Evidence of meeting #37 for Official Languages in the 40th Parliament, 3rd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was library.
A recording is available from Parliament.
9:25 a.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Steven Blaney
Thank you, Mr. Godin.
We will continue our first round with the parliamentary secretary, Mr. Rickford.
9:25 a.m.
Conservative
Greg Rickford Conservative Kenora, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you to the witnesses for coming today. I appreciate the important work you and your colleagues do across this country and in fact around the world. It's great that you are here today.
Rear-Admiral Smith,
two things come to mind. First, there are anglophones and francophones who would like to take training in their second language in the interest of advancing their military career. They might also want to do so for personal and other reasons. Second, there might be a problem, or a challenge, with regard to training, as Mr. Nadeau said earlier, as far as technical training is concerned in one or the other official language. In my opinion, once again, this basically means one thing, namely that the course material must be available in both official languages. This is essential if members of the Canadian Forces want to reach their language objectives.
Therefore, my first question is simple. Briefly, regarding courses at the Royal Military College in Kingston and the Royal Military College in Saint-Jean, will officer-cadets be able to take training in their second language in order to climb the ranks, and therefore improve their language skills, yes or no?
9:30 a.m.
Chief of Military Personnel, Champion of Official Languages, Department of National Defence
I just want to make sure that I understand the question. Officer cadets at the military college take their studies in their mother tongue, but they have to take training in their second language. This is part of their curriculum.
9:30 a.m.
Conservative
Greg Rickford Conservative Kenora, ON
I'm very interested in the subject because I have some personal experience in that regard. I did a master's degree in business administration at Laval University. The course material for business finance came from the Kellogg School of Management and was in English. The subject was very sophisticated and complicated. In fact, the professor was a francophone who had studied in the United States. I studied the English text, of course. The courses were always given in French and the exam, which was a nightmare, was in French. So I always had to give a translation. It was a fairly complicated exercise. In fact, at one exam, I failed simply because I was unable to translate all of the information I had studied in preparation for the exam. At the final exam, I got a much better mark because I worked with the professor.
The problem was always that the information in that field was not available in French. So my question is simple. As you said, it is essential that the course material be available in both official languages if the Canadian Forces wish to meet their language objectives. However, Mr. Smith, with all due respect, according to the commissioner, all of the teaching institutions have problems with translation. Therefore, are these teaching institutions going to improve their planning practices and the way they establish priorities as far as translating all of the course materials is concerned, and are you going to start negotiating with the Translation Bureau to see whether the practice of simultaneously drafting internal documents in both official languages is feasible?
9:30 a.m.
Chief of Military Personnel, Champion of Official Languages, Department of National Defence
Thank you for your questions.
Mr. Chair, I mentioned earlier that nearly 2,000 courses are being offered on leadership and on technical matters in the Canadian Forces. It is true that these courses are not all available in both languages, but we are working very hard to make them available. We made substantial progress in this respect, especially since 2008, and we have been working in close collaboration with the Translation Bureau to meet our needs.
With that, I'll ask Colonel Meloche to expand on that issue.
9:30 a.m.
Commander, Canadian Forces Base Borden, Department of National Defence
We regularly meet with people from the Translation Bureau. For example, as the Commander of Borden and of the Canadian Forces Support Training Group, I met the people in charge of the program last Friday in my office. We use as many translators as the industry can provide. For instance, in Borden, 4 translators work for the schools, but there are also 36 other translators from the Translation Bureau who work exclusively on translating outlines of courses and other such instructional material used at Borden. These translators are not physically present in Borden. However, nowadays, in this virtual era, a translator does not have to be physically present because documents are transmitted by entirely electronic means.
With regard to the department as a whole, 162 employees of the Translation Bureau are busy translating manuals for courses as well as ordinary documents. We meet with them regularly and we refer to their notes to make sure that there is no redundancy. Frequently, documents have already been translated by a school, while similar courses are offered somewhere else.
Regarding the second part of the question on drafting documents for courses, some are drafted in French, others in English, depending on the instructor drafting them. The translations are made from English to French and from French to English.
9:35 a.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Steven Blaney
Thank you, Mr. Rickford.
Let us begin our second round table with Ms. Zarac.
December 9th, 2010 / 9:35 a.m.
Liberal
Lise Zarac Liberal LaSalle—Émard, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I would like to continue with the issue of training. Among the 2,000 courses you are talking about, you mentioned those that deal with airplane maintenance. You said that these courses are fully bilingual and that 40% of the personnel takes them. Is the material that is offered within the framework of these courses fully bilingual?
9:35 a.m.
Commander, Canadian Forces Base Borden, Department of National Defence
Absolutely. When the course is available in both languages, the materials for the courses and the exams are available in both languages.
One thing should be clear. Often there are technical courses for which technical books are not available in French. This is why, in our plans for acquiring equipment, we acquire the copyrights for translating the manuals or we obtain the manual in both official languages.
9:35 a.m.
Liberal
Lise Zarac Liberal LaSalle—Émard, QC
All right. You said that you were offering 2,000 courses. Among them, how many would you say are currently being offered in both languages? What would be the percentage?
9:35 a.m.
Commander, Canadian Forces Base Borden, Department of National Defence
It can vary depending on the topic.
9:35 a.m.
Liberal
9:35 a.m.
Commander, Canadian Forces Base Borden, Department of National Defence
About 30% or 35% are bilingual.
9:35 a.m.
Liberal
Lise Zarac Liberal LaSalle—Émard, QC
This means that a big percentage of the training that is offered is not offered in the student's language of choice.
9:35 a.m.
Commander, Canadian Forces Base Borden, Department of National Defence
With regard to course materials, there are also many courses—
9:35 a.m.
Liberal
Lise Zarac Liberal LaSalle—Émard, QC
You say that 2,000 courses are being offered and that among them only 35% are offered in both languages.
9:35 a.m.
Commander, Canadian Forces Base Borden, Department of National Defence
They are offered in both languages. However courses are often offered in English with what we call "francophone assistance". The course is offered in English, but we help francophone students by providing them with bilingual instructors.
9:35 a.m.
Liberal
9:35 a.m.
Commander, Canadian Forces Base Borden, Department of National Defence
The material is in only one language, but the exams are always available in both languages.
We must also consider the fact that we have some catching up to do. In our transformation model, we gave the first priority to basic courses.
9:35 a.m.
Liberal
Lise Zarac Liberal LaSalle—Émard, QC
I see that you do have many translators. When do you think that you will be able to offer all the courses in both languages?
9:35 a.m.
Commander, Canadian Forces Base Borden, Department of National Defence
The transformation model aims at providing all the courses that are given to the Canadian Forces in both official languages. However, we cannot obtain this result overnight.
9:35 a.m.
Liberal
9:35 a.m.
Commander, Canadian Forces Base Borden, Department of National Defence
2015.
9:35 a.m.
Commander, Canadian Forces Base Borden, Department of National Defence
For example, in Borden, in September 2012, all the basic courses will be available in both official languages. In September 2015 all the courses offered at Borden will be available in both official languages.