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Why ACIA was initially formed:
In 2002 and 2003 To Pham, Gary Fok and Penelope Waters, who had all served in the courts as interpreters for two decades, put in tremendous effort to research the various interpreter fee schedules in Canada. They communicated with the Honourable Judge E.J.M. Walter of the Provincial Court of Alberta, Assistant Chief Judge Stevenson, the Honourable Dave Hancock (Minister of Justice and Attorney General), Jonathan Hack (President of Alberta Crown Attorneys) and Wayne Cao (Member of the Legislative Assembly of Alberta) and expressed the need to review remuneration for local court interpreters. As a result of the efforts and lobbying of ACIA, all court-appointed interpreters received from the Alberta government their first ever pay increase from an hourly rate of $15.00 to $45.00 per hour. Existing contractual conditions already enjoyed by interpreters were maintained, including receiving the full hourly rate for any portion of an hour worked, a minimum of one hour pay for travel time, reimbursement for a meal when working past noon hour, and bus fare or mileage with parking reimbursed.
The Initial mandate of ACIA was to:
- Approach governments as a professional body concerning the issue of
competitive remuneration for Court Interpreters;
ACIA’s main goals:
- To improve the image and relationship between Court Interpreters and
the legal actors. - To properly select qualified and accredited interpreters.
- To provide information on qualified interpreters and their language
combination. - To increase our membership into a body of professional Court
Interpreters. - To increase the ACIA profile with the provincial legal community