Senators – Acceptable and Unacceptable Translation Requests

The Translation Bureau provides senators with translation service in accordance with the following rules, established in Schedule B of the Service Agreement concluded between the Senate and the Translation Bureau.

A senator may obtain translations into English or French of the following types of document:

  • portions of speeches (about 1,000 words) to be delivered in the Senate in the senator's second official language;
  • letters related to the senator's duties;
  • working documents required by the senator to perform his or her duties;
  • speeches and documents on public issues intended for delivery to non-partisan audiences;
  • the home page and navigation links for the senator's Web site, as well as a biographical sketch for the site;
  • letters related to the senator's duties from or into a language other than English or French.

The following types of document will not be translated:

  • texts for a senator's personal use or unrelated to his or her activities as a senator;
  • press clippings and magazine articles, with the exception of relatively brief excerpts;
  • any document of a partisan or party nature such as:
  • invitations to join a political party
    • invitations to attend meetings of a political nature, or national or local conferences
    • requests for financial contributions not clearly identifying all political parties
    • federal, provincial or municipal election campaign materials such as speeches, enumerators' lists,
    • partially our constituency workers' lists, pull activities, etc.
    • publications normally made available to senators by their party headquarters
    • party leadership campaign material;
  • parliamentary publications available from another source;
  • publications for distribution protected by copyright, where written approval has not yet been obtained from the author or publisher;
  • party research material;
  • texts whose translation is the responsibility of another service, such as drafts of bills, motions or questions
  • texts that conflict with the Rules of the Senate, or of its committees, or that duplicate the work of the Senate for its committees.

Please contact the Parliamentary Services and Interpretation for more information about the Parliamentary Documents translation services or to request our services.

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