Evidence of meeting #9 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 tool.
A recording is available from Parliament.
3:40 p.m.
Conservative
Bernard Généreux Conservative Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC
Joking aside, we have special connections to Europe. A company in our area called Premier Tech, which specializes in water treatment, has branches in several places in France. The owner received the Legion of Honour from the president himself last fall, if I'm not mistaken. We are very proud of that.
We would like to strengthen our connections with France. I'll be at the reception that our chair is hosting in your honour in his office this evening, so I look forward to seeing you again later.
3:40 p.m.
Liberal
3:40 p.m.
Conservative
Sylvie Boucher Conservative Beauport—Côte-de-Beaupré—Île dOrléans—Charlevoix, QC
Good afternoon. My name is Sylvie Boucher. I'm the MP for the most beautiful part of Quebec, the riding of Beauport—Côte-de-Beaupré—Île d'Orléans—Charlevoix. It's a very large riding that produces, hands down, the best cheese in Canada and—I should be careful here—one of the best in the world.
My riding has landscapes, water, and forests. The people are very welcoming. The vast majority of the people in my riding are francophone.
Welcome.
I'm also the rapporteur for the Canadian branch of the Assemblée parlementaire de la Francophonie, the APF. I'm the only woman representing francophones in the APF.
I'm delighted to have you here.
3:40 p.m.
Liberal
3:40 p.m.
Conservative
John Nater Conservative Perth—Wellington, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
My name is John Nater. I'm the MP for Perth—Wellington. It's a predominantly anglophone riding, but I'm here anyway. Perth—Wellington has a very strong agricultural sector. We have performances, arts and culture, such as Canada's Stratford Festival, the Drayton Festival, and the Stratford Summer Music Festival. It's a very diverse riding.
I'm proud to be here. You are welcome here.
3:40 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Denis Paradis
Thank you, Mr. Nater.
I'm pleased to welcome you here. I wanted everyone to have a chance to introduce themselves. You're also invited to the reception I'll be holding at 6 p.m. in my office, which is room 100 in the Justice Building.
Thank you very much.
We will take a break for a few minutes.
3:40 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Denis Paradis
Pursuant to Standing Order 108(2), we will resume our study of the Translation Bureau.
Before we begin, I'd like to mention that today is our friend Mr. Vandal's birthday. I think it's important to acknowledge the birthday of a committee member.
Today we have Michel Doucet, Professor and Director of the International Observatory on Language Rights at the Université de Moncton.
Welcome, Mr. Doucet. The floor is yours for about 10 minutes, and then there will be a discussion with the committee members.
Go ahead.
3:40 p.m.
Michel Doucet Professor, Director, Observer of International language rights, Moncton University, As an Individual
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I will try not to take the full 10 minutes and give my presentation as quickly as possible, so I can answer questions from Committee members.
Mr. Chair and members of the Committee, once again, thank you for welcoming me here today and inviting me to share my thoughts about the use of the Portage machine translation software.
First, allow me to introduce myself. I am a law professor with the University of Moncton’s Faculty of Law, and I specialize in language law. In addition to authoring numerous papers, book chapters and books on language rights in Canada, I have also had the opportunity to pursue a highly active legal career in this field, arguing a large number of cases before the courts of various provinces, the Federal Court and the Federal Court of Appeal, as well as a number of cases before the Supreme Court of Canada. I also sat for 10 years on the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal.
Since 2010, I have directed the International Observatory on Language Rights at the Faculty of Law of the University of Moncton. The Observatory’s mandate is to develop, support and promote language rights training and research in the programs offered by the Faculty of Law of the University of Moncton, as well as at provincial, national and international levels.
Since our inception, we have had an impact in a variety of ways. We have hosted a number of symposia on language rights, and I have also attended a significant number of symposia in Canada and around the world.
In keeping with our mandate to promote and research language rights, in 2014, we began publishing the Language Law Review, and in 2015 we launched our blog on language rights. In addition, we are about to publish a series of annotated language laws. We also have a “Legislation” section on our website with links to the constitutions of all states around the world as well as references to the various sections they contain that involve language rights. The site also features an interactive bibliography on language rights, annals of language rights, the newsletter, a research network, visiting scholars and guest speakers.
The Observatory also directed the third edition of Language Rights in Canada, a reference volume cited numerous times by the courts. I had the honour of co-editing it with the Honourable Michel Bastarache, a former Supreme Court justice.
