I would like to make a few comments on that, Mr. Chairman.
First of all, as I mentioned, students or recruits in the Canadian armed forces are new and are at the bottom of the ladder. Filing a complaint with a person in authority or with an office such as ours is not necessarily an easy thing to do. Second, some people are not aware that we exist, and that may be why they did not come to see us.
We did a few surveys in June 2007. Of the 185 francophones who completed our questionnaires, 85% said they did not know where to go to get assistance, and 81% said that they did not think the assistance they needed would be available. This certainly confirms the impression that people do not know what to do or where to turn, and that even if they did, they were not sure they would manage to get results.
As my investigators and I make our visits to the bases and the wings, we will definitely be paying more attention to the language issue. Once again, I am not ruling out the possibility that some unilingual anglophones may find themselves in a similar situation. Obviously, our office must be impartial and objective: we must keep our eyes and ears open as regards this issue within the Canadian armed forces.