1. Translation within the federal government House of Commons Standing Committee on Official Languages
April 11, 2016

2. Purpose of the presentation
Review :
the issue of machine translation and its implementation within the federal government;
the Translation Bureau’s mandate and financing model.
Answer Committee members’ questions

3. Machine translation (MT)
World context
400M pages/day translated on Google
equal to the Bureau’s entire annual production each and every 5 seconds… 24/7
European Union offers machine translation to its citizens.

4. Machine translation (MT) (cont’d)
Federal context
One million Google translations requested by federal civil servants1
Texts from the Government of Canada loaded on servers of a company subject to the Patriot Act
MT used in the federal government since the early s (Meteo)
Implementation of social medias creates demand for instantaneous translation
1 D. Achimov, Translation Bureau CEO, House of Commons Standing Committee on Official Languages,

5. Machine translation (MT) (cont’d)
Four conditions for success
no classified texts
for personal information
professional revision previous to any distribution
non-contamination of text corpus by erroneous translations

6. Translation Bureau’s mandate and financing model
Three important dates in the history of the Bureau:
1934
1993
1995

7. Translation Bureau’s mandate and financing model (cont’d)
1934: Enactment of the Translation Bureau Act
The use of Bureau’s services is mandatory.
The Bureau must make all translations requested by departments and Parliament.
The Bureau is financed through parliamentary appropriations.

8. Translation Bureau’s mandate and financing model (cont’d)
1993
Bureau is transfered from Secretary of State (now Canadian Heritage) to the Department of Supply and Services (now Public Services and Procurement Canada)
From a component of the country’s social fabric, translation becomes an ‘’administrative service’’.
The Bureau’s mandate and financing model stay unchanged.

9. Canadian linguistic duality
le 12 mars 2007

10. Canadian linguistic duality (cont’d)
2 Statistics Canada, Census
11.4%
Canada
NCR
44.4%
17.5%
8.9%
4.6%
3.3%
6.8% 5%
9.1%
11.5%
42.6%
4.7%
33,.%
10.5%
12.3%
Percentage of the bilingual population2
17.5 % of the
Canadian population
is bilingual
Translation is an
essential bridge
between cultures
and communities

11. Mandat et financement du Bureau de la traduction (suite)
1995: Bureau becomes a special operating agency (SOA).
Bureau services go from mandatory to optional, except for Parliament.
Bureau has to recover its full costs, except for services to Parliament.
Bureau services are no longer free for departments.

12. Translation Bureau’s mandate and financing model (cont’d)
Difficulties :
Mandatory for the Bureau to meet any translation demand but optional for departments to use the Bureau
Full costs recovery means billing departments for certain costs for which they are not appropriated (eg. rent, insurance)
Bureau prohibited to bid on departments’ translation contracts
More procurement authorities in translation to departments than to the Translation Bureau

13. Translation Bureau’s mandate and financing model (cont’d)
Unintended consequences:
Translations delayed or cancelled
Higher costs to government as some departments create their own internal translation units
Fragmentation of federal buying power, which contributes to the fragmentation and vulnerability of the Canadian translation industry

14. Conclusion Machine translation is a useful tool, if used properly.
The Translation Bureau is a key component of the infrastructure that Canada has established to operate as a bilingual country.
Unfortunately, it is underused.

15. Recommendations Machine translation
Ensure the four conditions are applied for a successful implementation of the machine translation software
Educate departments on the benefits and limitations of MT and on issues relating to the Official Languages Act

16. Recommendations (cont’d)
Translation Bureau
Review the Bureau’s location within the federal government
Correct difficulties and unintended consequences
Use the Bureau’s expertise to:
eliminate duplication of costs;
translate what the private sector should not translate and what it would not translate;
consolidate the federal buying power in order to promote the development of the Canadian translation industry.