Evidence of meeting #30 for Official Languages in the 41st Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was nrc.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Vice-President, Frontier Science, National Research Council Canada
That's a good question. Thank you.
English is the main international language of science. We have a lot of associates, particularly in astronomy, and we provide a database.
to provide access to astronomical information. That's actually how we proceeded in these areas. The question is, should we or can we provide fully bilingual services?
NDP
Robert Aubin NDP Trois-Rivières, QC
I imagine it must be much more difficult for a francophone to understand figures in English. It's really their context that has to be translated.
Why does anyone feel a need to state specifically that official languages might not be respected?
Vice-President, Frontier Science, National Research Council Canada
Could I see the paragraph you read?
NDP
Robert Aubin NDP Trois-Rivières, QC
Yes, I could send it to you.
I was wondering whether you had received approval from the Treasury Board Secretariat before publishing this kind of notice.
Vice-President, Frontier Science, National Research Council Canada
It's something that I will certainly look into now that you've raised it. It is NRC's commitment to provide access in the language of choice to all of our services. It's something that I will be raising after this meeting.
Thank you very much.
NDP
Robert Aubin NDP Trois-Rivières, QC
Thank very much. I imagine you will send us the results of your research into this matter.
My question was nevertheless very serious. Would it be possible to develop a translation tool that is focused more on the scientific world? Could that be a possibility even though a lot of communication is done in English?
Acting Director, Research Programs, National Research Council Canada
The technology developed by the NRC relies on access to a parallel body of text. In this case, that would require us to have French and English equivalents at the outset in order to train the machine. That is the limitation of the current technology; if that body of text is not available, it is impossible to start up the system. In an individual case, there is always a way to look at the content, to start from somewhere, and then probably to close the loop so that the system can learn from corrections.
I would answer yes to your question. However, I would perhaps temper your expectations by telling you that it may not become a reality by next week, although the fact remains that it is possible.
NDP
Acting Director, Research Programs, National Research Council Canada
Acting Director, Research Programs, National Research Council Canada
There are no technical reasons why that is not possible.
NDP
Robert Aubin NDP Trois-Rivières, QC
My other question concerns the website, which is in English only.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Michael Chong
Thank you, Mr. Aubin.
Mr. Wayner and Mr. Gauthier…
Mr. Aubin, can you ask your question again?
NDP
Robert Aubin NDP Trois-Rivières, QC
In fact, I was wondering why the site was in English only. It doesn't contain anything specialized like the summary of a scientific treatise.
Vice-President, Frontier Science, National Research Council Canada
That's a good question.
But I actually don't have the answer right now. That's something that I will look into and report back on, if you wish.
Conservative
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Michael Chong
Welcome to the continuation of the 30th meeting of the Standing Committee on Official Languages.
We'll continue with Mr. Zimmer.
Conservative
Bob Zimmer Conservative Prince George—Peace River, BC
Bonjour. I had a question for Danial.
Specifically, you have spoken at length now about the new translation technology, but I just wanted to dig down a little bit deeper. But I have a question first to which I think the answer is obvious. What's the market for the technology? What are the markets that are vying for this technology?
Are there dollars involved in terms of profitability?
Vice-President, Frontier Science, National Research Council Canada
Thank you for that question.
Of course, NRC is very focused on making sure we make investments in areas that have potential for economic growth for our companies. If we look today at the market, it is a growing market. One of the sectors of this market that's growing very rapidly, for example, is in security and security-related technologies.
As a testament to what we've been able to build over the last 10 years, we have had DARPA, which is the American Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, and the FBI both come to us to use PORTAGE and integrate it into their systems.
In the security area itself there are an increasing number of firms, but there are also great demands from the agencies themselves. The amount of information available is doubling every 18 months. The ability of our security agencies to assemble, analyze, and prioritize information is beyond the capabilities of the analysts they have. In many ways it's similar to the translation challenges that the bureaus are facing.
Certainly in those areas of opportunity we've built the base that allows us to move into translation from other languages as well, and that opens up global markets for—
Conservative
Bob Zimmer Conservative Prince George—Peace River, BC
Yes. I was going to ask if the technology was limited to English-French translation, or is it a much broader platform?
Vice-President, Frontier Science, National Research Council Canada
I'll defer to my colleague, Charles-Antoine, for a technical explanation.
Acting Director, Research Programs, National Research Council Canada
No, it's not. It's learning from an existing body of parallel texts, so it works on any language pairs, or almost any language pairs. In competitions we've scored very well in Arabic to English, for instance. I think, in fact, we came first against IBM and others. So it does work on other languages as well.
Conservative
Bob Zimmer Conservative Prince George—Peace River, BC
I'm very curious about this technology, and you've talked about different stages that it's at now. I guess it's being utilized currently, but is it being rolled out? Do you have a timeline of when it's going to be fully available, if that makes sense?
Acting Director, Research Programs, National Research Council Canada
It's fully available now; it's being rolled out now. Inside translation bureaus there are tool chains that the company uses. The PORTAGE system has to be integrated into that tool chain in every translation bureau. It's been done relatively easily in the two large-scale bureaus that are using our technology right now. We're conducting trials in two other ones. Companies also want to make sure that they're getting a return on their investment if they're going to invest in this, but it is available now for rollout.