Latest / Found in Interpretation Podcast / Ep.16: The Hidden Struggle: Canada’s Shortage of Legal Translators and Interpreters.

Transcript

Ep.16: The Hidden Struggle: Canada’s Shortage of Legal Translators and Interpreters. · Found in Interpretation Podcast

• 0:01
  Hello, hello and welcome to Season 2 of Find and
• 0:05
  Interpretation podcast. Welcome.
• 0:07
  It's 2025 once again. I'm one of your Co host and
• 0:11
  Bratton and I'm here with Brian. Brian, how you doing?
• 0:14
  I'm doing great. I'm ready for 2025.
• 0:16
  It's going to be a great year. OK, so here we're starting the
• 0:20
  year with Doctor Marilyn Shiraz. O Doctor Mariellen Gerard is
• 0:37
  Assistant professor of legal translation and jury linguistics
• 0:42
  Graduate Diploma in Legal Translation, McGill University,
• 0:45
  Canada. She was or is a lecturer at the
• 0:50
  University Of Montreal. Was was was OK and a research
• 0:54
  assistant did the University of Geneva in Switzerland.
• 0:58
  Professional experience in in-house translator in a
• 1:01
  freelance translator for 15 years serving corporate,
• 1:04
  institutional and public sector clients.
• 1:07
  She is also a specialist in jury linguistics and artificial
• 1:11
  intelligence. And she is here to tell us about
• 1:14
  her research. So, Maryland, why can you tell
• 1:17
  us a little bit more about it? Yes, thank you for the invite.
• 1:21
  I have many research projects going on right now with the
• 1:24
  justice sector in Canada about legal language professions, but
• 1:29
  one in particular concerns entrepreneurs in Canada, in the
• 1:36
  public sector. And so this research is to find
• 1:40
  out more about the shortage of legal translators and
• 1:45
  interpreters in Canada. We've been hearing since at
• 1:49
  least 2009, there's been reports from the justice sector that
• 1:53
  this shortage, this shortage, this sort shortage, and again in
• 1:56
  2016. And now we're really hitting a
• 2:00
  wall with, you know, the, the older entrepreneurs, legal
• 2:05
  translator, translator retiring and we're still talking about
• 2:10
  shortage, but we don't have data.
• 2:12
  We don't know how many interpreters we need, where,
• 2:15
  how? And also we hear from the
• 2:19
  association that there's enough translators, there's enough
• 2:23
  interpreters. So how come there's no link
• 2:25
  between the two between people were available to do
• 2:30
  translation, legal translation and interpretation and then the
• 2:35
  jobs that are not filled. So we decided to do a research.
• 2:41
  There's two-part of the research, one of them is a
• 2:43
  survey. So we want to survey the people,
• 2:47
  the people doing legal translation and interpretation,
• 2:51
  to find out about their level of satisfaction with their work and
• 2:55
  why did they decide to become interpreters in the 1st place?
• 2:59
  What are the factors that make them decide to choose this as a
• 3:03
  carrier? Or was it just by pure luck that
• 3:06
  they ended up being interpreters?
• 3:08
  That's what we hear. Yeah.
• 3:11
  So many questions. We can answer those questions.
• 3:12
  Later. Yeah, Actually I do have a
• 3:15
  question because when I think about legal and legal
• 3:18
  translation and in our case more like interpretation, yes, there
• 3:22
  are several categories. It could be directly at the
• 3:27
  courthouse. It could be a work for the
• 3:29
  government. It could be consecutive
• 3:33
  interpretation, it could be simultaneous interpretation.
• 3:36
  There are several categories. It depends on the language
• 3:39
  combination. Is it about official languages?
• 3:41
  It is managed by provincial bodies.
• 3:44
  It's So what specific? Are you looking at the overall
• 3:50
  market or something a bit more specific?
• 3:52
  Because a lot of things are coming into mind right now.
• 3:55
  Yes, yes. And we know that.
• 3:57
  And there's this, this research could go in so many direction
• 4:01
  afterwards, but because this is the first exploratory research,
• 4:06
  so OK, let's go wide. Let's not look only at
• 4:11
  parliamentary interpretation or court interpretation or so we,
• 4:16
  we decided to keep it broad for now, not ask those specific
• 4:22
  question in a survey. But we do focus on official
• 4:26
  languages for this survey because we, it's funded by the
• 4:30
  justice sector. So there's a need for both
• 4:33
  official languages and interpretation and legal
• 4:35
  translation. So we we're focusing on official
• 4:38
  languages for now and on the public sector.
• 4:43
  And when you're saying funded by the justice sector, is that the
• 4:47
  Ministry of Justice or is it the the?
• 4:51
  It's a fun that's called access to Justice in both official
• 4:54
  languages support fun, so it's a fun that is managed by Justice
• 4:59
  Canada. I see.
• 5:01
  OK, yeah, you're right about the shortage.
• 5:04
  We hear about it all the time. Even at the federal government
• 5:07
  level, there's a there's a shortage of interpreters from
• 5:10
  what we heard from Season 1. There was a big emphasis on this
• 5:13
  podcast too about it and how there aren't enough interpreters
• 5:17
  to even allow the government to function properly.
