Mr. Chairman, I have just heard the government's reaction.
I find it regrettable to hear Mr. Lemieux say that National Defence has commitments with NATO and the UN, as if these were real commitments, whereas bilingualism was a different matter all together. In the same way, Mr. Chong has just said that in the past, no monies were spent on this issue. But that's not what we're talking about. The fact is that it is not more expensive to hire a mechanics instructor who is bilingual.
As far as I am concerned, I am not willing to put up with excuses. We're not even talking about money. When you hire people to provide services, you have to hire those who speak both languages. What we are dealing with is a lack of respect and an infringement of Canadian law. It does not cost more to hire bilingual receptionists for Borden college than it does to hire unilingual English-speaking receptionists. Are we going to leave it at that? Not as far as I'm concerned. I do not want the government to backtrack. The fact of the matter is that there is a culture at the Department of National Defence and because of it the department simply does not accept that there are two founding nations and two official languages. Services must be provided in both of these languages.
Mr. Côté, you seem to agree with these people that it costs money, that it's hard at National Defence, and that we will have to take our time. I don't agree with the fact that we have to take our time.