The Translation Bureau: Committed to language for 90 years and counting

The Bureau for Translations was founded 90 years ago, on August 1, 1934. Over the decades, it would carve out a special place in Canada's linguistic landscape and become the Translation Bureau we know today.

The Translation Bureau (the Bureau), part of Public Services and Procurement Canada (PSPC), offers a full range of linguistic services, from translation to terminology to interpretation, in over 101 languages (Canada's official languages, Indigenous languages, foreign languages and sign languages). It serves Parliament as well as federal courts, departments and agencies, and makes a wealth of free resources available to the public through the Language Portal of Canada.

Over the years, the Bureau has played a key role in many major events, including leaders' debates, installation ceremonies of the governors general, addresses to the nation by foreign leaders and visits by the Pope. Its language experts have been there for Canadians during major international events on Canadian soil, such as the G8 and G20 summits and the Olympic and Paralympic Games. They have offered their support at crucial moments, including during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Although the public may be more familiar with the Bureau's front line interpretation role, the Bureau's extensive work behind the scenes is no less important.

Client service excellence

The Translation Bureau has been a special operating agency since 1995 and operates much like a private company. It derives most of its budget from billing for its services, and while it is Parliament's exclusive supplier of linguistic services, courts, departments and agencies are not obliged to do business with the Bureau.

Client service is therefore key to the Bureau's operations. To meet its clients' needs, it relies on a team of client advisors that specialize in specific client portfolios, such as agriculture, health, Indigenous affairs and finance.

Mourad Bala has been with the Bureau since 2022. He is a client advisor for the security and defence portfolio. Client advisors play an essential role, turning requests from clients such as National Defence into reality. "As clients' first point of contact with the Translation Bureau, we liaise between clients, translators and other Bureau services."

As a client advisor, Mourad is responsible for evaluating translation requests and assigning them to translators according to their field and deadlines. "Sometimes translators have to travel, for example, to National Defence offices, to handle secret or top secret documents," he explains, adding that the Bureau takes document security seriously.

According to Mourad, for client advisors to carry out their tasks quickly and efficiently and meet the expectations of the Bureau's clients, they need professionalism, listening skills and patience—not to mention a passion for the work!

Quality in every language

This passion for language is shared by the Bureau's roughly 1,350 employees. The Translation Bureau is recognized not only for its outstanding client service but also for the quality of its linguistic services. These services include translation, interpretation and terminology: the Bureau maintains the TERMIUM Plus® terminology bank and has published dozens of glossaries and vocabularies.

Providing linguistic services requires real translation expertise, as translator and language advisor Pamela Lee can attest. Pamela joined the Bureau 30 years ago and is still passionate about her career today. "I'm proud of the Bureau's work, which ensures that federal employees and the Canadian public receive communications of equal quality from the federal government in both official languages."

For Pamela, translation is a profession in which the learning never stops. "We work for all federal government departments in a wide variety of fields, which means we can handle many types of texts on a wide range of subjects."

Today, Pamela spends most of her time revising, which is quite different from what she used to do as a translator. The differences are subtle but not insignificant: "I was used to being assigned a text to translate, working on it and then delivering it. It's harder to revise someone else's text, ensuring that you don't go too far in revising to the point that you're rewriting it, but also making sure you don't miss any errors or introduce new ones."

Translation Bureau employees apply this same attention to detail to thousands of requests every year. During the 2023 to 2024 fiscal year, the Bureau translated 371 million words, provided 47,000 hours of interpretation, and created and updated nearly 19,000 terminology records in TERMIUM Plus®, to name just a few of its achievements.

The Bureau's many linguistic services and tools have made it the language authority for Canadian parliamentarians, federal government employees, and members of the public in Canada and around the world. As it nears its centennial, the Bureau is ever evolving, and its experts are embracing new technologies to continue providing expertise in linguistic services.

To learn more about the PSPC people, projects and services improving the lives of Canadians, check out other articles from Our stories.