Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Minister Verner, Ms. LaRocque, Minister O'Connor, Mr. Hillier, Mr. Milot, good morning.
In my own family, three of my uncles and my father served in the Second World War. They all came back in one piece, which is rather rare. One of them served in the air force, the other in the navy, and my father and my uncle Claude fought in Normandie and Berlin.
That being said, I also wanted to be a soldier when I was younger. During the summer of 1980, I happened to be in Arnprior, Ontario—because I am originally a Franco-Ontarian—and on day two of my stay there, I asked a question in French during a training session. I was told: "Sorry, we don't speak foreign languages here." That was in 1980. You can be certain that by that evening, as a proud member of the Nadeau family, equally proud of my language and culture, I did not make a toast to the Queen of Canada. The next day, I took a taxi back to Ottawa, and then a bus back to Hawkesbury. I had had it with the Canadian armed forces. This anecdote is quite vivid.
Today, I am the Bloc Québécois critic on official languages. I, for one, have chosen my country—I have chosen Quebec—but so long as we remain a part of Canada, you can be certain that protecting the French language will remain very important.
I wish to remind you of what you said earlier, that bilingualism is expensive, it's horrible. You are clearly demonstrating that you are not very proud of this country. In fact, when one is proud of one's country, and wishes to represent it properly, one does not talk about how expensive services cost. We talk about investing in our country, and that's exactly what we have to do.
You say that changes have been made, after having observed that things were not running properly, and that the decision was made to make the requirements less stringent. The act says one thing, but it can be bypassed by reducing the requirements to the furthest extent possible. Only generals and lieutenant-generals will be required to be bilingual. Other senior officers will not have to be bilingual. This takes us back to the spirit of the 1980s, and I think if my father were here to talk to you about his own experience within the armed forces, he would say that not much has changed. He served in the Canadian Forces during the Second World War; you know the dates as well as I do.
It appears to me that there is a lack of will. Requirements are being reduced. When we look at the statistics—and I won't get into the fine details because I only have seven minutes, Mr. Chairman—between 39% and 44% of positions designated bilingual were held by unilingual anglophones. These statistics were provided to us by the Office of the Commissioner of Official Languages. This morning, you are telling us that this measure aims to reduce requirements, level things off, so that high-ranking officers who hold important positions do not have to learn both official languages. By doing so, we are clearly mocking francophones, bilingual people, whether they be anglophone or francophone, who serve in the Canadian army, and who eventually will be outpaced by a unilingual anglophone once again, when everybody is supposed to be on an equal footing. As you have clearly demonstrated, the equality of both official languages remains a myth, and you are perpetuating this myth by reducing requirements.
Mr. O'Connor, I listened to you give your speech earlier. I also heard you, Ms. Verner: "the will to act—, blah blah blah—, we are going to take action—" The Official Languages Act came into effect in 1969, and is 38 years old! We repatriated the Canadian Constitution 25 years ago, a Constitution that recognizes the equality of both official languages, and guarantees that those working at the federal level are served and can serve in both official languages. Yet, today, we are reducing requirements. A now-retired former senior officer, Mr. Landry, also talked about ghettoization. There is now going to be an army for francophones, for bilingual people, and one for unilingual anglophones, and at the same time, you talk about the importance of team work. What kind of team are you talking about? Three different teams for one single country? This is my response to you.
You are reducing the criteria. In fact, you are further abdicating your responsibilities. You are not heeding the demands of the Official Languages Commissioner who has given you very poor grades on everything pertaining to "bilingual positions" within the Canadian armed forces.
That was my spiel, I don't have any questions to ask you after what I have just said, but you can respond to my comments. I already have an idea of where you stand on the subject, but in actual fact, francophones are still being pitted against anglophones, and anglophones continue to have better chances than francophones.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.