Official Languages Committee on Feb. 4th, 2021

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

I call this meeting to order.

Welcome to meeting number 15 of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Official Languages. The committee is meeting, for the first hour, on its study of the challenges of the parliamentary interpretation service in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. The second hour of the meeting will be dedicated to committee business in camera.

To ensure an orderly meeting, I would like to outline a few rules to follow.

I would like to remind participants attending the meeting remotely, that screenshots or taking photos of your screen is not permitted. This was mentioned by the Speaker of the House of Commons on September 29, 2020.

Members and witnesses may speak in the official language of their choice.

You have the choice, at the bottom of your screen, of either floor, English or French.

Before speaking, click on the microphone icon to activate your own mic. When you are done speaking, please put your mic on mute to minimize any interference.

A reminder that all comments by members and witnesses should be addressed through the chair. When speaking, please speak slowly and clearly.

Unless there are exceptional circumstances, the use of headsets with a boom microphone is mandatory for everyone participating remotely.

Should any technical challenges arise, please advise the chair.

Please note that we may need to suspend a few minutes as we need to ensure all members are able to participate fully.

For those participating in person, masks are required unless you are seated and when physical distancing is not possible.

Should you wish to get my attention, signal the clerk or signal with your hand. Should you wish to raise a point of order, please activate your microphone and indicate to me clearly that you wish to raise a point of order.

I would now like to welcome our witness.

I would like to welcome Mr. Christoph Stoll.

He is a senior lecturer and research fellow with the Conference Interpreting Programme at the University of Heidelberg.

Mr. Stoll, you will have seven and a half minutes for your presentation. I will show you when you have one minute remaining. If you see the red card, your time is over.

Welcome, and good evening.

[Dr. Christoph Stoll, Senior Lecturer and Research Fellow, Conference Interpreting Programme, University of Heidelberg, As an Individual]

Mr. Chair and members of the committee, thank you for inviting me to speak with you this afternoon.

After hearing my French, you will probably understand why I feel more comfortable addressing you in English. I hope my colleagues won't be confused by this.

Thank you for inviting me to speak with you this afternoon. It's a great pleasure to be with you and to try to help you find solutions on this topic, which is very close to my heart.

Lawmakers and interpreters worldwide have had to adapt to COVID lockdowns and restrictions. After an initial phase of ad hoc solutions, interpreting hubs have now been set up in a joint effort of language services advised by sound engineers and interpreters.

As part of the body of knowledge established in sound engineering, psychoacoustics, interpreting studies and other fields, the parameters that impact the quality of sound, and thus also directly connect to the interpreting quality, are well understood and documented. ISO standards describe the minimum requirements under which interpreters can work reliably and safely. They have been agreed upon by equipment manufacturers, sound engineers, audiologists and professional organizations such as VKD, ATA in the U.S. and AIIC—

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

Mr. Stoll, excuse me for interrupting you.

Could you lift your microphone up a little bit?

[Dr. Christoph Stoll]

Is this better?

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

I think it's all right now.

Thank you. Go ahead.

[Dr. Christoph Stoll]

Heidelberg University hosts one of the most venerable M.A. conference interpreting training and research programs. Interpreters are trained in eight working languages for EU institutions and federal ministries in Germany. COVID lockdowns, however, have forced a large share of the more than 60 classes and conferences per week online, prompting researchers, trainers and administrators to investigate the current platforms and options.

I watched with great interest from my home here in Heidelberg your discussions that took place in the committee on Tuesday night. Yes, it was late evening, but I found the discussion really fascinating. However, there seemed to be some divergence of the testimony offered concerning matters related to technology and the platform that is used for your virtual meetings at the House of Commons and Parliament and the interpretation of your discussions. I hope to provide some clarity this afternoon.

I want to start with the testimony that you heard from the House of Commons administration officials. I believe it was Mr. Aubé who said that Zoom is not the interpreting system for the House of Commons. He also acknowledged that what interpreters are hearing comes from the ISO-compliant House of Commons system, unless it's from a remote participant.

From my understanding of the way you're meeting, pretty much everyone is connected online and therefore connected through Zoom. Looking at the first chart, you will see that there are ISO-compliant systems. However, the platform as was presented on the occasion of the study, which was commented on during the last meeting, is not compliant. Zoom, both the advanced and basic versions, is not ISO-compliant.

I'll try to explain why that is such a problem for us conference interpreters, which has been proven by research.

Sound information that is lost in one of the links connecting the speaker with the interpreters cannot be reconstituted. It cannot be added later on. What platforms do to sound—this concerns Zoom, Kudo and many of the other tested platforms—could well be a key reason why so many interpreters are being injured.

