Official Languages committee  Three organizations created the CRTL: the Translation Bureau, the NRCC and the Université du Québec en Outaouais. We are set up just across the river at UQO. Our role is to do research and develop technology in the language technologies sector. In 2014, we expanded our scope. Fo

Official Languages committee  No. We work in the same building and we have used this software for three years, but we had no contact with the version that was deployed for the government. I should note that there are two parts, as Ms. Brunette explained. There's the software and there's the corpus or what th

Official Languages committee  To do a translation, the person who sees what is produced by the machine has the know-how required to ensure that the tool performed properly and to make corrections if necessary. That's what Ms. Brunette called post-editing. If used the other way, you have to have the skills to

Official Languages committee  Exactly, and perhaps that is the issue. Public servants are currently using Google Translate a million times a year. Do we continue to use public tools, with the risks that may involve, or do we create an internal tool that does not have security risks and that, with training, ca

Official Languages committee  The tool has its limitations, which depend on the person using it. If used properly, it protects the official languages to some degree. It helps to translate, to understand someone who is speaking to us in another language. We can use it for the purposes of understanding, but it

Official Languages committee  I would like to add something. There's one thing that might be explored. The tool could be made available to Canadians, too, not just public servants. That's what the countries in the European Union do. Their machine translation tool was developed for the government, but now eve

Official Languages committee  It could happen.

Official Languages committee  Potentially, yes.

Official Languages committee  I want to preface my answer by saying that there is a huge difference between Antidote and this kind of a tool. Antidote makes very little use of statistics; it uses very specific rules. I am quite familiar with the Antidote people. It is easier to make a French checker than an E

Official Languages committee  Exactly.

Official Languages committee  That's true, and it was developed in Montreal.

Official Languages committee  I have experienced the same things as you. As this is a statistical instrument, variance is important. For texts with little variation, such as weather reports....

Official Languages committee  That's true, but there is very little variance in weather reports. So the translation can be of high quality. The more variance increases, the more fields are involved, the more difficult it becomes to maintain the same level of quality. What do the translation companies that us

Official Languages committee  No, we were not consulted before the tool was deployed.

Official Languages committee  This software has been loaded with federal government documents.