Author: coemaster
Company: UofO

Lynda Hurst

LOST IN TRANSLATION
IN THE CITY OF BABEL
 
The Toronto area is proudly multilingual. But more than 145 languages can
 pose problems in our hospitals and courts, which too often rely on
 unqualified interpreters 
 
 Linguistically, Toronto is less the tower than the entire city of Babel.
 
 More than 145 languages are spoken here, and 100,000 new immigrants, more
 than 40 per cent with little or no English, add more dialects and regional
 variations to the mix every year.
 
 But in all the discussion about multiculturalism in recent decades, the
 ramifications of multilingualism seem to have fallen off the table - if,
 that is, they were ever on it.
 
 Nowhere are the GTA's linguistic demographics more pronounced than in Peel
 Region's Brampton courthouse. It's the most multilingual in Canada, using
 more interpreters than any other, by far.
 
 At Brampton, almost 5,000 cases a year require interpreting into Punjabi
 alone. But dozens of other tongues - from Cantonese, Kurdish, Spanish and
 Polish to Somali, Tamil and Urdu - are spoken by the witnesses and
 defendants who process through its courtrooms.
 
 Section 14 of the Charter guarantees them the assistance of an interpreter,
 but getting one fully capable of doing the job is a hit-or-miss affair. 
 
 The chaotic situation had been an open secret in legal circles for years
 when Superior Court Justice Casey Hill publicly exposed it in November 2005.
 After conducting his own inquiry, Hill blasted Brampton's routine use of
 unqualified and unskilled legal interpreters, people who'd either failed or
 never taken the Attorney-General's accreditation test, a supposed
 requirement for employment.
 
 In some cases, they were merely giving the "gist" of what was being said to,
 or by, the person they were working with. One interpreter's cultural bias
 against women was so blatant, he would interpret only what he chose to. As
 for the A-G's accreditation test, Hill learned there is a 75- to 80-per-cent
 failure rate - on the English portion. The would-be interpreter's second
 language isn't tested at all.
 
 Veteran Brampton interpreter Shamin Jhooty told the judge that the A-G's
 standards didn't "even meet the basics" of court interpreting. Many who'd
 been accredited "would fail any test in legal terminology."
 
 She recalled one accredited co-worker asking her, "When they say `the Crown
 is honest,' what exactly do they mean?" Jhooty eventually established that
 "the Crown is honest" was actually "the Crown's onus."
 
 Hill concluded that interpreter incompetence constituted "a critical threat
 to justice."
 
 Two years on, has the Brampton situation improved?
 
 Not so anyone has noticed.
 
 Criminal lawyer Anthony Moustacalis says there has been a lot of chatter
 about change, "but we've yet to see any concrete result." Just recently, he
 asked an interpreter what the legal term voir dire (a hearing within a
 hearing) meant. "To see and say?" she offered.
 
 That exasperates him because, even before Hill, a 1994 Supreme Court
 decision found that legal interpreters must be competent and impartial. He
 insists on vetting the ones assigned to his clients.
 
 "This is a no-brainer," he says. "Ontario knows what it's supposed to do but
 isn't doing it."
 
 A long-time court interpreter is more blunt: "We haven't moved an inch."
 
 Last month, a coalition of interpreting organizations released a National
 Standards Guide that for the first time sets out mandatory requirements for
 "community interpreting."
 
 This specialty is used in the legal system, health care and social services,
 as opposed to business or conference interpreting. (Interpreters deal with
 oral language; translators with written.)
 
 The guide spells out how applicants should be assessed, trained, tested,
 monitored and certified. It also details the ethical principles involved in
 working with people in the most private areas of their lives.
 
 "There is a huge difference between certified and accredited," says Lola
 Bendana, a key force behind the guide and head of Multi-Languages Corp. The
 province may have "accredited" 1,000 court interpreters, she says, but there
 are only 20 "certified" ones in the whole province.
 
 Yesterday, coalition members were to meet with Ruby Dhalla, Liberal MP for
 Brampton-Springdale, in hope of getting Ottawa to take action on standards
 and regulation.
 
 Mere bilingualism is far from enough to be a competent court interpreter,
 says Jhooty. She took a 10-month training course in B.C., the only province
 that requires certification before someone can be employed by the courts.
 (The gold standard is Australia, which requires a four-year program.)
 
 "There is a notion out there that anyone who speaks a second language can
 interpret," she says. "Not so."
 
