Thank you very much, Minister, for joining us today. It's always a pleasure to welcome you.
I'll start with a question that deals indirectly with recruitment but more specifically with French in the Canadian Armed Forces.
A number of training courses are offered exclusively in English, which makes it difficult for a French speaker to pursue a career path in their mother tongue. There are also several so‑called bilingual units, where everyone knows that there is little French spoken. You hear about cases where people completed all the training to join the special forces and weren't told until the very end that their English skills were insufficient. In the end, these people were rejected and couldn't complete the program.
In the context of a labour shortage, where we don't have the luxury of turning anyone away, I would like to hear from the minister on what she intends to do to improve the status of French within the Canadian Armed Forces.