Traductions/Translations

Translation's performance in 2003, as the 'national carrier' for intercultural communication and exchange in the literary domain, parallels in many ways the ongoing uncertainties of Air Canada. The continued publication of translations is not yet in doubt, and the year ended on a not entirely negative note. Nonetheless such notions as deficits, decreased traffic, internal questioning of the bilingual requirement, refinancing and restructuring with an emphasis on international at the expense of national connections, not to mention public indifference, are not without resonance. Re-expressed in translation terms, they underline the growing tensions between cultural values and commercial imperatives and the accrued vulnerability of a national translation program in a global economy. Despite pockets of resistance, the viability of furthering anglophone and francophone communication within Canada and extending intercultural dialogue to other cultures both inside and outside the country is increasingly assessed and conceptualized in the language of the marketplace. In this unacknowledged linguistic remake, a worthy object of study in itself, buzzwords such as 'marketability' and 'profitability' often conceal cultural attitudes about (or against?) intercultural exchange. This is, of course, not a new phenomenon, as translation scholars such as Philip Stratford, Larry Shouldice, and Ray Ellenwood have consistently pointed out since the late 1960s, but the current slips and slides warrant close scrutiny.

Translation and Cultural Diversity

In recent years, Air Canada has consistently figured in the annual report of the Commissioner for Official Languages for its failure to provide adequate French-language services. Its bid in 2003, amid financial difficulties, for exemption from its bilingual requirement was therefore not unexpected. However, it aptly illustrates how market forces can be both the vector and the pretext for renewed pressure on the rights of cultural minorities, all the more so when such rights are already the object of ambivalence. Furthermore, from a strictly internal Canadian perspective, since the resistance they evoke varies from one community to the other, such forces throw an additional spanner in the already difficult workings of intercultural relations within the country.

This is particularly evident in how levels of support vary across Canada for the federal government's efforts in support of the UNESCO convention on cultural diversity. The Canadian government, through Canadian Heritage, worked closely with other countries, including France, in the adoption of the Universal Declaration on Cultural Diversity at the last General Conference of UNESCO in 2001. In 2003, further progress was achieved, with the UNESCO decision to go ahead with developing a convention. Directly relevant to an ethics of translation, what is at stake, as then Heritage Minister Sheila Copps pointed out, are measures for 'ensuring effective standard-setting for the promotion of equitable cultural exchange on cultural diversity.'² Much lobbying will be needed, however, in order to guarantee adoption of the convention in 2005. In an ironic shift of alliances, the federal initiative has more resonance within Québec than across anglophone Canada. As the featured guest at the 2003 International Book Fair in Guadalajara, Mexico, for instance, the Government of Québec used the occasion to focus attention on the campaign to develop an international convention on cultural diversity by co-hosting, with the book fair, a two-day conference on the topic. At the same time, Québec writers profited from the successful fair to further already active translation contacts with Latin America. The Coalition for Cultural Diversity, a key lobby group for the convention, has broad support among the arts groups in Québec. As Québec journalist Stéphane Baillargeon noted recently, 'Le Canada dit oui, le Québec aussi, mais les autres provinces se laissent un peu tirer l'oreille en matière de diversité culturelle.'³

The immediate correlation with attitudes to literary translation within Canada bears reflecting upon. In a speech given at the opening plenary session of the General Conference of UNESCO on 2 October 2003, Foreign Affairs Minister Bill Graham defined cultural diversity as 'an openness to...