Court Interpreters Association of Ontari- Petition

Court Interpreters' Association of Ontario

Mailing address: 17 Wycombe Road, North York, ON. M3M 2W6 • Fax: (416) 398-2715
e-mail: stellarahman@hotmail.com • www.ontariocourtinterpreters.ca

Petition
MAG Retesting
Immediate suspension of New Policy
The outcome and the classification model
The accredited court interpreters in the province of Ontario, as a collective body of professionals,
did not present any reasonable grounds of inadequacy to the Ministry of Attorney General to
necessitate re-examination of their linguistic capabilities. Similar to any other profession, individual
cases of misconduct and/or negligence should have been dealt with separately and can hardly be a
base to entice an overall judgment.
The Ministry refused the representation of the Court Interpreters’ Association of Ontario (CIAO),
the representative association of court interpreters, prior to testing. They further declined to indicate
the type of test, nor offer any preparation for the test, within a reasonable time. For many years,
they have also declined to provide interpreters with any training, essentially providing interpreters
with no professional support.
The recent results of re-testing and classification model are unacceptable for the following reasons:
• There has been no support or upgrading from the ministry for more than 15 years
• The pre-test material was provided one month before the re-test and that is totally unfair and
unreasonable
• The re-test does not reflect the real working situations of court interpreting
• The speed of the simultaneous interpretation section of the re-test was humanly impossible
• The results of the re-testing are therefore inaccurate and distorted
• Interpreters with years of experience may have failed the re-test, simply due to the
unrealistic features of the re-test and taking the re-test under tremendous pressure
• The classification model places interpreters in a degrading position within the court room,
therefore rendering it impossible to deliver quality professional service
All interpreters are placing a request to the Ministry for an immediate suspension of implementing
new policy and to review their decision based on the results of the re-test and the classification of
present and previously qualified court interpreters.
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