CBC can't afford simultaneous interpretation

Ten years ago, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) hired me to do the live simultaneous interpretation on TV during the 10-year anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. I got to interpret then-Chancellor Gerhard Schröder and few other dignitaries who chose to address the German nation and the world back then. (I must admit, however, that at the time I was already working in-house, on a daily news program for CBC Newsworld International. But the live interpretation gig was remunerated separately.)

Now, ten years later, the CBC slapped its viewers in the face by not providing interpretation during the 20-year anniversary broadcast. Canadian viewers saw and heard Angela Merkel, but didn’t understand a single word of what she was saying.