Professional interpreters are concerned the Canadian government’s plans to cut its procurement costs could compromise public access to official proceedings in the country’s official languages (French and English).
Jeremy Link, a spokesperson for Public Services and Procurement Canada, said the department recently began a process to replace the federal government’s existing freelance interpreting contracts. As part of that process, the government is seeking to make several major changes to the procurement of services for Parliament and other institutions like the Supreme Court.
The Canadian branch of the International Association of Conference Interpreters, AIIC-Canada, said those changes include eliminating measures to protect interpreters’ hearing and adopting a “lowest bid” approach to replace the “best fit” model that considers applicants’ credentials and experience. “This change would almost certainly have the effect of pushing the most experienced freelancers off an already short-handed team,” AIIC-Canada said in a statement.
In a letter to Prime Minister Mark Carney this month, AIIC-Canada President Alionka Skup said the proposed new rules would lower the quality of interpreting services while ignoring the current “severe shortage” of accredited and qualified suppliers of interpreting services. She said about 100 accredited and qualified freelancers now shoulder about 60% of all parliamentary assignments.
Nicole Gagnon, a spokesperson for AIIC-Canada and a career freelance interpreter, said the shortage started before the pandemic but worsened as Parliament went virtual and interpreters like herself sustained injuries. Several Parliament Hill interpreters have experienced hearing damage due to poor sound quality and feedback. “With this new standing offer, odds are interpreters will decide to just hang up their headsets because it’s not worth their trouble,” Gagnon said.
Gagnon said the government is also planning to start paying interpreters by the hour rather than by the day. “That’s a fundamental change that’s totally unacceptable to us,” she said. “This standing offer goes against our standards of practice. We work by the day, we do not work by the hour. We’re not gig workers.”
Gagnon said she and other interpreters oppose the lowest-bid model because it doesn’t take credentials and experience into account. “Quite a few of us have more years of experience than others, have other degrees, be it in engineering or law or administration, and so these are additional credentials that should be taken into account when assigning interpreters,” she said. “You would want to assign an interpreter to the Supreme Court if they have done studies in law or if that’s their field of expertise, rather than send someone who has not.”
Public Services and Procurement Canada is extending current contracts with freelance interpreters until the end of the year as it works to update the procurement process. Once the new process is in place, interpreters will have to decide whether to submit bids to keep working on Parliament Hill.
Canadian Press (7/24/25) By Catherine Morrison