Minister, thank you very much.
Madam, we have spent huge amounts of money, effort, and time to meet both the spirit and intent of the law with respect to dual linguistic capabilities for the Canadian Forces. We want to reflect our nation. What we have not done well in the past is use people who are bilingual to provide services to men and women in uniform and their families in the regions around the country where they are posted. So we need to get much better at qualifying people, and use those people in positions where they can provide the services.
I suggest it would be wrong to focus on headquarters. The vast majority of the Canadian Forces and their families are not in our headquarters; they are scattered around our country, and we need to provide service to them also.
In support of what the minister has said about the senior officers, we are making sure that our senior officers reflect our dual linguistic ability. We are making obvious progress every day, and it meets the objectives we have stated. But we also start at the junior level.
Officer cadets at the Royal Military College provide more than 50% of our officers. They all start with a language instruction program that they must complete to become bilingual by the time they graduate. So we concentrate on the top end, where we provide leadership, but we also build for the future with all of our young officers. They are required to develop skills in both languages and be officially bilingual, as part of their requirements to become leaders in the Canadian Forces.