Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
As you know, there are challenges. There were challenges at Borden and on other bases. Today, I will speak only about the situation in Borden. Actually, there is a commander and a colonel on that base who report to me. Major General Gosselin commands the Canadian Defence Academy. So I am familiar with the specific details.
In this case, there were four challenges to overcome. First of all, we needed to have translation.
Since then, we have added hundreds of thousands of dollars to the translation program in Borden, which was the first challenge, to ensure that documents could be translated into French. The challenge becomes one of finding enough translation services to be able to translate so many documents, but we were committed to ensuring that that translation moved ahead and we provided the funds.
Secondly, we had to find an officer to deal with situations, problems and challenges having to do with the students. We have chosen one.
He is in place today as well. S'il y a des problèmes, des crises, our students know that there is someone they can go to outside of the chain of command, if that's their concern, to address their second language issues, concerns, and complaints. We have been working with the ombudsman on that issue in particular.
Le troisième aspect is to ensure that when the students arrive, they are aware of what their rights are when they come to the Canadian Forces. To be clear, many are new to the Canadian Forces, very young, and they may not understand what their rights are, as well as their obligations in many cases. So we lay that out very clearly for the students so they know exactly what they can get and what they should do.
We have been working hard to move more people into Borden. There are a number of issues. The first is having sufficient instructors.
We also need people on site who spoke French.
specifically those who provide the service. We have provided additional people in there.
Finally, we proudly say that we knew right from the beginning this was about leadership, ensuring that this was addressed by the leadership, not just moved off. At the time, Major-General Gosselin was on leave, and I spoke to him. He immediately went to Borden and actually sat down with the students at the time to ensure that they could speak to him
face to face. I too went to Borden.
twice afterwards just to make sure everything was in place, as was mentioned to me, because that was the concern raised by the ombudsman prior to that, Mr. Chair.
I think we're further ahead today than we were in the past. We are working closely with the ombudsman to do it better. We know what we'd like to do, and I believe we're heading in the right direction. Things are definitely better in Borden today than they were when we were here the last time, Mr. Chair.