However, I am not here today to speak about the Observatory, but rather to share my concerns about the decision to make the Portage machine translation software available to federal public servants. Whatever the reasons behind this decision or the software’s intended application, I believe this sets a troubling precedent that could have repercussions on the legal and constitutional obligations of federal institutions with respect to official languages.
I am not dismissing the idea that technology can play a role in translation or that these technological tools can save time and money. However, use of these technologies must not come at the expense of the language rights set out in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the Official Languages Act.
In Canada, outside Quebec, particularly at the federal level, French is generally a language of translation. Documents are mostly, if not exclusively, first written in English and then translated into French. Translators are often the ones solely responsible for the quality of French documents, and in instances where there is a dialogue involving both languages, translators can ensure the quality of English documents by identifying ambiguities that would probably not be apparent just by reading one linguistic version. Translators also make it possible for French to be a language of creation, not just a destination. Although machine translation software does have its place, it will never be able to ensure translation quality, since it can only blindly stick to the original text. In the past we have seen too many unfortunate cases where the translation was merely a poor approximation of what was written in the original language, thereby relegating the translated version to a secondary role.
Equality of official languages, a concept inherent to the language rights recognized by Canada, means that exercising these rights must not be seen as simply a response to a request for accommodation. Rather, the goal is to ensure that both official language communities receive service of equal quality in their chosen official language. The federal government’s linguistic and constitutional obligations include the obligation to provide the public with services of equal quality in both official languages.
The requirement to have documentation from federal institutions equally accessible to English-speaking and French-speaking Canadians is an important one, given Canada’s commitment to ensuring that both languages are of equal value and given their importance to the personal growth of all Canadians. Fully recognizing the equality of both official languages presumes not only that documentation produced by the federal government is available in both official languages, but that both versions are of equal value, meaning that there is not one version that is official and the other not official. In our view, this must be the case, since any other approach could end up placing one language above the other, which is contrary to the equality principle underlying the language rights entrenched in the Constitution of Canada, particularly section 16 of the Charter.
If both languages and official language communities have equal status, rights and privileges, then all members of the public should be entitled to receive equal treatment and not be put at a disadvantage depending on the official language they have chosen to use. Equal status of the official languages means that both official language communities must have access in their language to documentation that is equally authoritative and reliable.
For this to be possible, all political actors must adhere to the value represented by equality of both official languages. Taking a more dialogue-based approach to translation and giving authors greater responsibility for the translated versions of their documents are interesting avenues to explore. I am not satisfied that using translation software would achieve this. The time and money pressures given as reasons for using this software are just symptoms of a larger problem, namely that not enough importance is being placed on the quality of translations in Canada and the quality of services that must be provided in both official languages.
A bilingualism policy means respecting the principle of equality entrenched in our constitution. We must stop viewing one language as predominant and the other as simply an accommodation that can be satisfied by computer software. It is essential that federal institutions take greater responsibility for the linguistic versions of decisions.
This is why I join with those who have already said it and recommend creating a task force to conduct a comprehensive study of translation and the use of language technologies in promoting language equality by federal institutions. This task force should focus on the big picture, including issues surrounding the privatization of translation services. The purpose of this would be to look at developing a system to guarantee that Canadians can access service of equal quality in both official languages at all times that is consistent with Canada’s constitutional and legislative obligations.
Thank you for your attention.
3:50 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Denis Paradis
Thank you for your presentation, Mr. Doucet.
We will move on to the first round of questions and observations right away, starting with Mr. Bernard Généreux.
3:50 p.m.
Conservative
Bernard Généreux Conservative Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you for your presentation, Mr. Doucet.
From your paper, I think it is quite clear that your main concern is that respect for the French language, relative to the English language, would be eroded.
In your view and in actual practice, are the two languages currently equal in Canada? Let us forget the tool in question. I think that you do not consider the two languages to be on equal footing at this time.
3:55 p.m.
Professor, Director, Observer of International language rights, Moncton University, As an Individual
If we look at the legislative and constitutional texts, we find that it is recognized that both languages should be on an equal footing. Both languages should be given the same consideration by federal institutions. Unfortunately, in practice this is not the case, and this is evident in the reports of the Commissioner of Official Languages. In other instances, we can see that very often French is the language of translation, in other words, it is not the original language of the texts. The French texts are translations of the English texts.
In that regard, it is reasonable to wonder about the equality of both languages within certain federal institutions.
3:55 p.m.
Conservative
Bernard Généreux Conservative Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC
Do you think that the problem is fundamentally that the world of public officials is too anglophone, relative to francophones?
