The Canadian Association of Professional Employees (CAPE) has called on Canada’s Translation Bureau to scratch a five-year business plan that would eliminate more than 300 jobs.

The new plan will “directly undermin[e] the rights of francophone Canadians to access information of equal quality to that enjoyed by anglophones and damag[e] the integrity of both official languages in Canada,” CAPE President Nathan Prier said in a statement released on March 20, 2025, the Journée de la Francophonie (Francophonie Day). 

The Translation Bureau, a federal service under Public Services and Procurement Canada, provides translation and interpreting to both government departments and private clients, primarily from English to French. CAPE, a federal public services union, represents staff translators on Parliament Hill.

The Canadian Press reportedly obtained a government document related to the Translation Bureau’s business plan for 2025-2030, which states that, as part of an effort to ensure financial viability, 339 employees will be let go through “natural attrition” over five years. 

According to the document, the plan reflects an “overall drop” in demand — specifically for “traditional” translation services. 

The Translation Bureau reported a 1.34% dip in demand from 120 department agencies in 2022-2023, followed by a 7.78% drop in 2023-2024. Demand is expected to decrease a further 9.38% in 2024-2025 due to government plans to refocus spending; an increase in the rates the Translation Bureau charges for its services; and growing adoption (presumably by other departments) of machine translation tools. 

Elections and additional rate increases are expected to decrease demand by a further 2.36% in 2025-2026. The internal document does, however, note that the Translation Bureau plans to keep “key and specialized positions” filled. 

CAPE, on the other hand, said that reducing the Bureau’s staff by nearly a quarter (from an estimated 1,350 in 2024) will force translators to work faster with fewer resources, resulting in “an unacceptable decline in quality” that would disproportionately affect French-speakers.

CBC reported that the Bloc Québécois had voiced similar concerns, citing the Liberals’ elimination of the Department of Official Languages in addition to funding cuts to the Translation Bureau.

“These are two direct affronts to Quebecers and francophones in Canada,” CBC quoted the Bloc Québécois as saying.

Public Servants Have Their Say

Per The Canadian Press, other government departments have begun using online translation services (i.e., free internet tools) or are “investing on their own to deploy translation tools powered by artificial intelligence.” 

On Reddit, users in a space for Canadian public servants shared their own experiences working with the Translation Bureau. The cost was one common complaint:

“Translation bureau is really expensive. It’s usually less [expensive] to outsource to a private translation firm,” 613_detailer explained.

Tha0bserver agreed emphatically: “I got an estimate from a private supplier yesterday that was literally 1/10 of the quote I got from the translation bureau. ONE TENTH.”

“I haven’t worked anywhere in the last five years that didn’t use a private third-party contract translation service, redistributing translation demand due to either cost or resource availability at TB,” NotMyInternet wrote, adding that the cuts are “just going to worsen our contracting situation, forcing even more of us to look outside for translation services.”

Multiple commenters reported better results with Google Translate and, especially, DeepL:

“The last time I sent something for translation, I got back the EXACT SAME text that I received from Deepl,” KermitsBusiness wrote. 

“The difference is you pay for TB to use DeepL for you,” cheeseworker replied.

“It’s not always appropriate to do so (ie confidential or classified docs) and obviously for legal or specialized text you will always need a human translator,” Unwholesome_coscomb noted. “But for a random email reminding employees to do their mandatory training? Meh.”

A few observers, such as Nogreatcathedral, advocated for “more translators embedded in directorates or some similar level.”

“Even when we send stuff for human translation to the TB, we need a francophone employee to review it for domain accuracy,” they wrote. “If you had embedded translators who were familiar with the domain specific language, you’d take that workload off of francophone analysts and facilitate faster turnaround AI –> human review translation pipelines.”

Ouserhwm concurred: “Even when we pay for proofing, which adds cost – it isn’t perfect. I had embedded translators and they were definitely greatly preferred!”