• 5:19
  So going into the legal world, I was to assume it would be the
• 5:23
  same situation. So it's great that you're doing
• 5:26
  this survey. I think what from in terms of
• 5:32
  like being on the podcast and and getting the message out.
• 5:36
  Is it a message to legal translators and interpreters to
• 5:40
  complete the survey? Or is this, is this basically
• 5:43
  the goal of of today so that we can maybe like in the
• 5:47
  description of the podcast, we can add like the the links and
• 5:51
  all that stuff so that you to help you out?
• 5:53
  Yes, definitely. That would be great if you could
• 5:56
  promote the survey, provide the link to your audience.
• 6:00
  And we need to get as much information as possible from
• 6:03
  interpreters. We do already have a lot of
• 6:06
  answers from legal translators, but it's harder to reach
• 6:10
  interpreters, or at least our network doesn't include that
• 6:15
  many interpreters, and I'm sure your network does.
• 6:19
  And it's really important to hear from as many interpreters
• 6:23
  as possible. That works in as many contexts
• 6:25
  and as many province and territories as possible because
• 6:28
  we really want to have an overview of what's going on in
• 6:32
  Canada. And if there's places that, you
• 6:35
  know, they struggle more with the shortage and, and also find
• 6:39
  out what what are your input? What do you think?
• 6:41
  Why is it not working? What's what are the challenge?
• 6:44
  What would you do if you were, you know, a politician and
• 6:48
  writing policies and what's missing?
• 6:50
  Is it training? Is it visibility?
• 6:54
  Is it better work conditions? So these are things that we ask
• 6:58
  you in this survey. But I would say that I mean the
• 7:01
  the first thing that comes to mind is first of all, and being
• 7:06
  an interpreter is already, it's a specialty and legal
• 7:11
  interpretation is a specialty inside of a specialty.
• 7:15
  So not only you must have the skills of an interpreter, but
• 7:19
  also the knowledge. Because I think that the legal
• 7:24
  interpreting market can seem quite intimidating for a lot of
• 7:28
  people, even for seasoned interpreters.
• 7:31
  If you're not used with sometimes in court, you could
• 7:35
  use a consecutive interpretation.
• 7:37
  Many interpreters do not want to do consecutive and then you need
• 7:41
  to have a, you need to maybe go to university or maybe you can
• 7:47
  teach yourself a lot, a lot of the the legal terminology.
• 7:54
  So I think that that may be one of the reasons have what have
• 8:00
  you heard so far from interpreters if you have only
• 8:04
  very few, I think from what you're saying.
• 8:06
  Yeah, only few and we haven't analyzed the data yet.
• 8:10
  So maybe I can come back on the podcast at a later time when we
• 8:13
  have the data and we can discuss the data.
• 8:15
  Now we're in collecting the data.
• 8:17
  So it's really nice to hear from you.
• 8:19
  I can tell you though, from the legal translation perspective,
• 8:24
  because it's, it's more or less the same.
• 8:26
  You do need that specialization in law and you need to
• 8:28
  understand the law to translate the law.
• 8:31
  But there's no Organism that overseas who can be a legal
• 8:37
  translator or not, who can translate the law or not.
• 8:41
  So there's there's many ways to acquire that specialization.
• 8:46
  So you said someone can just auto teach themselves.
• 8:51
  So do the research, the reading and then they feel comfortable
• 8:54
  with it. Or some people decide to do an
• 8:57
  entire undergraduate program in law.
• 9:00
  But in my opinion, it's not necessary to do the entire
• 9:04
  program law to be qualified to translate or interpret the law.
• 9:10
  You do need to have some understanding on how the legal
• 9:13
  systems are organized, the different branches, the like
• 9:18
  main concept and so on. But it's not necessary to be
• 9:22
  able to, you know, write laws or yeah, let's do the full degree
• 9:27
  in law. So you.
• 9:29
  Don't need to do the bar exam in order to become a translator and
• 9:32
  interpreter. Exactly, exactly same people
• 9:35
  doing translating for engineering.
• 9:39
  They don't need to be making engine to to translate text in
• 9:45
  engineering fields. The same same for law, same for
• 9:49
  same for translating the law and interpreting the law.
• 9:51
  So but you do need to be to have the confidence.
• 9:54
  So sometimes we lack that as translator, I don't know if our
• 9:58
  interpreters, but as translator we we do lack the confidence,
• 10:01
  but we do have the skill to do the research and go to the
• 10:05
  bottom of things. Absolutely, yeah.
• 10:07
  And I, I mean, I will admit that I'm, I'm a self-taught legal
• 10:10
  interpreter because I already have the skills as the as an
• 10:15
  interpreter, but a lot of my clients are institutes and
• 10:18
  associations that are in the legal profession like training
• 10:21
  for judges, lawyers and that kind of thing.
• 10:24
  So yes, I did have to self teach myself a lot of the legal
• 10:28
  aspects and and I'm just wondering if maybe that's one of
• 10:33
  the reasons why people there's this divergences of ideas as to
• 10:37
  when the group says that there isn't a shortage and the other
• 10:40
  one says that there is maybe like just because there's
• 10:44
  already a fund that automatically goes into their
• 10:46
  professional development to have interpretation.
