Thank you very much, Mr. Minister.
A few elements are responsible for the DND and the CF going away from the universal approach and going toward a functional approach as proposed in the transformation model. One element is obviously the recommendations made by the Commissioner of Official Languages, whereby the transformation model had to take into account all those recommendations, and it does. That's the first element.
The second element is a realization that the universal approach did not provide us with what was required, and it was unattainable both in terms of time available to train all personnel in the Canadian Forces to a bilingualism level and in terms of finance. It is unachievable to think the CF can train 100,000 people to become bilingual, especially since our model of movement of people entails people being transferred to unilingual units. If you provide French-language training or English-language training to a military member when he first arrives in service and then you transfer him to a unilingual organization for a period of five to seven years, chances are that your investment will erode with time. It did not make sense. It was, in a way, an inappropriate use of money.
What we have done in the functional approach is earmark the people who will occupy functions that are to be provided bilingually, be they services to the public, as was brought up earlier, or leadership positions or supervisory positions. When necessary, you provide the second-language training to those people prior to them occupying these functions, be it in a bilingual organization or in an organization of French or English designation.
By taking this approach, what you get in return is that once the formation or the second-language training has been provided to that person, that person immediately occupies functions requiring the use of that second language. Hence, he immediately puts to good use the training he has just received, and in many cases will improve upon that particular training.
I'm hopeful that I've provided two very key elements of why the universal approach had to be modified and why it was so important that we make a virage, if I may say, toward a new approach.