Evidence of meeting #7 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 bureau.
A recording is available from Parliament.
4 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Denis Paradis
Thank you very much.
The floor goes to Ms. Lapointe and Mr. Lefebvre, who are going to share their time.
Go ahead, Ms. Lapointe.
4 p.m.
Liberal
Linda Lapointe Liberal Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC
Thank you very much for being with us today. My questions go to both of you.
You say that 400 positions have been lost to attrition and that there will be 140 more. Four or five years ago, before the change in direction, how many employees did you have?
4 p.m.
National President, Canadian Association of Professional Employees
The Translation Bureau had more than 1,200 TR positions, compared to about 800 now.
4 p.m.
Liberal
4 p.m.
National President, Canadian Association of Professional Employees
The report on plans and priorities was probably one of the factors that led the committee to undertake this study. It seems to claim openly that the bargaining unit representing translators will continue to be eroded, translation will be sent to the private sector and attrition will continue with further positions to be eliminated. Of course, that has an impact because, even if you send texts for translation to the private sector, translators have to reread them. That is work that it difficult for the Bureau to bill for.
4 p.m.
Liberal
Linda Lapointe Liberal Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC
Thank you.
Mrs. Brunette, you used a humorous image: garbage in, garbage out. If you do not want garbage in, what would you do with this translation tool?
4 p.m.
Professor, Université du Québec en Outaouais
That is a little technical.
Even if what we call translation outcomes, machine-translated texts, are corrected perfectly as an outcome—that is a day I dream of—we are still going to have to put them back through the system. As I said, this is an automated statistical system. The machine learns. It will not make the same mistake if it is properly corrected. So the goal is to invest in corpus development, and, at the same time, in post-editing. Investing in corpus development means feeding the software with high-quality texts that it can compare.
The system will search statistically for what is most often present in its memory. If everything there is bad, it is going to come out bad at the other end. For example, if there are 25 acceptable solutions and two that are not acceptable, the system statistically will search for the 25.
4 p.m.
Liberal
Paul Lefebvre Liberal Sudbury, ON
Thank you for being here today.
You mentioned phantom TR positions. Could you explain that in a little more detail?
4 p.m.
Vice-President, Canadian Association of Professional Employees
It is a chronic problem. It has been talked about since I started my career here 29 years ago.
When an office in any given department wants a text to be translated quickly, they prefer to have someone do it on the spot. Often, the texts are small, not briefing notes or reports. So they decide to create a position. However, because of the Treasury Board directive, they cannot officially create a TR position. So they call the position “language quality advisor“ or something of the sort.
4:05 p.m.
Vice-President, Canadian Association of Professional Employees
Exactly.
Here is what already happened to me. Some time ago, I called a department to get some information and the person who answered said: “Good morning, Translation Bureau.”
4:05 p.m.
Vice-President, Canadian Association of Professional Employees
It was not the Translation Bureau.
4:05 p.m.
Liberal
Paul Lefebvre Liberal Sudbury, ON
You thought you had the wrong place.
Mrs. Brunette, do you want to add anything?
4:05 p.m.
Professor, Université du Québec en Outaouais
Here is an example for you. I have students working in departments. They have not finished their studies, but they are in revisers' positions. They have never worked as TRs but their title is reviser even if they are not able to translate.
4:05 p.m.
National President, Canadian Association of Professional Employees
That is incredible.
4:05 p.m.
Vice-President, Canadian Association of Professional Employees
It gets worse. Once—this was before 2011—, the Bureau held an exam for new TR positions. Afterwards, we learned that the Bureau had contacted those who had failed the exam to offer them positions as revisers or language advisors.
4:05 p.m.
Liberal
Paul Lefebvre Liberal Sudbury, ON
Thank you for your answers.
We have talked about phantom translation units, but I would like to bring up another subject, the subcontractors. Are departments free to hire them? What are the rules governing their use?
4:05 p.m.
National President, Canadian Association of Professional Employees
The Translation Bureau no longer has the monopoly. Ms. Achimov, uses the example of Fisheries and Oceans Canada as a shining example of the need to continue with a business approach, otherwise departments will no longer use its services. Fisheries and Oceans Canada decided on its own to establish a small group to manage translations and to use freelancers. The Translation Bureau also uses freelancers, but we deplore the practice.
The Bureau has to translate xmillion words per year and there are always peak periods. For example, when a new government comes in, the work increases. However, there is also a certain continuity. At present, since the Bureau is chronically understaffed by about 40%, it has to continue to rely on freelancers on a systematic basis.
Co-location is another approach that the Translation Bureau has adopted. There are fewer and fewer specialized TR positions co-located in departments. At CIDA, we had regular access to two or three TRs working with us. They were highly qualified and highly specialized. They were officially Translation Bureau employees.
Those are not the TRs that we are talking about here, but people who are providing the same kind of service. It goes against the Treasury Board rules.
4:05 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Denis Paradis
Thank you very much, Ms. Tremblay.
Mr. Choquette, you have the floor for six minutes.
4:05 p.m.
NDP
François Choquette NDP Drummond, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you all for being here today.
My first question goes to Mr. Picotte.
If we consider the Translation Bureau's mandate in terms of linguistic duality and respect for the official languages, what additional advantage does a Translation Bureau give us compared to the private sector?
4:05 p.m.
Vice-President, Canadian Association of Professional Employees
Essentially, the private sector produces words. Commercial logic says that words must be produced as economically as possible. It may be that the private sector does very good work, but we should not be under any illusion: the objective is to make money or at very least not to go bankrupt.
In a normal and ideal situation, the Translation Bureau does more than that. It promotes language, it plays a role in the standardization of language through its terminologists.
There is also a cultural aspect to our work that we mentioned in our brief. We stand up for linguistic duality. We care about more than producing words and paying our bills.
4:05 p.m.
NDP
François Choquette NDP Drummond, QC
Thank you.
That is exactly why I asked Ms. Achimov when she appeared how the Translation Bureau calculates the cost of the outside services that it uses, for example the Termium Plus terminology service and post-editing. She mentioned that prices still had to go down in order to remain competitive.
So how can you stay competitive if you do not calculate the costs of outside services?