on the 13% which are at issue.

We must also be careful. If ensuring that an adequate translation is provided means that it takes four or five days longer for French-speaking candidates to apply for a job, they are the ones who risk being at a disadvantage. So should a job posting be delayed by five to seven days if it is to appear simultaneously in both languages? Again, it's a problem.

Please understand that you have a responsibility. On page 5, you say that you are not legally bound to translate these texts because they come from third parties. However, they are posted on your website. So don't tell me this is not your responsibility. It is your responsibility. If something falls into my jurisdiction, I am responsible for it. So you are responsible because these things fall under your jurisdiction. Regardless of the source of a text, you have to make sure that it makes sense. Perhaps an idea might be to create 175 standard sentences which people can select to correspond to their criteria. This might not result in a fantastic description, but at least, with 175 or 200 sentences, the content might be about right.

I'm embarrassed. I'm portrayed as an idiot in the foreign press because people say that our translations are idiotic. Ms. L'Espérance, we are in Canada. It's your job to make sure that the texts make sense.

Since I have to ask you a question, I have a good one. Out of the 800,000 job postings which are on your website, how many have been machine-translated?

[Francine L'Espérance]

The answer to that question is that all requests are automatically translated and then revised. However, we do not have time to revise every text. Therefore, we intend to stop posting job offers which have not been revised in order to avoid the problem of bad quality translations.

You suggested that the client select pre-written phrases. That is exactly what we have been doing with our pre-translated lists for the past three years. The plan was approved and developed in cooperation with the official languages commissioner, the same person you were referring to earlier. Our objective was 100% quality, but supply has increased considerably since 2002, namely by 30% per year.

I agree that Canada should not make international headlines for the bad quality of its work. However, if we do not resort to machine translation, we would not be able to strike a balance between sufficient time to post an offer and making sure a quality translation has been provided.

We have specialized dictionaries, pre-translated lists, grammatical proofreaders, and we are in a process of installing a source grammatical proofreader linked to the employer's text.

You must understand, and we have already said this, that Service Canada does not have the right to change the employer's text. The employer does not always provide perfect text. When we post the original offer, it often contains grammatical and stylistic errors. And we do not have the right to provide a better translation. We may correct typos, but we must translate the original text. That is why we are going to install a source grammatical proofreader which will be available to the employer to improve the quality of job postings in both languages. This means that translation will be better because the original text for the job offer will also be better.

We therefore intend not to post mistake-ridden texts anymore. We will not be a laughing stock anymore. We will post the job offers on time and we will continue to improve our system to ensure that we can post every single offer as the system is improved and as our people proofread them.