The spectrogram from the study shows how much of the original sound across the spectrum is lost through the Zoom platform that we're currently conversing over. The speech intelligibility was rated at 0.49 and 0.7 respectively for the two platforms. Those were among the lowest of all measured systems.

When interpreters speak, their voice overlaps the original. Unfortunately, the platforms reviewed have not been designed to allow people to hear and speak at the same time. Because of the missing audio frequencies, interpreters tend to increase the volume, which tires the stapedius and tensor tympani muscles, which mechanically soften sound's impact on the cochlea and the cilia of the inner ear. I'm sorry for mentioning this, but it will be a hinging argument later on. Audiologists are able to explain quite clearly why it is causing the fatigue and hearing impact observed.

There are currently no platforms that are ISO-compliant. There are set-ups, but they require sound engineers in attendance. This is why you probably continue working with Zoom.

My advice would be to ensure that your interpreters are exposed to a limited amount of sound from these platforms wherever that is possible, increasing team strengths and reducing the hours that they have to spend on mike on a daily basis, because this exposure can be detrimental to their hearing.

I listened also to the testimony at your last meeting and heard that ISO-compliant headsets have been provided. Looking around, I see that you are using the Plantronics 310. This cuts off the frequency—I've also provided a chart—at 6.8 kilohertz. That's about half of the frequency that interpreters need to be able to speak at the same time and hear what we are saying at the moment.

Many of the professional organizations have collated lists of compliant hardware. When that is connected correctly, it should also work for simultaneous interpreting, but I would recommend continuing to pursue the precautionary principle.

I have to stress that Canada has become quite famous for doing the right thing in this difficult situation and is in the limelight of attention of researchers and conference interpreters worldwide. We've been very impressed by the good path pursued here.

I've now tried to present these sometimes complex issues as clearly as I can, and of course, I'll be happy to take any questions and to try to answer them the best I can.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

Thank you very much, Mr. Stoll. That was great with regard to time.

Now we're going to start with rounds of questions. The first one is for six minutes.

MP Généreux will ask the first question.

Go ahead, Mr. Généreux.

[Bernard Généreux, Conservative, Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Dr. Stoll, thank you very much for being with us. It's tea time here but, unfortunately, we won't have time to drink tea today.

I listened to your testimony in French. I very rarely listen to the interpretation into French, since my spouse is bilingual and I learned English around the house, so to speak. So I find it quite easy to understand what English-speakers are saying to me, but today I listened to the interpreter. I've realized that, since March or April, when we started using the system, I've developed tinnitus and headaches myself, which I never had before.

For your information, I would like to add that yesterday I spent almost 12 hours on the screen with a headset on. I imagine that the interpreters must also be afflicted by these ills, as they also spend many hours transmitting information and concentrating on translating it.

Would you be able to tell us whether, in other countries where you have been able to find this out, there were also injuries among interpreters working for other parliaments or other organizations?

[Dr. Christoph Stoll]

Yes, I am aware of this being a general problem in conference interpreting, not only related to the current situation and the use of headphones. The main problem is that headphones are not just worn professional gear—this we are used to—but in this day and age many parliaments are using improvised ad hoc connections that are not engineered and controlled by humans, by qualified sound technicians or sound engineers, but controlled by algorithms. These algorithms are a bit to sound engineering what automated translations are for conference interpreting. It seems to work, but it comes with a lot of distorted sound. This distorted sound is what causes headaches.

[Bernard Généreux, Conservative, Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC]

I hadn't realized that headsets weren't ISO-compliant when we discussed this last Tuesday. You're telling me today. I don't think Mr. Aubé told us about it, and if he did, I don't remember.

The interpreters therefore find themselves in danger because the devices that carry the sound aren't of a quality recognized by ISO standards. You have, of course, noticed that there was a significant gap between what the interpreters told us and what Mr. Aubé of the House of Commons told us. There was quite a significant difference.

How is it that within the same organization, there can be two such clear-cut variations in the way people interpret what they experience?

[Dr. Christoph Stoll]

That is a very well-put question. The sound systems established for conference interpretation have been around for the better part of 80 or 90 years, and they are well established. There are professionals servicing these, professionals measuring the compliance of equipment with the best possible professional standards and also setting all the parameters. You have sound technicians, sound engineers, audiologists who are testing equipment at the manufacturers' sites, and the level of quality of this sort of equipment is much higher than ISO standards.

ISO standards are the absolute minimum, the bare minimum that is possible to be used in professional settings, and not even that is reached.

The administration officials have rightly pointed out that your House of Commons interpretation system, which I personally have not seen and cannot assess—I know that Bosch consoles are used, which are very good—is very good and complies with all requirements. However, the connection to the outside seems to be the issue, so dialing in through the Zoom platform is where the quality falls down.