• 10:48
  So it's kind of like behind the scenes.
• 10:50
  Yeah. It's like a fat key.
• 10:52
  Like it's already taken for granted that there's gonna be
• 10:55
  interpretation that courses and at conferences and all this
• 10:58
  stuff, they don't even have to judges and lawyers don't even
• 11:02
  have to worry about that aspect. I wonder if that's that would
• 11:05
  play a role into how it's perceived because there's
• 11:09
  automatically interpreters or, yeah, simultaneous conference
• 11:14
  interpreters whenever there is a professional development or
• 11:16
  conference happening in the legal world.
• 11:19
  Yeah, I think there's a lot of education that we need to do
• 11:22
  with our clients and people that require translation and
• 11:25
  interpretation as well. I do get e-mail all the time
• 11:29
  from people organizing conferences at university and
• 11:33
  they need, they need interpretation and they reach
• 11:36
  out to me because they think translation is the same than
• 11:38
  interpretation. And anyone who's bilingual can
• 11:40
  do it. So there is that too.
• 11:45
  We need to promote our professions better.
• 11:49
  This is the role of the alliance as well eventually.
• 11:53
  And so this survey is also a tool for us to create an action
• 12:00
  plan. So what can be done to better
• 12:02
  promote the professions? And then we'll go back to our
• 12:06
  sponsor and present the the the plan and maybe get some more
• 12:11
  funds to be able to do that so and raise visibility in
• 12:16
  awareness. Now, do you know how many legal
• 12:19
  translators already work for in the federal government?
• 12:22
  Like as employees. Uh, for legal translation, uh, I
• 12:28
  know the Federal Bureau of Translation, there are something
• 12:32
  like 600 translators. I don't know how many do
• 12:35
  specifically legal translations. I wonder if there's a way to
• 12:39
  find that out so that you would know for the on the government
• 12:42
  side, how? Many there.
• 12:44
  So that's the second part of this study.
• 12:46
  So we're surveying the translators, the interpreters,
• 12:51
  but we're also doing interviews with employers.
• 12:55
  We want to find out exactly how many legal translators they
• 12:59
  have, how many jobs are available, for how long, how
• 13:04
  hard is it to recruit, what are the conditions, what are the
• 13:07
  salaries and so on. So we will have both sides.
• 13:11
  That sounds like a huge endeavor because I'm assuming you'll also
• 13:15
  have to go to the bigger law firms too, and because they
• 13:18
  probably have in-house. Transfers as well.
• 13:20
  That's why right now we're focusing on the public sector
• 13:23
  only because if we're open it to the private sector as well, this
• 13:27
  is endless. And you know, yeah, we would
• 13:30
  have to go to law firms, etcetera.
• 13:31
  So right now we're focusing on the Bureau of Translation, the
• 13:36
  the different governments, provincial, territorial
• 13:39
  governments, New Brunswick, they have the view of translation as
• 13:43
  well, Manitoba. So yeah, we'll interview.
• 13:47
  We'll try to interview 1 main employers of legal translators
• 13:52
  and interpreters by province and territories.
• 13:55
  Cool elastic. Interrupt.
• 13:58
  Yes, yes, yes. Question I was, I was thinking
• 14:02
  about so many things at the same time here.
• 14:05
  Yeah, because I see for for I when I think about legal
• 14:10
  translation or interpretation rather in our case, I, I always
• 14:15
  have those two main branches in mind, which is like we meet some
• 14:20
  of our friends, Brian and I are, are interpreters who do court
• 14:26
  interpretation. For instance.
• 14:28
  I know some in Ontario that do court interpretation and the
• 14:33
  working conditions are very different first of all from
• 14:38
  province to province and then different when you're doing a
• 14:41
  more of a conference style. Sometimes I'm being asked also
• 14:46
  to, to go to court, but I do it virtually more in a conference
• 14:50
  context rather than let's say, interacting with an accused.
• 14:55
  So I, it, it is, it seems so broad.
• 14:59
  And I'm really, if I had a hint, I would say that first of all,
• 15:05
  the besides the specialization inside the specialization, I
• 15:09
  would say that the working conditions and salaries would
• 15:17
  would be an issue. I'm not sure.
• 15:20
  I haven't checked in the last few years, but I remember maybe
• 15:24
  six or seven years ago when, when I was just looking into it,
• 15:29
  I think it was something like $30.00 an hour or something like
• 15:33
  that, which is not high compared to a usual rate for an
• 15:40
  interpreter. Have you heard of anything like
• 15:43
  that? Yes, I did.
• 15:45
  And for a few years now I've been approached to develop the
• 15:50
  program for interpretation at McGill.
• 15:53
  And I keep saying people will not sign up for this program and
• 15:58
  pay this much money for this program when you only pay them
• 16:02
  this much afterwards. It doesn't make sense.
• 16:05
  So there's there's also like the maybe there's work to be done on
• 16:09
  a ministry side, on the employee side to, you know, raise the
• 16:14
  condition, raise the salary, but then have some requirements like
• 16:18
  a diploma or something in translation interpretation.
