Official Languages Committee on Feb. 2nd, 2021

[Nicole Gagnon]

It's quite unfortunate. As you'll understand, knowing that we're getting injured working four hours a day, the situation improve if we work five hours a day.

[Mario Beaulieu, Bloc, La Pointe-de-l'Île, QC]

Indeed.

We're also told that the Translation Bureau now requires you to work in teams of two. A chart seems to show that this happens increasingly frequently.

What are the consequences of that for you?

[Nicole Gagnon]

When we work in pairs, it's normally for a period of three hours. As you can understand, we're on the mic for 30-minute periods. Actually, we work for 20 minutes on Zoom because, for a number of reasons, it's exhausting. So we relieve each other every 20 minutes.

The two-interpreter team consists of one interpreter working into English and another working into French. As the "French booth", I need to be relieved after 20 minutes, and it's the "English booth" that does it. That person is then working into his or her second language. However, work in two-interpreter teams has always been done.

The difference in this case is that the government wants to increase that work, whereas it would be of lower quality.

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

Mr. Beaulieu, you have 30 seconds left.

[Mario Beaulieu, Bloc, La Pointe-de-l'Île, QC]

We're seeing everything that's happening right now regarding your employers' failure to listen, among other things.

However, the larger part of interpretation work is done from English into French. Can we conclude that services in French aren't at all a priority for the government?

[Nicole Gagnon]

As you know, it's not up to me to offer an opinion on that.

All I can tell you is that we're not up to the task and that we have to be protected from prolonged exposure so we can continue serving you in English and French to the best of our abilities.

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

Thank you, Ms. Gagnon.

Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu.

Mr. Boulerice, you have the floor for two and a half minutes.

[Alexandre Boulerice, NDP, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

We're quite concerned about the upcoming changes. Requiring availability for 15 and a half hours, even 16 hours a day, is…

[Marie-France Lalonde, Liberal, Orléans, ON]

Mr. Chair, I'm truly sorry to interrupt Mr. Boulerice.

I'm told there is a technical problem with the conference lines for the people participating in this meeting by telephone. I've just received a message asking me to raise a point of order.

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

All right. I'll check with the technical team.

Don't worry, Mr. Boulerice. I've stopped the clock.

Madam Clerk, are you aware of what's going on?

[The Clerk]

We're checking on it. It shouldn't be long.

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

All right.

Colleagues, we will suspend for a few seconds.

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

We will resume.

Mr. Boulerice was speaking when we had to suspend.

Mr. Boulerice, you have exactly two minutes to complete your question.

[Alexandre Boulerice, NDP, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Before the break, I was talking about availability for 16 hours a day, the request to increase work by 25% per day and sound problems that can cause injuries. In addition, freelance interpreters' contracts will soon be expiring, in mid-February. What could we do to prevent this imminent contract renewal from being a disaster?

[Nicole Gagnon]

Jim, would you like to answer that question?

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

Go ahead, Mr. Thompson.

[Jim Thompson]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

This goes in part to answer Madame Lattanzio, who wondered what can be done. I think it would be very helpful for this committee to acknowledge that the bilingual character of our country, in the highest institution of our democracy, is under threat. It's being undermined. People are being forced into one lane and mostly it's English.

[Alexandre Boulerice, NDP, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

I'll interrupt you there because I have a few seconds left. I think we've understood your point, Mr. Thompson.

What have you communicated to the office of Minister Anand, and what answer did you get?

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

Which of you wants to respond?

[Jim Thompson]

We have been impressing upon the department and the political leadership in the department the importance of safeguarding interpreters. We've had not a lot of feedback from that level. We have had spokespeople, as you have noted, from the department talking about things in the press that are only half right.

We're waiting. We hope to have more discussions. Our consultations with the translation bureau itself were suspended before they were concluded, so we don't even know what is really going on.

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

Thank you very much, Mr. Thompson.

Now we are going to turn to Mr. Dalton for five minutes.

[Marc Dalton, Conservative, Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge, BC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Thanks to the witnesses for their presentations and their excellent work, which is essential.

What are the differences between interpreting for meetings on the Zoom platform and in-person meetings? We had a microphone, and the interpretation was continuous. What problems has this new way of operating caused for interpreters?

[Nicole Gagnon]

Thank you for your question, Mr. Dalton.

What I can say to this is that there's a big difference between being online and being in the room with everyone, as I'm sure you've noticed. Everybody can't wait to get together again.

It has made our work more difficult in that, first of all, interpretation is teamwork. We're usually a team of three, and we help each other out. For instance, if we're doing the finance committee and we're listening to briefs and interpreting briefs at a gazillion miles an hour, our colleagues in the booth will jot down numbers so that we say “billions”, not “millions” or “thousands”, and get the numbers right, which is a challenge.

The problem now is that we are all separated, all working alone in one booth on our own, because of COVID-19. On top of which, we go to the Hill and we have the technical support team, but everyone is remote.

We do have a few MPs coming back to the Hill now, so the sound that we are getting, we are getting from different inputs. We are getting it from Zoom, we're getting it from the MPs in the meeting room and we are getting it from people who are online and not using the proper equipment. There's a lot of variability in the sound that is coming through on a platform that, as we've pointed out, is not meeting our requirements in terms of intelligibility.

[Marc Dalton, Conservative, Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge, BC]

Thank you very much.

Tell us a little more about the various systems. You mentioned the European system. Is the visual aspect of the other systems as good as that of Zoom?

[Nicole Gagnon]

I can't really speak to the other platforms. I'm not an expert on platforms. On Thursday, you will be receiving a witness who will speak to that.

What I can say is that we are seeing issues abroad as well. There seems to be a trend in terms of injuries being sustained, but certainly not to the extent that we are experiencing them here. Because of our bilingual character, we have been working in a virtual Parliament for some 10 months now, basically on a five days a week schedule, and nobody elsewhere in the world has been exposed to this kind of sustained work. That is why we are showing so many injuries. It's because of that very situation.