Do you have any idea about why there would be more documents originally prepared in English, as compared to those originally prepared in French?
3:55 p.m.
Professor, Director, Observer of International language rights, Moncton University, As an Individual
I think that is part of the culture, in a sense. Obviously, there are more English than French speakers in the public service. Moreover, there are probably more unilingual English officials in the public service than unilingual French speakers.
There is then a certain culture within the federal public service, and I would say that this is also true in my home province of New Brunswick, which is officially bilingual. In fact, we see that in this culture public officials often work in English. Although we recognize the right of employees to work in the official language of their choice, what we see is that very often the working language is English in many institutions.
I am not criticizing this situation per se; I am just saying that if the French language becomes a language of translation in certain institutions, we must ensure that the translated and the original versions of the documents produced are of equal quality.
3:55 p.m.
Conservative
Bernard Généreux Conservative Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC
I do not think anyone would question that. There are already other tools of that kind on the market. The Portage tool would possibly be installed in all departments. A very large number of pages are instantly translated by tools provided by search engines like Google, and it is clear that government staff is not alone in using these tools. Everyone does. We all agree that the quality of the result is very poor. I think that these tools were never intended to replace translators or produce results of equal quality to what we have now.
You say in your paper that this is truly a concern for you.
3:55 p.m.
Professor, Director, Observer of International language rights, Moncton University, As an Individual
Yes, indeed.
3:55 p.m.
Conservative
Bernard Généreux Conservative Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC
You fear that things will come to that.
3:55 p.m.
Professor, Director, Observer of International language rights, Moncton University, As an Individual
I worked at the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal for 10 years. I remember very well that, at the time, when I wrote my decisions, if the case was argued in English, I wrote in English, and if it was argued in French, I wrote in French. The translator's contribution was invaluable in producing the final text. Indeed, what seems to be clearly articulated to us when we write in English or in French is not necessarily obvious to a person reading it or translating it. Here, I am talking about a dialogue-based approach. The translator very often helps ensure the quality of the text produced. The translation tool does not capture these deficiencies; it slavishly translates the original text.
I do not object to the use of translation technologies. I think they can be very useful in-house, in that they may help people understand a text. However, I am concerned about the texts that are supposed to go out to the entire population. I think we should be careful not to take the use of these tools too far when it comes to communicating with the general public.
3:55 p.m.
Conservative
Bernard Généreux Conservative Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC
Given what witnesses have said before this committee since the beginning of this study, I can assure you that everyone, both the people who are already in the translation field and all parliamentarians present here, understood that this tool will never replace translators. I think that is quite clear.
I share your concern about the quality of texts that have to be translated. They may first be translated through a tool, whatever that is, and then be refined later. That will speed up the process. Despite the staff cuts in translation services, they still manage to translate as much as before. Obviously IT tools have something to do with that.
I do not think that anyone wants to see the quality of the French deteriorate.
Do I have any time left, Mr. Chair?
4 p.m.
Conservative
Bernard Généreux Conservative Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC
Your presentation suggests that fundamentally the problem is not just about using the tool; it goes a lot deeper than that.
I hope that the questions will allow us to look into this issue. It would be interesting to come back to it.
4 p.m.
Liberal
4 p.m.
Liberal
René Arseneault Liberal Madawaska—Restigouche, NB
Thank you for taking the time to meet with us today, Mr. Doucet.
4 p.m.
Liberal
René Arseneault Liberal Madawaska—Restigouche, NB
Yes, and he had a very good student. That said, there were 30 of us.
Mr. Doucet, I will continue along the same lines as our colleague, Mr. Généreux.
If I read between the lines, the real concern is that this tool will be used systematically and that French will become the secondary language.
Are you concerned that this tool will play too much of a role?
4 p.m.
Professor, Director, Observer of International language rights, Moncton University, As an Individual
I have concerns about the message being sent to the public and to other outside institutions. We are talking about a federal institution that has always been the authority on Canada's language policy, and I worry that it is sending a message to the private sector and to other provincial governments, especially New Brunswick, that they can meet their language obligations through the use of a translation tool.
I am very happy to hear that that is not the objective, but I think that the message must be clear: the primary objective is to ensure that neither of the two official languages is put at a disadvantage when documents are being produced. We must ensure that both official languages are treated equally, that the quality is the same, regardless of the tools, and that the public and other governments are not getting the message that they can use a tool to meet their obligations.
The technological tool is a tool. It can be used in certain circumstances, but it must not be used for documents made available to the public.