Debates Translation

In anyone's books, translating thousands of pages of text at a fast pace year after year, with the press waiting to snap them up, would be an amazing feat. Credit for this amazing feat goes to the Debates translators, who have been producing these translations for over 130 years.

In the beginning

At the time of the Union of the Canadas, the members of the Legislative Assembly of the Union of the Canadas wanted to have their debates published. In 1865, they did just that, publishing the Confederation Debates for the first time—a massive brick of more than 1,000 pages! But because the project was hugely expensive, the idea of publishing debates lost favour with Parliamentarians.

In 1875, during the mandate of Alexander Mackenzie's Liberals, a decision was made to begin publishing the debates. A few translators, who were journalists by trade, translated the speeches into English and French, while the principal contractor for the job revised the translations and prepared the Index. When the sessions were over, all of the translators went back to their newspapers. Up until 1883, a contractor and his team of freelances translated the debates. At the close of the session that year, the House of Commons decided to incorporate this team into its staff.

Slave-like working conditions

The harsh reality of working for Parliament was the slave-like working conditions for translators. They often had to work six days a week to keep on top of the inevitable backlogs. Each translator had to translate between 300 and 400 pages—2,500 words to the page—per session, and more when the sessions were extended. Four or five months later when the session was over, the translators were relieved to go back to their writing jobs.

An innovation introduced in the early 1900s was the use of competitions in hiring. The incumbent translators had to sit an exam, which some of them failed, and then newcomers were selected to replace them. The quality of translation undoubtedly improved because the selected candidates were more qualified and were the most qualified without consideration given for their political allegiances.

Development of work tools

Because there were always several translators in the Debates translation unit, it quickly became clear that there was a need to create work tools. The unit had a well-stocked filing cabinet of terminology records and in 1915, Wilfrid Gascon released the Guide pour la publication des débats (guide to the publication of debates), the precursor of the Guide du rédacteur (writer's guide). About 20 years later, the first Translation Bureau publication, the Formulaire pour la traduction des débats (templates for translating debates) was also authored by Wilfrid Gascon. Some of the section chiefs who had practical experience with translation operations, particularly Léon Gérin and Pierre Daviault, also produced books on language and translation.

The first translation unit of the Translation Bureau

The new Bureau

Section 4 of the Translation Bureau Act states that the following may be transferred to the new Bureau: "all officers and employees who are employed in the Public Service or in any department or branch of the Public Service, including all employees of the Senate and House of Commons of Canada, who are chiefly engaged as translators or in the work of translating..." The process was set in motion by an initial Order in Council of the Privy Council, PC 1854, which came into effect on September 1, 1934. The first translation unit established in the new Bureau was Debates. In January 1935, the Debates translators were given the new Bureau's first assignment: translation of the speeches given on national radio by Prime Minister Mackenzie King.

Flurry of activity

In June 1935, the Debates translators, regardless of their harsh working conditions, were entitled to three additional months of leave. Once back from their leave, they were assigned a huge stack of important documents on a wide variety of topics, ranging from commission of inquiry reports to government publications and the official correspondence of heads of State. The Registre de la traduction des débats (compendium of French translations of debates) was undoubtedly the first production monitoring tool and attests to the extraordinary output of the Debates translators.

Military Dictionary

During the Second World War, the Americans provided weapons to the Free French Forces, and some of the Debates translators went to New York City to translate the user manuals. Several Debates translators joined the staff of the Canadian Army's Bureau of Bilingual Publications, which released the celebrated English-French, French-English Military Dictionary in 1945.

Conferences

The Debates translators were always the first to be requisitioned to translate at national and international conferences. Some of them were even part of the first team of Parliamentary interpreters in 1959.

Window onto the activities of Parliament

Nowadays, Debates translation is a unit of the Interpretation and Parliamentary Translation Directorate (IPTD), which is tasked with implementing bilingualism in our Parliamentary institutions. The translations of the debates, which Parliamentary Translation Unit translators have been providing for over 130 years, provide a window onto the activities of Parliament.