• 16:22
  And that that's why I also work with the provincial, territorial
• 16:26
  and federal government. I do what's called impact
• 16:30
  research. So I don't do research just to
• 16:33
  have data and then send them out there and write some scientific
• 16:37
  paper. My goal is really to provide
• 16:39
  data that is useful. Read it Who will read the report
• 16:45
  at the end? Well, Justice Canada to start
• 16:48
  with, because this is our funding the.
• 16:51
  What? Let's hope so, because they're
• 16:52
  paying. Yeah, exactly.
• 16:54
  So just the scan that to start with, but we also do knowledge
• 16:59
  mobilization. So once we provide the data to
• 17:02
  the founder, then we say OK, now we have this data.
• 17:04
  What can be done now? What will you be doing with
• 17:07
  this? So in this type of impact
• 17:11
  research, the goal is to help policymakers make decision,
• 17:17
  provide them with the scientific data, not just market research
• 17:20
  that sometimes just align with with a specific goal.
• 17:25
  So hopefully this research will help point to some problem in
• 17:30
  the industry that needs to be resolved so that we can attract
• 17:34
  more people to do legal translation and and court
• 17:38
  interpretation and interpretation and general.
• 17:41
  Yeah, because like along the same lines as Alan A pre COVID,
• 17:46
  like maybe 2018-2019, I met with the Court Interpreters
• 17:51
  Association of Ontario, a couple of their their members of their
• 17:55
  board of directors and they were, I organized a meeting
• 18:00
  between them and one of the, the big private sector unions in
• 18:04
  Canada to see if maybe there was a possibility to unionize these
• 18:09
  court interpreters to have a better voice so that they can
• 18:12
  raise their working conditions and their salaries.
• 18:15
  Because they were, that was, that's the number one complaint
• 18:18
  that that came from that association.
• 18:22
  I know that they were gonna do some internal lobbying with the
• 18:25
  provincial government, but COVID happened and then I'm not sure
• 18:29
  what happened after that. But my assumption is that the
• 18:33
  working conditions and the salaries haven't improved
• 18:36
  drastically. And a lot of our colleagues that
• 18:39
  do court interpretation end up doing conference interpretation
• 18:43
  because it pays better in the working conditions are better.
• 18:46
  So yeah, I would one of the big pushes I think in in attracting
• 18:52
  more people would probably be to change those two core aspects of
• 18:56
  the profession. And that's why we need more
• 18:59
  answer from interpreters to have a mass of of data to be able to
• 19:03
  see. Well, we have so many
• 19:05
  interpreters that answer this survey and 90% of them said
• 19:09
  salary is a problem. So you want more interpreters,
• 19:12
  there's a problem. Well, here's a solution.
• 19:15
  There's something we need to. Work on they're, they're
• 19:17
  expected to do kind of the same work as the lawyer, but in the
• 19:20
  other language. So there's these judges that are
• 19:23
  getting paid a nice salary, that lawyers are getting paid a nice
• 19:27
  salary, but then the interpreter is getting paid $30.00 an hour.
• 19:30
  So you can't. You have to raise the the the
• 19:34
  rates and and the working conditions for the interpreters
• 19:37
  to to meet the what is required of them.
• 19:41
  Well, I would say when I was looking into it, I was really
• 19:46
  wondering actually why there's such a disparity, because if if
• 19:50
  people say, well, it's because you have to work for the
• 19:52
  government or the Ministry of Justice.
• 19:54
  Well, I know that the provincial or federal government can pay
• 19:58
  conference interpreters quite well for their work.
• 20:01
  What it what's, what it's do? And I'm wondering why is there
• 20:06
  such a gap? And we're talking.
• 20:10
  At least 10 times more when? Yeah.
• 20:15
  Wherefore for work that is, I think that being in court and
• 20:23
  being in that setting, there's a lot at stake.
• 20:27
  It's very stressful. You don't want to misinterpret
• 20:31
  something. If you're going to conference
• 20:34
  and you, you, you miss maybe a sentence or word here and there,
• 20:38
  you can always catch up. But if there's a stenographer
• 20:45
  writing what you're saying, it's completely different and
• 20:50
  somebody could get wrongly accused if you if you screw up.
• 20:54
  So there's so much on the line that maybe a combination of not
• 21:00
  being well paid and the stress of doing such important work
• 21:06
  could actually be one of the sources of the issue here.
• 21:11
  Definitely, last time I saw a a job posting for the Justice
• 21:16
  Department in Quebec, so court interpreting and for the the
• 21:20
  Quebec courts their requirements was high school diploma.
• 21:26
  Not more than that, yes. High school.
• 21:28
  Diploma yeah, nothing more than this and so and and and so they
• 21:34
  is it because. 20 or $30 anyone? Maybe there was for.
• 21:38
  It was not just for official languages, it was for other
• 21:41
  languages as well. But how can you sustain offering
• 21:45
  services in once? My son is finishing cycle on
• 21:49
  that in June. She could be an interpreter.
• 21:52
  He should be an interpreter, Yeah.
• 21:53
  I should tell him, yeah. But to your point of the the
• 21:57
  mistakes can have huge consequences.
