Official Languages Committee on Feb. 16th, 2021

[Matthew Ball]

Thank you for your question.

As you know and as you've experienced, remote interpretation and virtual meetings are revolutionizing the way we do things in Canadian society and around the world. Everyone is making the transition to find out how to work under these new conditions.

The bureau used definitions used elsewhere in the world to make changes to its current contract to take into account the more difficult circumstances and increased cognitive load when working with virtual sound. That's what we're doing right now.

As you heard earlier, an inquiry is in progress. Our partners in the Acquisitions Branch will be consulting with the entire freelance interpreter community in Canada to find the best definition. A process is under way to that end, and we are waiting to see the results.

[Steven Blaney, Conservative, Bellechasse—Les Etchemins—Lévis, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Ball.

I hope we can draw inspiration from the definition given by the European Parliament.

Mr. Chair, I'd like to share my time with the new member of our committee, Mr. Godin.

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

Go ahead, Mr. Godin.

You have less than three minutes left.

[Joël Godin, Conservative, Portneuf—Jacques-Cartier, QC]

I'll do this quickly, Mr. Chair.

I'd like to thank the witnesses for being here.

I'm new to this committee. What I'm hearing this evening is that everything is good. Everything is under control and everything is fine. We're taking good care of our interpreters, and there's no problem. The pandemic started 10 months ago, and there's some finetuning going on so that we're even better equipped, but there's no problem.

Yet, last Friday, the Standing Committee on Health met. I don't want to ascribe motives to my colleagues in the Liberal Party, but there was filibustering. At 4:30 p.m. the meeting was suspended. The committee is still suspended, and the interpreters are being made to take the blame.

If there's a problem with interpreter availability, why are we looking for new interpreters?

Could you tell us what constraints and problems you've been experiencing since the beginning of the pandemic?

What have you done concretely, and what are you going to do shortly?

[Lucie Séguin]

Thank you very much for your question.

I'd like to mention that the situation isn't without risks and that we're taking these risks very seriously. I mentioned that the majority of the bureau's salaried employees have reported incidents that have caused hearing problems related to poor sound quality. Approximately 45 of our official language interpreters have submitted a total of 140 incident reports concerning sound quality.

I mentioned earlier that the most commonly reported injuries are excessive fatigue and headaches. There are also earaches and tinnitus. Currently, two of our interpreters are on sick leave due to sound-related problems. This fluctuates greatly.

We're taking this very seriously. We are putting measures in place to ensure their health and safety. We are adapting and finding ways to provide working conditions that meet health and safety standards.

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

Thank you very much, Ms. Séguin.

That's all the time you had.

Mr. Arseneault, you have the floor for six minutes.

[René Arseneault, Liberal, Madawaska—Restigouche, NB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I will try to speak as slowly as possible, because I have the impression that I'm the one who speaks the fastest.

Ms. Séguin, let me come back to my colleague Mr. Boulerice's question. Is the use of interpreters the responsibility of the Translation Bureau or the House Administration? You provide the human resources, while the House takes care of the technical aspect, if I understand correctly, but you have to come together at some point.

Where exactly does one's responsibility start and the other's begin?

[Lucie Séguin]

Thank you very much for your question.

The role of the Bureau, by virtue of its legislative mandate, is to provide linguistic services. A lot has been said about interpretation this evening, but our translators are currently preparing the minutes of this meeting, and they will be working until the task is completed. We provide linguistic services to the Senate, to the House of Commons and to federal departments. They are our clients.

In your example, our client is the House Administration. All our clients, including the House Administration, are responsible for the computer platforms and hardware required for our professionals to provide their services. The same is true for the Senate Administration.

Ensuring sound quality requires a very complex, integrated chain. As you also mentioned on February 2, there are a number of factors. These include the humans, the technology, the transfer of information and audio feed. The Translation Bureau is the expert when it comes to working with professionals and employers. We also use a good number of freelancers from the private sector. We also rely on the contribution of some interpreters that we find in Canadian society.

[René Arseneault, Liberal, Madawaska—Restigouche, NB]

You take care of the client by providing human expertise. We have been hearing for some time that these human resources have a serious problem with hearing injuries.

What have the Translation Bureau and the House Administration done recently to work together on this problem?

[Lucie Séguin]

Thank you for the question.

We have daily meetings with our clients, particularly to plan the sessions. I would like to point out that the capacity issue has two aspects. The first is the number of interpreters. Canada has a shortage of interpreters, which is nothing new. The other is the increase in the number of virtual sessions, which has gone up dramatically in the House of Commons, the Senate and the Supreme Court. All of these meetings are now virtual.

For example, in April and May, we had to serve about 20 committees in the House and the Senate. In December, we had to cover 80 events per week. This magnifies our challenges. The frequency of the meetings of our democratic institutions has meant that our human resources are called on much more. The same is true for sign language and translation services.

[René Arseneault, Liberal, Madawaska—Restigouche, NB]

Thank you. If you have any statistics that we could use in our report, feel free to forward them to the committee.

Do I have time for one more question, Mr. Chair?

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

Yes, you have one and a half minute left.

[René Arseneault, Liberal, Madawaska—Restigouche, NB]

How generous of you!

