Earlier this week, CAPE National President Emmanuelle Tremblay sent a letter to Public Works and Government Services Canada expressing grave concern over its plans to launch an automated translation tool for federal public service employees. The service could lead to “poor-quality translations” that could “sully the reputation of the Translation Bureau”, wrote Tremblay.
The department’s desire to launch a machine translation tool was announced earlier this spring, causing translators to worry about the federal public service churning out poorly translated material bearing the Translation Bureau’s seal of approval.
“Language is vastly complex; that’s why we entrust translation to highly-skilled individuals,” said Tremblay. “Technology simply hasn’t reached that level of sophistication – to be able to understand nuance, to be able to grasp idioms, style and humour inherent to each language.”
“Canadians deserve better.”
In addition to reaching out to PWGSC with its concerns, CAPE is also raising these issues with the Office of the Commissioner of Official Languages.
You can view the original letter by clicking here.
Update: You can read the response we received from Donna Achimov, CEO of the Translation Bureau, by clicking here.