• 22:02
  When I did my master, I looked into the concept of genocide and
• 22:08
  I looked into the first trial for genocider here in Canada and
• 22:12
  I looked at both the translation of the concept of genocide into
• 22:16
  the Canadian law and also the interpretation in the case of
• 22:22
  this, this person, his name was, his name is Munia Nisa.
• 22:26
  And then there was some things that came up during the trial.
• 22:32
  The interpreter was translating that, interpreting that the
• 22:38
  sorry. We all make the mistake.
• 22:39
  Yeah, even we say sometimes translating and we're
• 22:42
  interpreting. There you go.
• 22:44
  So the interpreter was saying that he was hit with a stick
• 22:50
  head with a stick. And then a few days later they
• 22:53
  came back on this testimonial and then turns out it was not
• 22:58
  just a stick, it was a stick with nails.
• 23:02
  It's different. Like it's a world of, you know,
• 23:06
  the the brutality of the act as stake, OK, it's it's violent,
• 23:10
  but stick with nail. That's the intention is very
• 23:13
  different here. So.
• 23:15
  Absolutely. Yeah, Yeah.
• 23:16
  The stakes are high and they're question of ethics and involved
• 23:21
  in all this, you guys know. Yeah, well, I think it was a
• 23:25
  month ago or maybe even two months ago, we had someone from
• 23:27
  the International Criminal Court and interpreter, yeah.
• 23:30
  And yeah, they were. That's all they do is war
• 23:33
  crimes, genocide, that kind of thing.
• 23:35
  And the it's having Limoges that's so important and in that
• 23:39
  context, but and it's one of the highest courts in the world.
• 23:43
  But even at the at the level of even just the family court cases
• 23:48
  that it's it's I did a conference once where, where one
• 23:52
  of the judges described our, our the job of being a judge and a
• 23:56
  lawyer and being in that setting.
• 23:57
  That's very violent in the sense that like you're determining
• 24:02
  someone's life, the the verdict in their life, how much time are
• 24:07
  they gonna serve in jail? How much time or how much money
• 24:10
  do they have to allocate to child support when they're
• 24:13
  struggling financially already? Like there's, there's a lot of
• 24:16
  different things that are at stake in courts and, and having
• 24:20
  the right word is so important. So I, I think that, yeah, you do
• 24:24
  need that combination of the training that maybe not the
• 24:28
  equivalent of what a judge or a lawyer would be trained at.
• 24:30
  But yeah, you do need a good amount of training.
• 24:34
  You need, need to maybe even be paid for the prep work and have
• 24:42
  prior knowledge to what you're going to be dealing with so that
• 24:45
  you can do a better job. And yeah, and obviously the
• 24:49
  remuneration. Well, I think that in life, I
• 24:52
  know it's not the only criteria here, but I think that there,
• 24:58
  there should be a correlation between the level of risk and
• 25:03
  remuneration. What you get if, if you're do,
• 25:07
  if what you're doing is risky, you get paid more usually.
• 25:11
  Hmm. If it's important and risky,
• 25:13
  yeah, not only risky, but important and risky.
• 25:16
  And when you're in court, it's extremely important and it's
• 25:20
  extremely risky, especially for the accused.
• 25:23
  Yeah, you have. Or for the victim.
• 25:25
  You have someone else's life in your hands, basically.
• 25:28
  So actually working conditions is really something that we have
• 25:36
  to we have to look into. Yeah.
• 25:39
  And I know like for for conference interpreting the
• 25:42
  there is a bit of a focus on consecutive interpretation, but
• 25:47
  it's mostly in the real life professional setting, it's
• 25:51
  almost always simultaneous interpretation and in court
• 25:55
  interpretation it's a real mix of both.
• 25:58
  So it's, yeah, it's even more training President Jupiter as
• 26:02
  well. What's the point?
• 26:05
  Yeah, so I remember when I was doing my, I did actually a Core
• 26:11
  2, if I remember correctly, 2 court interpretation courses in
• 26:17
  my first year at Glendon. And basically, uh, for instance,
• 26:22
  we had to hear a whole story of, let's say a, a pickup truck at
• 26:27
  2:00 AM that hit a lady on, on the side of the street and the
• 26:33
  pickup truck was blue and the license plate and everything.
• 26:37
  And as an interpreter, you have to write all of that.
• 26:40
  And I'm sure that when you're in court, you can't necessarily
• 26:43
  say, oh, sorry, can you repeat that again or I haven't heard
• 26:47
  you well or something? My pen stopped working.
• 26:49
  Exactly. Yeah.
• 26:52
  Oh my goodness. Yeah.
• 26:54
  So is the goal of this research to improve access to justice in
• 27:00
  a way as well? Yeah, in both official
• 27:03
  languages, which mainly means French outside of Quebec and
• 27:07
  English and Quebec and the context of Justice Canada.