I have one question that I'm dying to ask. One of you will be able to answer. Before the pandemic, before the use of Zoom and headphones, before it became common for us and our daily reality, did you have any record of hearing injuries among your interpreters caused by the equipment used at the time? I am talking about before the pandemic.

[Lucie Séguin]

Thank you for your question.

We have certainly seen a fairly significant increase since Parliament started virtual sessions. However, before the pandemic, we had reports of incidents related to sound quality, but also to sanitary conditions that posed risks to the health and safety of the workers.

That said, we have really seen an increased number of incidents since the beginning of the pandemic.

[René Arseneault, Liberal, Madawaska—Restigouche, NB]

Do you see a correlation with the increase in demand?

[Lucie Séguin]

Thank you for the question.

There is absolutely a correlation. We have specific statistics and reports on that. We see a direct link between the number of events for which we have to provide service and the number of incidents reported.

We require our employees to report all incidents. We think it is very important to document it whenever there is discomfort, injury or an incident causing a problem. Our health and safety specialists at Public Services and Procurement Canada, along with our union partners, are in charge of the process. They also have access to the reports.

[René Arseneault, Liberal, Madawaska—Restigouche, NB]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

Thank you, Ms. Séguin and Mr. Arseneault.

We'll now go to Mr. Beaulieu for the next six minutes.

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

The interpreters have told us that, in order to have the best possible quality of interpretation, they have to do it in their mother tongue or in their first language. When it's in their second language, the quality is lower.

In one of the recent sittings, we had asked what proportion of interpreters have French as their mother tongue.

I'm not sure whether you have that information. Earlier, if I understood correctly, you told us that there were 25 English booths and 38 French booths. That gives a proportion of about 60%. We were also told that 86% of the witnesses appear in English.

Could you answer those questions?

[Lucie Séguin]

Thank you.

To answer that question very quickly, I would like to give you some information about the Translation Bureau's accreditation process. This very rigorous process is recognized internationally as one of the most rigorous in the world.

The accreditation process used by the bureau is a minimum criterion for providing the bureau's services. We ensure that interpreters are able to interpret into their mother tongue, which we call their A language, and into the B language, which is the other official language.

Our interpreters, those who are accredited and employed by the bureau, have the ability to provide quality service and have passed a test for that. “Quality” means that it is in compliance with the Official Languages Act.

A number of interpreters choose to interpret in both languages, but we do not force anyone, either our employees or our freelance interpreters, to do so. Our interpreters who do not feel comfortable enough to interpret into their B language have the right to refuse.

If you want more details, I can ask Mr. Ball to provide you with some and tell you how things are done in the booth. The proportion is correct, the total number of official language interpreters is 63. Of that number, 25 work in the English booth and 38 work in the French booth.

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

That's good.

On another note, we are quite surprised. My understanding is that there are problems caused by platforms such as Zoom, and by the sound equipment that translates everything.

The Parliament team seemed to say that the sound equipment was of very good quality. However, we are told that Zoom does not conform to ISO standards. In fact, it is apparently one of the lower quality platforms. Because of a frequency that Zoom does not transmit, the interpreters are forced to turn up the sound volume, which might often cause injuries.

Do you see any solutions to this problem?

[Lucie Séguin]

Thank you for your question.

I'm going to give the floor to Mr. Ball, who can tell you about the different types of tests that the Translation Bureau is conducting to measure not only the quantity but also the quality of the sound.

I can tell you that sound quality remains our main concern. To be perfectly honest, we have not resolved all the issues related to sound quality. At the same time, we have a mandate to continue to provide this service to parliamentarians so that committees can meet in both official languages.

Mr. Ball, perhaps you can speak a little more about Mr. Beaulieu's question.

[Matthew Ball]

Thank you for the question.

Actually, the issue of sound quality is new to all of us. We are familiar with the quantity of sound, the pressure levels. We know how many decibels for how much time pose a risk to hearing health, but we know less about the quality of sound. Right now, we are trying to learn more about many aspects of sound quality.

Ms. Séguin referred to the research project that the bureau has sponsored with the University of Geneva, Switzerland, in conjunction with the National Research Council of Canada. We are trying to better understand the issue of sound quality and how it affects hearing health.

We know from reports from the interpreters, both staff and freelance, that there is certainly a problem. We see the number of incidents. That is why we would like to understand more about the issue of quality.

There are certainly problems with Zoom, but it is used all over the world for interpretation and for virtual meetings like these. However, there are other platforms out there, and we are also testing them to see if they affect sound quality. But it's not just the platform; it's also the microphone, the stability of the Internet, and so on.

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

We know that our headsets are not compliant and that Zoom is one of the least efficient platforms.

If I understand correctly, we'll be able to get the results of the tests you have conducted to look at everything.

Basically, what you are saying is that we either have to reduce the number of hours of work for the interpreters or have more interpreters.

Do you feel that you have done everything possible to get more freelance interpreters? Are you committed to not requiring them to work in pairs when they are interpreting remotely?

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

Thank you.

Ms. Séguin, could you answer the question in no more than 10 or 15 seconds, please? We are out of time.