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NEWSLETTERS
May 13th 2020
The Honorable Justin Trudeau
Prime Minister of Canada
Office of the Prime Minister
80 Wellington St.
Ottawa ON K1A 0A2
Subject: The importance of bilingual communication laws
Mr. Prime Minister,
First, allow me to congratulate you on your wise leadership in guiding Canada through the COVID-19 crisis. Much like myself, all Canadians have become reliant on your daily updates and we listen attentively to your press conferences. I would like to congratulate you, and your team, on the excellent work and impressive accomplishments achieved during this difficult time.
I am writing to you to discuss a hasty decision that was initially made by Health Canada to suspend the obligation of having bilingual labeling on various products that are used to combat COVID-19. During a press conference on April 28th, you mentioned that the reason for this decision was due to an apparent “lack of labour resources and the logistics that are not always available for the importing companies” also stating “we need to balance different vulnerabilities.”
More recently, a news article (https://onfr.tfo.org/etiquetage-bilingue-sante-canada-fait-un-pas-en-arriere/) confirms that Health Canada has “taken a step back” and reversed its decision, confirming that importers will have to adhere to proposed alternatives to provide bilingual information.
On behalf of AILIA and its Canadian Language Service Providers, I still wanted to express how concerning it was to hear of such a decision, which in our view, posed a threat to public safety, with potential long-term implications to the health of the most vulnerable unilingual Canadians who may not understand or misinterpret the labels, their instructions and important hazard warnings.
The message I want to leave with you, Mr. Prime Minister, is that our member companies (79 in total) employ thousands of professional translators, project managers, IT, AI and various other professionals all across the country, to support the language requirements of Canada. Since this pandemic started, and shortly after the stay at home order was announced, our industry immediately stepped up. Each company quickly sent all employees to work remotely, via secured networks, to ensure a safe working environment while maintaining optimal service levels for our clients, most notably the Government of Canada.
Mr. Prime Minister, Canada’s language industry is here to support your efforts in helping our country through this pandemic. Put us to the test, in whatever capacity you deem necessary. We have the capacity, the skills and the know-how to help Health Canada, and any other client, meet their demanding mandates, without cutting corners. There is no need to sacrifice bilingual labeling for the sake of expediting products to market. We can absolutely help with go-to-market strategies, while ensuring timely delivery of all translations in any language. We even suggest expanding the list of languages for those domestic cleaning products which could have potential hazardous health risks to Canadians, who may not speak either official language. Simply put, we are here to help the Government of Canada and support your efforts.
In conclusion, my letter today stems from our passion for our official Canadian languages. By working together, I strongly believe that we will come out of this crisis stronger and more united than ever. I thank you in advance for your time and consideration.
With my sincere respect,
Robin Ayoub
President, AILIA
(Association de l'industrie de la langue – Language Industry Association)
CC : Health Minister, Hon. Mrs Patricia A. Hajdu
Public Services and Procurement Minister, Hon. Ms. Anita Anand
Terminology science, a subject characterised by its interdisciplinarity, is two-dimen-sional, linguistic and conceptual in nature. Any terminological work grounded in this two-dimensional nature must take these two dimensions into account, regardless of the methodological approach used – semasiological or onomasiological – for the ‘systematic collection, description, processing and presentation of concepts and their designations’ (ISO 1087: 2019, p.13). Whatever the approach, and at some point, the terminologist has to identify the term and the concept it designates (semasiology), or the concept and the term that designates it (onomasiology), where the textual definition renders the relationship between one and the other stable.
Read the editorial here.
As machine translation technology continues to develop, the questions that remain are: how to harness the power of this technology with minimal risks and at the same time consider the impact it has on the society and the people involved in the process?
Whether you are an MT evangelist or skeptic, this webinar offers a down-to-earth view on how far the technology has gotten as well as what it can mean for businesses and people today and in the future. While the future means change, it doesn’t have to be scary.
The speakers will share practical tips on how to choose a path to introducing machine translation in an efficient and responsible way:
1. Machine Translation in the Enterprise & Factor 1000, Chris Wendt (Microsoft)
2. NMT Expectations and Fears, Andrew Jones (Nikon)
Click below to join the live webinar and to receive the recording the next day.
JOIN THE WEBINAR
The COVID-19 outbreak is a human tragedy with a growing impact on all our daily business operations. This may bring profound changes as well as maybe uncertainty for you.
We are working closely with industry organizations and experts, continuously assessing the impact of this situation, to find the way forward to make it through these difficult times.
We will update you regularly with informational pieces, tips on the crisis response.
Stay safe and healthy!
COVID-19 is top of mind for nearly everyone in the world, including
our members and our collective clients. A number of translation firms are offering free services for coronavirus content, including some AILIA members - and the requests are coming in quickly. As language industry professionals, we are very lucky to be able to work remotely at times like these. But how do we stay connected securely if we are used to working in an office outside of the home? Here are a few tech tips for those who may have to work remotely for more than a few days.
1. Make More Use of Microsoft Teams or Install Slack
Slack is a communications tool that allows for easy collaboration on projects as well as water-cooler style chats. While Microsoft Office 365 has Teams, which can also be used as a collaborative team tool, Slack has less of a learning curve and can be made easily accessible to clients and subcontractors. Slack and Teams can act as a conduit for those small interactions that usually only take place in an office, such as quick questions or ideas about how to do something better. On Slack, you can also arrange various projects in different channels to keep everything organized and on-task.