• 27:11
  So yes, the goal for us is to come up with an action plan for
• 27:15
  future activity of the alliance to raise awareness, to bring
• 27:18
  more people to job and to the program, train more people,
• 27:24
  raise awareness too. So, you know, talking with you,
• 27:28
  talking with people just gives me a lot of idea, you know, why
• 27:32
  don't we put the judges and the prosecutor and the lawyers in
• 27:37
  the seat of interpreters just so that they understand how hard it
• 27:41
  is. You know, that would be a, that
• 27:43
  would be something interesting, you know, just workshop in
• 27:46
  courts with these actors and, you know, just so that they
• 27:51
  understand what's at stake here, that would be a good idea.
• 27:55
  I often tell my friends, if you really want to know what we do
• 27:57
  as simultaneous and conference interpreters, go put on the news
• 28:00
  and try to repeat in the same language what they're saying for
• 28:03
  like maybe 5-10 minutes and see how you feel after.
• 28:06
  Yeah. Have one experience with
• 28:10
  interpretation and that that was awful, awful.
• 28:15
  That was a far from social. And now because I was studying
• 28:18
  in translation, they said OK, you do the interpretation.
• 28:21
  It was interpretation into English and it was about economy
• 28:25
  and it was awful helpful. I'm excited.
• 28:28
  I wanna do it now. Yes, send us send.
• 28:31
  Us. Yeah, that's that's yeah, I hear
• 28:34
  that. I'm like, really?
• 28:35
  Tell me more. It sounds so interesting.
• 28:37
  We're fascinated. Yeah, alrighty, Emily.
• 28:42
  So, but I was, I think I heard you well earlier.
• 28:47
  McGill offers an interpreting course for court interpretation.
• 28:52
  Did you say something? Like that, no, we OK we were
• 28:55
  asked to develop, we were approached and there was some
• 28:58
  talk about maybe developing a program for interpretation at
• 29:04
  Miguel. But higher education, so
• 29:07
  continuing education for people already do other things and but
• 29:13
  yeah, never, we never went away, went ahead with this project.
• 29:17
  And. The other universities that are.
• 29:19
  Involved. Yeah, I was gonna ask.
• 29:20
  Yeah. Sorry, the other two
• 29:22
  universities that are involved in.
• 29:23
  The Alliance, so this university, St.
• 29:27
  Don and Halifax, they offer micro credential in court
• 29:31
  interpretation, legal and court interpretation.
• 29:34
  It's online and the other university is Saint Boniface in
• 29:39
  Manitoba and they offer a major in Google translation within the
• 29:45
  translation program. I see OK, and then and then
• 29:49
  McGill it's. McGill it's a graduate diploma
• 29:52
  in legal translation, so second like master degree 30 credit
• 29:59
  program in so it's legal translation.
• 30:01
  But really you learn to juggle with French, English, both legal
• 30:05
  system. We have an introduction to love
• 30:08
  and non jurist as well. So our student they are by they
• 30:14
  they they already have their they're already legal
• 30:16
  translator, some of them and they are bilingual Legislative
• 30:21
  Council or they can become a legal revisers.
• 30:25
  Well, so there's other avenues then.
• 30:27
  It's legal. Translation is not an end
• 30:30
  necessarily. Masters, do you need the like
• 30:33
  the bachelors in translation beforehand or?
• 30:35
  So we have student coming from the translation world who have
• 30:40
  an undergrad diploma in translation and 1015 years
• 30:44
  experience and translation. And we also admit student with a
• 30:48
  background in law. So we admit that both
• 30:51
  professional community and we also admit on a case by case
• 30:55
  student with another background, people who studied in
• 30:57
  literature, language, political sciences, who've been doing
• 31:01
  translation for many, many years or you have a a strong
• 31:07
  background in interest and yeah, and past the entrance
• 31:11
  examination. So we admit people from other
• 31:14
  fields as well. But I feel that so far, and I
• 31:19
  hope that people in the audience, especially a newer
• 31:22
  interpreters who might be listening, don't get the wrong
• 31:25
  impression about the legal profession and interpretation.
• 31:28
  Because so far we've said that the working conditions are
• 31:31
  difficult, that the pay is not that high in certain areas, not
• 31:36
  in all of them. So we have to make sure that
• 31:39
  this is also a point that is well understood.
• 31:42
  And there are a lot of options out there.
• 31:45
  And I just want to be specific here.
• 31:47
  When I when I thought about some of the working conditions and
• 31:51
  some of the stress involved, I'm really talking about very
• 31:55
  specific setting when you're hired by the Ministry of Justice
• 32:01
  and you're doing a more provincial work directly at the
• 32:05
  courthouse where there could be a several languages involved,
• 32:11
  especially some not official languages, but minor languages.
• 32:15
  But when it comes to the market of official languages in Canada,
• 32:19
  especially because the official language market is well paid and
• 32:26
  well seen in it's a more, it's seen as more prestigious work
• 32:30
  than the pay usually is higher. But it is also important to keep
• 32:36
  in mind that it is also a very difficult work.
• 32:40
  So I just wanted to make, I want to be very clear if someone is
• 32:43
  not familiar with legal interpretation that what we're
• 32:46
  talking about here are very specific areas, but the market
• 32:51
  is a lot broader, right? Yes.
• 32:54
  Yeah. I feel like again, pre COVID
• 32:57
  when I met some of the court interpreters in New Brunswick,
• 32:59
  they were telling me that they they negotiate their own rates.