 The process is complex and consists of several components, such as active
 listening and memory retention. Court interpreters must be able to do
 simultaneous as well as consecutive interpreting (intervening every two or
 three sentences). Accuracy is crucial.
 
 But an understanding of the legal system is also a must. A court interpreter
 may be on a drunk-driving trial one day, a robbery the next, credit-card
 fraud the day after that. They must have the wherewithal to research and
 comprehend expert testimony. Only with proper training can it be done, says
 Jhooty.
 
 "But it has to be done because the quality of interpretation directly
 affects the administration of justice."
 
 The current situation in health care and social services differs little.
 
 Ideally, community interpreters should not only be fluently bilingual but
 also know medical terminology and procedures, and the workings of the
 health-care system. On top of that, they must be sensitive to the personal
 privacy of the people they're working with.
 
 Few have had the training it takes.
 
 In a 2004 study, Toronto's Health Interpretation Network (HIN) found that
 language barriers can lead to misdiagnosis, wrong referrals and wrong
 treatment: "The error rate of untrained interpreters (including family and
 friends) is sufficiently high as to make their use more dangerous in some
 circumstances than having no interpreter at all."
 
 In many cases, a patient's outcome depends on following the doctor's
 instructions at home: "It goes without saying that if a patient doesn't
 understand the instructions in the first place, he or she won't be able to
 comply."
 
 HIN was a major contributor to the new statement of community interpreting
 standards, which its president, Axelle Janczur, argues should be implemented
 as policy by the ministry of citizenship and immigration, and indeed the
 provincial government as a whole.
 
 "Where there's policy, money flows," she says. 
 
 At present, there is no funding for community interpretation other than a
 ministry spousal-assault project.
 
 With the focus still overwhelmingly on French-English bilingualism, the
 demands of multilingualism get set aside, says Janczur. According to Ottawa,
 newcomers should speak either official language. The fact is, she adds, the
 primary immigrant, likely the husband, will, but the rest of his family will
 not.
 
 "The attitude seems to be, `They should learn English.' Yes, of course. But
 that doesn't happen right away."
 
 Diana Abraham, a former citizenship ministry program consultant, says that
 "something has to be done before something drastic happens." As the Supreme
 Court has deemed competent interpretation a constitutional right, at least
 in court, she thinks it should be added to Ontario's Human Rights Code.
 
 Working on the ministry's spousal-assault project, Abraham was stunned to
 learn that women's shelters were calling on anyone they could find to
 interpret. In one case, "the guy they used later called the husband. In
 hospitals, you see women coming in with their abuser acting as interpreter."
 
 Embarrassed or affronted, some patients flatly refuse to have a third party
 interpret and insist on a family member, often a child. Though some
 hospitals have hired certified interpreters, ongoing budget crunches mean
 others resort to using passing staff who speak a second language, a risky
 practice.
 
 Despite the province's radically changed immigration patterns, the
 multiple-language problem hasn't been met by Queen's Park, says Abraham:
 "Now we're seeing the consequences. It's a big challenge for Ontario."
 
 There are more than 51,000 people working in interpretation and translation
 in Canada, but only 3,000 are community interpreters, says Gonzalo Peralta,
 president of the Language Industry Association. At least another 1,000 are
 urgently needed.
 
 And their training and licensing should be national, not provincial: "We
 don't want a patchwork approach. Ottawa should be stepping up to the plate,"
 says Peralta.
 
 "We're talking about people's lives here."
 
 Bridging Ontario's language gap
 
 The Ministry of the Attorney-General says the following steps have been
 taken to improve the quality of court interpretation:
 
 A new, 180-hour certificate program began this fall at Seneca College in
 Toronto and five other centres in Ontario, partly funded by a $208,000 grant
 from the ministry of citizenship.
 
 The A-G's ministry has consulted with jurisdictions in Canada and
 internationally to consider best practices.
 
 Interpreter assignment procedures have been revised.
 
 New processes implemented to ensure that complaints related to interpreter
 services in the courts are handled promptly and effectively.
 
 In the process of developing new skills tests for court interpreters in 25
 of the highest-demand languages, as well as an English proficiency test.
 These tests will form the basis of a new accreditation program.
 
 New and current interpreters will be required to attend refresher training
 on interpretation, the role of various court parties and professional
 ethics.

____________ 

Reference: http://www.thestar.com/News/Ideas/article/283656 
Dec 08, 2007