Yes.
Evidence of meeting #15 for Official Languages in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was services.
A video is available from Parliament.
Evidence of meeting #15 for Official Languages in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was services.
A video is available from Parliament.
5:05 p.m.
Vice-President, Linguistic Services, Translation Bureau, Department of Public Works and Government Services
Yes.
5:05 p.m.
Conservative
Sylvie Boucher Conservative Beauport—Côte-de-Beaupré—Île dOrléans—Charlevoix, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair. That's what I wanted to ask.
5:05 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Denis Paradis
There are four or five minutes left. If committee members would like to ask other questions, they must be very quick.
We have a few minutes, starting with Mr. Généreux, followed by Mr. Choquette and Ms. Romanado.
5:05 p.m.
Conservative
Bernard Généreux Conservative Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC
I would like to briefly follow up on the matter of the corpus. My understanding is that the corpus is an integral part of the tool and that it's fed content.
For post-editing, you do the verification.
5:05 p.m.
Vice-President, Linguistic Services, Translation Bureau, Department of Public Works and Government Services
Yes.
5:05 p.m.
Conservative
Bernard Généreux Conservative Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC
Who is paying for the service?
5:05 p.m.
Vice-President, Business Strategies and Partnerships, Translation Bureau, Department of Public Works and Government Services
Thank you for the question.
You would like to know who is paying for the corpus, correct?
5:05 p.m.
Conservative
Bernard Généreux Conservative Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC
Was that part of the tool development exercise?
5:05 p.m.
Vice-President, Business Strategies and Partnerships, Translation Bureau, Department of Public Works and Government Services
Officials from the National Research Council of Canada would probably be better able to talk to you about the tool's development. The translation bureau is in charge of verifying the existing corpus. Professional translators work on quality assurance.
5:05 p.m.
Conservative
Bernard Généreux Conservative Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC
Okay.
Mr. Chair, I don't know if you remember, but I had asked for a table explaining the tool's development, use, and corpus, and what goes in and out of the tool. I am a visual learner, and I would like to be able to see at a glance the tool's development or what it can help do. Can we be sent documents of that nature?
5:05 p.m.
Chief Executive Officer, Translation Bureau, Department of Public Works and Government Services
A workflow for the corpus...?
Yes we can.
5:05 p.m.
Conservative
Bernard Généreux Conservative Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC
I would appreciate that.
5:05 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Denis Paradis
You can send it to the clerk of the committee, and he will hand it out to the members.
5:05 p.m.
Chief Executive Officer, Translation Bureau, Department of Public Works and Government Services
Okay. That's what we'll do.
5:05 p.m.
NDP
François Choquette NDP Drummond, QC
My first question is very simple, although I know you can't answer it right away.
Can you tell us how many people are currently working on the Portage tool and what financial resources are used for it? Can you send the information to the committee in the next few weeks?
5:05 p.m.
Chief Executive Officer, Translation Bureau, Department of Public Works and Government Services
Yes.
5:05 p.m.
Chief Executive Officer, Translation Bureau, Department of Public Works and Government Services
Okay, Mr. Chair.
5:05 p.m.
NDP
François Choquette NDP Drummond, QC
You can send the information directly to the clerk.
I know that you have done surveys to determine how people would use the tool. Are the results public? Can you send them to the committee to give us a basic idea of how people responded? I received information indicating that people may use the translation tool rather than the established translation services.
5:05 p.m.
Chief Executive Officer, Translation Bureau, Department of Public Works and Government Services
We can share the results with you. We have only just implemented the tool in a number of departments. It will take some time to obtain the results.
However, this summer we will start a pilot project for the tool with 350 to 400 public servants. The types of sentences processed are not normally those sent to the bureau. Instead, we receive excerpts from documents for comprehension purposes and shorts texts such as answering machine messages informing callers that someone is absent or on vacation for a few days. It's really for short texts that would never otherwise be sent to the translation bureau.
5:10 p.m.
Liberal
Sherry Romanado Liberal Longueuil—Charles-LeMoyne, QC
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
I was not here when the officials from the translation bureau appeared recently, so I didn't hear their presentation. That's why I may ask a question that they have already answered.
The maximum turnover time is currently 48 hours for a translation request. My office has already used your services, and I was very satisfied with your work. Thank you very much. Do you have a plan to reduce turnover times and meet the needs of constituency offices?
5:10 p.m.
Vice-President, Linguistic Services, Translation Bureau, Department of Public Works and Government Services
There are a certain number of services, and normally we are able to meet needs—