• 33:02
  So there is that. And then I think in Vancouver as
• 33:05
  well, they have actually, they have an association that's very
• 33:08
  strong and they they negotiate good rates for court
• 33:14
  interpreters in general. Is it more like, is it like a
• 33:17
  union you were talking about earlier or?
• 33:19
  Not opinion that I don't think they're not allowed to to to be
• 33:22
  part of a union the So they have to be part of an association as
• 33:26
  court interpreters because they're considered self-employed
• 33:30
  and when you're considered self-employed, you're considered
• 33:32
  to be your own boss so you can't be part of a union if you're if
• 33:36
  you are your own boss. So that's why we try to see if
• 33:39
  we can improve working conditions and salaries for
• 33:43
  interpreters in Ontario by having them join a union.
• 33:49
  But it legally you can't do that.
• 33:52
  So we had to look for another solution and then COVID hit and
• 33:56
  then that kind of went on hold for until now, I guess.
• 34:00
  But I think that they're working conditions have improved right
• 34:03
  in Ontario. I think so.
• 34:05
  Well, you and I were having dinner with an interpreter.
• 34:08
  He's a Spanish interpreter, so it's kind of outside of the
• 34:11
  scope of this, But he was saying that that he does OK with with
• 34:17
  court interpretation because he lives farther away and you get
• 34:20
  paid for travel. So he can take the go train,
• 34:24
  let's say. And if he's also a legal
• 34:27
  translator, he can do translations.
• 34:29
  And then sometimes when he's at the court, all they need him for
• 34:32
  is even though he's getting paid for half day, they only need him
• 34:35
  for a specific block to be able to.
• 34:38
  Maybe it's just an introduction of the parties and it's just a
• 34:41
  few minutes. But he's got basically 1/2 day
• 34:44
  chunk at the courthouse where again, he can continue doing
• 34:46
  translation work and subsidize more of his income and then take
• 34:51
  the train home again and then make a little bit more money.
• 34:54
  So it it can become very lucrative if you're good at at
• 34:57
  managing your time. It's just a a a question of that
• 35:03
  can't be your right now in Ontario at least I don't think
• 35:06
  it can be your sole source of income.
• 35:10
  Due to that, I need to bring one to the podcast and they can tell
• 35:13
  us about. It.
• 35:14
  Yeah, yeah. Have some tricks?
• 35:17
  I have a question regarding the survey.
• 35:21
  How many questions and how long does it take to fill?
• 35:23
  Because I'm sure that we're going to be posting the link as
• 35:26
  we said before, but is it going to take an hour?
• 35:30
  People are a bit less busy at the beginning of the year, but
• 35:32
  then it becomes a bit crazier. It's more or less 20 minutes
• 35:37
  unless you have a lot to say. And we tend to, and you know, in
• 35:42
  legal translation and invitation, we tend to write a
• 35:45
  lot. So maybe 2025 minutes?
• 35:50
  OK. So yeah, if you're if you're
• 35:52
  taking the train to work, fill out the survey.
• 35:55
  That's it. Can you?
• 35:56
  Do you have a fill in on the computer?
• 35:57
  Can you fill on your phone? It's online, so anywhere just
• 36:01
  click on the link and you answer the survey.
• 36:04
  It's an. Online survey.
• 36:05
  Are you also looking for interpreters that are not
• 36:08
  working in the legal interpreting interpreting field?
• 36:12
  Right now it's for court interpretation mostly, or legal
• 36:17
  interpretation because it's within the justice sector area.
• 36:23
  Um, maybe at a later date we could survey?
• 36:27
  I was thinking about that because if you wanted to know
• 36:30
  the reason why some interpreters are not going into legal
• 36:36
  interpretation as a specialization.
• 36:38
  So I thought that maybe there would have been a few questions
• 36:41
  regarding this aspect. Well, the survey is not just for
• 36:44
  those who do that full time. And we do ask what's the
• 36:48
  percentage of your time that you spend doing legal translation or
• 36:51
  legal interpretation? Because in the previous survey
• 36:54
  we found out that those that their legal language specialists
• 36:57
  in Canada do not necessarily do that full time.
• 37:00
  So it's one of their domain of specialty.
• 37:03
  So even someone who goes to court once or twice a month, we
• 37:07
  want to hear from you. And there is a question about
• 37:11
  why do you not do this more. So yes, please answer the survey
• 37:17
  even if you don't do that full time.
• 37:19
  I think I think this is a great initiative.
• 37:21
  I mean, I interpreted it a few times for Beverly McLaughlin,
• 37:25
  the the former Chief Justice of Supreme Court and now Justice
• 37:29
  Wagner. And they both, every time that
• 37:32
  I've interpreted for them, they've always emphasized the
• 37:35
  need for access to justice. It should, there shouldn't be
• 37:39
  any barriers and and that should include language.
• 37:42
  That was just, yeah. It wasn't a question.
• 37:44
  It was just a statement. Yeah.
• 37:47
  And so the the result will be passed on to Justice Canada, but
• 37:51
  also to the provincial territorial government as well.
• 37:54
  They do participate in the in the fun and in the activities of
• 37:59
  Justice Canada as well when it comes to access to justice and
• 38:02
  both official languages. So there will be inform.