[Bernard Généreux, Conservative, Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC]

Thank you for your answer, Dr. Stoll.

You teach translation, is that correct?

[Dr. Christoph Stoll]

Yes.

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

You have a few seconds left, Mr. Généreux.

[Bernard Généreux, Conservative, Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC]

Okay. I'll stop here. My colleagues will continue.

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

Thank you very much. The time is, indeed, flying by.

Mr. Duguid and Ms. Lattanzio will have the floor for the next six minutes.

Mr. Duguid, you may go ahead.

[Terry Duguid, Liberal, Winnipeg South, MB]

Mr. Chair, I thought I was sharing my time with Ms. Lattanzio. I would like to do that, if she is willing.

Let me thank Mr. Stoll for appearing before us today.

Let me also take the opportunity to thank our interpreters for their good work and for allowing us to do our good work. I know we all feel we need to do everything we can to improve working conditions.

Mr. Stoll, you rightly saw the divergence in testimony yesterday. I think you'd agree we're all doing our best in this new COVID world.

I wonder if you could comment. Is there a gold standard out there? Is there a country or an institution, a parliament that is doing it right, that has combined all of these elements in the right way? How would you recommend that we go from where we are to where we need to be? How do we structure that transition? Our Parliament needs to keep going. We need to keep passing laws and doing the business of the people.

[Dr. Christoph Stoll]

Absolutely, I entirely agree that everyone involved has been putting in their best effort and trying to keep things moving and trying to keep people in a position to be able to work. Interpreters are always trying to make do with what they have and keeping people in touch. I work in training; I'm an independent interpreter and I work freelance, but I have to admit that I know what parliaments around the world are doing only from colleagues who work there who also teach in our program.

I do know that there is a synchronized VPN that is different from the system that all major teleconference platforms are using, but you would have to get in contact with the sound engineers to set up a system and this can be quite expensive. From what I've heard, during the COVID lockdown you cannot install interpreting hubs where you are and you cannot travel at all from home, which is the same here in Germany at the moment, so I'm afraid we'll have to make do with the non-ISO compliant platform.

My urgent appeal would be to please keep team strengths up and exposure time as low as possible. What we've done here at our training institute is that we've stopped streaming recordings to students altogether, because we're afraid that it will cause hearing damage; there are enough indications of that. We've been sending them links to download the speeches offline and then to translate into the platforms only for us to then monitor their progress and that sort of thing, which is, of course, not an option for parliaments working.

Most parliaments that have done things well have established a dedicated connection between interpreting hubs with fixed bandwidth, so it's not the dynamic algorithm-controlled connection that Zoom, Kudo, Interprefy, Cisco Webex and other platforms are offering, because there, the sound engineers are not in control of what is done to the sound. I've talked to the people who organized the review that is under discussion now, and the engineers said they had to talk on the phone directly to the people controlling the software platform—Zoom, for instance—or Kudo required a retest because they adjusted parameters manually, which the algorithms had pretty much messed up from a measuring point of view, and with that new set of parameters it worked halfway decently.

But it's still a stopgap, an emergency solution.

[Terry Duguid, Liberal, Winnipeg South, MB]

Thank you.

Patricia, it's over to you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

Patricia, go ahead. You have one minute and 30 seconds.

[Patricia Lattanzio, Liberal, Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel, QC]

The pressure's on.

Thank you for being amongst us, Dr. Stoll.

I wanted to basically ask you two questions and then cede the floor to you. I understand from your observations that calling in could be an issue with regard to the systems that we now have in place, and I'm wondering if that could be attributed to connectivity issues. That would be my first question.

My second one would be, can you speak to the challenges faced by the administration of the European Parliament, the council and the commission, since we are using a hybrid interpretation system?

Thank you.

[Dr. Christoph Stoll]

Yes, absolutely. The problems are occasioned by the fact that people are calling in with a range and variety of connection issues and laptops connecting to Wi-Fi—even though a wire is connected in my case today. There is all manner of interference when you use a PC sound card where the software downloads updates and that sort of thing, of course. The problem is that these platforms are configured to deal with these things for people connected for listening purposes only. The algorithms are doing an excellent job in dealing with faulty connection quality and keeping the connection going for purposes of listening only, and this is just not the sort of connection quality that is required for interpreters.

When it comes to the EU Commission and Parliament, they are using a whole range of different systems. I am out of time here, but I can come back to that. I don't know it from having visited there myself, I have to add.

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

Thank you.

[Patricia Lattanzio, Liberal, Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel, QC]

Mr. Chair, could we ask the witness to send us a written response to the second question?

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

Yes, with pleasure. Thank you, Ms. Lattanzio and Dr. Stoll.

Mr. Beaulieu, you have six minutes.