2. Secure Your Logins
If staff or subcontractors/Freelancers are working remotely, there’s a chance they may have to work in a coffee shop or other public space where hackers are known to lurk. Consider forcing two-factor authentication for Microsoft, Google, and other important account sign-ons to protect your company data. Two-factor authentication requires both the password that you are used to providing and another piece of data, which is usually an SMS code texted to the user’s phone. Physical devices, such as USB dongles, can also be used as the second piece of identification and are more secure than using an SMS code.
3. Upgrade Legacy Systems
If there are systems or programs that you absolutely can’t work remotely with, now is the time you will find out about them. Consider upgrading them to cloud solutions that you can work with outside of the office.
4. Make Sure Your Employees Can Be Productive and Recognized
High performers may be concerned that their work may not be noticed, and some people may not thrive outside of an office because there are too many distractions at home. Make sure to keep in touch with everyone through weekly phone calls and/or video chats, and offer to solve any issues you can solve for employees working from home, technological or otherwise. It’s easy to see the volume of work being produced, and you will likely notice if anyone’s usual volume goes down and you can address it with them directly. There are also non-invasive monitoring programs, such as Prodoscore, Teramind and Time Doctor if you feel they are necessary.
On behalf of AILIA we encourage our members, their staff and families to use health precautions, stay safe, we will get through this together, if you have any questions or if you would like to chat about a specific situation don’t hesitate to let us know.
Sincerely,
President
Maryse Benhoff on the importance of standards for quality language translations
At Capacity Podcast with Jacob Monash
https://jmonash.com/podcast/maryse-benhoff
We talk about the importance of structure and standards to translation workflows, how ISO has been instrumental in helping the translation industry self-regulate worldwide, and how Maryse and her team have coded their own translation ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) system.
Jump ahead to the following times if you’re interested in a specific topic:
1:42 - The history of BG Communications
7:41 - What is ISO?
15:49 - How BG Communications coded their own translation tool
And as always, you can reach me at jacob@jmonash.com.
Le Conseil supérieur de la langue française rappelle que la date limite pour soumettre une candidature à l’Ordre des francophones d’Amérique et au Prix du 3-Juillet-1608 est le 3 avril 2020. L’Ordre des francophones d’Amérique reconnaît le mérite de femmes et d’hommes, issus de différents milieux, qui se sont consacrés ou qui se consacrent au maintien et à l’épanouissement de la langue française en Amérique, ou qui ont accordé leur soutien à l’essor de la vie française sur le continent américain. Jusqu’à sept nouveaux membres en provenance de plusieurs régions des Amériques et du monde sont reçus annuellement :
Le Prix du 3-Juillet-1608 rend, quant à lui, hommage à un organisme œuvrant en Amérique du Nord qui a rendu ou rend des services exceptionnels à une collectivité de langue française et à l’ensemble de la francophonie nord-américaine.
Un jury, dont les membres sont nommés par le Conseil, choisira les récipiendaires de chaque catégorie ainsi que l’organisme lauréat du Prix du 3-Juillet-1608. Ils seront récompensés en octobre 2020 au cours d’une cérémonie qui sera tenue à l’hôtel du Parlement, à Québec.
Notez que les dossiers des candidatures non retenues la première année sont conservés et soumis au jury l’année suivante.
Le formulaire de mise en candidature, qui indique les conditions d’admission et les critères de sélection, est disponible sur le site Web du Conseil au www.cslf.gouv.qc.ca/prix-etdistinctions.
The Translation Bureau and the Canadian General Standards Board signed a new partnership agreement with AILIA, the Language Industry Association.
AILIA has entered into a Project Agreement with the Translation Bureau for the development of a new edition of Canada's CAN/CGSB 131.10 Translation Services Standard.
The signing ceremony took place on Monday, February 24, 2020.
AILIA's working group was Betty Cohen, Maryse Benhoff, Kim Pines, Sharon Steinberg, Lola Bendana and Donald Barabé. President, Sharon Steinberg signed on AILIA's behalf.
This is an important step forward for Canada’s translation industry and a direct result of all of the hard work that AILIA has done to advance the profession.
Signatories
Lucie Séguin Chief Executive Officer, Translation BureauPublic Services and Procurement Canada
Sharon Steinberg President Language Industry Association
For CGSB:Jean-Pierre Blais Assistant Deputy Minister, Receiver General and Pensions Branch Public Services and Procurement Canada
Witness: Steven MacKinnon Parliamentary Secretary Public Services and Procurement Canada
We have a jam packed agenda for Rendez-vous Ottawa.. It will be a busy, informative and interesting event. Register today.
Preliminary Agenda
La maison d’édition Lambert-Lucas a décidé de mettre en ligne en PDF, téléchargeables gratuitement, 71 ouvrages parmi tous ceux qui ont paru entre 2005 et 2015 (soit 230 titres). Plusieurs de ces ouvrages sont d’un intérêt certain pour les linguistes et traducteurs. Une trentaine d'autres suivront chaque année à partir de 2021. Pour avoir la liste de ces livres et les télécharger, allez sur la page "TOUS LES LIVRES" du site de Lambert-Lucas et cliquez sur le bouton "Open PDF". Soit l'URL : http://www.lambert-lucas.com/livre/?tri=open
Merci Dr. James Archibald
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