Question Period Note: Interpretation Contracts

The Translation Bureau plays a crucial role in Canadian democracy, and interpretation services are essential.

• In collaboration with its partners, the Translation Bureau continues to innovate and draw on expert advice and best practices in Canada and abroad to provide optimal interpretation service to Parliament and to federal departments and agencies
  • Interpretation suppliers are independent contractors and not employees of the Translation Bureau and to obtain a contract to provide services to Parliament, suppliers must first be accredited by the Translation Bureau
  • As part of government-wide initiatives to make procurement more efficient, transparent, flexible and sustainable, Public Services and Procurement Canada is currently reviewing its contractual strategy to improve the procurement processes for interpretation and to obtain greater flexibility in the long term

If pressed on capacity:

• The Translation Bureau makes every effort to increase its capacity and meet Parliament's demands by, among other things, collaborating with the Canadian language industry to support and expand interpretation training, and to stimulate the next generation of interpreters
• The Translation Bureau has set up new interpretation programs with Quebec universities
• Despite the shortage of interpreters in Canada and elsewhere in the world, the Translation Bureau does not anticipate any capacity issues to meet Parliament's interpretation needs

The Translation Bureau uses suppliers for approximately 40% of its demand for official languages ​​interpretation in Parliament, and 80% outside Parliament. Although it sometimes uses ad hoc contracts to do so, it mainly uses open contracts, the most recent of which were renewed in June 2024.

In the summer of 2024, Public Services and Procurement Canada (PSPC) proposed an amendment to its open contract with suppliers. This amendment was received negatively by many suppliers.

Following this, PSPC acknowledged that it had lacked clarity in its communications about the amendment and offered suppliers a revised version of the contract that did not contain the amendment in question.

In preparation for this deadline, PSPC is preparing a new procurement mechanism for interpretation services. The changes that will be made will aim to modernize the contract clauses and align them with best practices in the federal government and internationally. The Department will be conducting a request for information from industry on the new procurement process in the coming weeks, to obtain the opinions of suppliers and the associations that represent them.

• The Translation Bureau uses suppliers for approximately 40% of the demand for interpretation in official languages ​​in Parliament
  • Although it sometimes uses one-off contracts to do so, the Translation Bureau mainly uses open one-year contracts, renewable for an additional year
  • To allow time for the completion of the procurement process, the current contracts, currently set to expire in June 2025, will be extended by six months