• 38:05
  And and going back to the provinces and territories, is it
• 38:08
  like does the federal government have like a specific fund and
• 38:11
  then the allocates to each province how much they should be
• 38:14
  spending on that? Or do you have any idea of how
• 38:17
  better structure works? Uh, no, not specifically for the
• 38:21
  funds. I would not be able to answer
• 38:24
  that question, but I do say that I, I know that the fund
• 38:27
  initiative throughout Canada to improve access to justice and
• 38:31
  French outside of Quebec and English and Quebec.
• 38:34
  And so if a ministry has an initiative and they get they
• 38:39
  want some funds, this falls under the purview of Justice
• 38:44
  Canada. Any interpreters of other
• 38:48
  languages than French and English?
• 38:50
  Um, can they also fill out fill out this survey or is it only
• 38:56
  for a French English combination?
• 38:58
  We're focusing on both official languages right now, but again,
• 39:02
  if someone does it once in a while and both show languages,
• 39:05
  we welcome their answer as well. And Creole.
• 39:11
  Well, in the previous survey, we did so in 2020 when we launched
• 39:16
  the Graduate Diploma in Legal Translator translation in at
• 39:20
  McGill, we had no idea of who was the market, who are the
• 39:23
  legal language specialists in Canada.
• 39:25
  So we did a similar survey back then and we found that there was
• 39:30
  a huge community of interpreters that answered the survey, mostly
• 39:35
  in the rest of Canada. So there was legal translation.
• 39:39
  Ontario, Quebec and the rest of Canada is mostly interpretation.
• 39:43
  And even when I did some field trips and BC, for example, they
• 39:47
  were like, I wanted to talk to legal translators and they're
• 39:50
  like, we don't do this here. So it was mostly intimidation
• 39:55
  and mostly anticipation with other language than the both
• 39:59
  both both official languages. Yeah, so I think you've inspired
• 40:04
  me to go back to the Court Interpreter Association of
• 40:08
  Ontario and and maybe ask for her quick favor.
• 40:10
  Of that send you. Mentioned them a link.
• 40:13
  Maybe Brunswick? Yes, please pass on the the
• 40:16
  service, the invitation. Thank you.
• 40:18
  All right, so we'll have to share this survey.
• 40:21
  We will post it on the description below and please
• 40:28
  come back and see us when you have the results.
• 40:31
  When do you expect them? Uh, April.
• 40:34
  May. Also quickly, so you once you
• 40:38
  will gather all the information, Yeah, it will take you about two
• 40:42
  or three months to write a report.
• 40:46
  Yes, wow. Yeah, OK.
• 40:48
  That's a lot faster than I expected.
• 40:51
  And your colleagues, um, you mentioned that they know more
• 40:54
  about the program itself, right, in their own respective.
• 40:58
  University program of in interpretation in Halifax.
• 41:03
  Yes. If you want to find out more
• 41:04
  about them, please reach out. Yeah, definitely.
• 41:08
  Maybe we'll have to do a series of podcasts about this
• 41:11
  particular topic. Well, legal interpretation is so
• 41:15
  wide as, as we were saying in the very beginning, that I
• 41:20
  understand the focus here on official languages and certain
• 41:25
  areas. But there are, there are so, so,
• 41:29
  so many examples out there of different settings, situation,
• 41:35
  pay and working conditions and everything else and by different
• 41:40
  provinces, 10 provinces, 3 territories.
• 41:44
  And I'm sure that if you talk to someone in the Northwest
• 41:47
  Territories that is dealing, let's say, with indigenous
• 41:50
  languages, hmm, up there in the North, I'm sure that they would
• 41:54
  have also a very different experience to share.
• 41:58
  Yes, definitely that's a good idea for the next research
• 42:02
  especially I mean. Even out West did at the
• 42:04
  incarceration rates for Indigenous populations is higher
• 42:07
  than than any other demographics.
• 42:11
  So yeah be interesting to see. Also indigenous languages on top
• 42:15
  of just English and French. OK, so, um.
• 42:21
  That would be fast that I. Can't.
• 42:23
  Yeah, I know, I know, I know. So we are at the end of our
• 42:27
  podcast, so I'll repeat it for the fifth time maybe that we're
• 42:32
  going to post at the bottom of the description to help.
• 42:38
  You know, this research, it is very important, is crucial in
• 42:41
  Canada. We are a bilingual country.
• 42:45
  Yes, we are a country. Some people might say otherwise
• 42:49
  and. What they mean?
• 42:51
  Yeah. OK.
• 42:54
  So thank you very much, Marilyn, for participating in this
• 43:00
  podcast. It was a pleasure to meet you
• 43:02
  and greet you today, Brian. Thanks again.
• 43:06
  Yes, and thank. You, Marilyn, as well from my
• 43:09
  behalf as well. And your work is really
• 43:12
  important. And yeah, congratulations and
• 43:14
  keep up the good work. And yeah, I'm sure we will
• 43:17
  remain in touch. Thank you very much.
• 43:19
  OK. So thank you very much everyone,
• 43:22
  like share, subscribe, good night and good luck.