Official Languages Committee on Dec. 6th, 2007

[Yvon Godin, NDP, Acadie—Bathurst, NB]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Welcome. General Semianiw, I know you say you don't want to focus on the past, but on the future, but we also have to look at the present. Personally, I've been sitting on the Standing Committee on Official Languages since 1999, and we've been talking about this since then, not to mention the fact that it was talked about before that.

I read a newspaper article about you, Major-General Daniel Gosselin. According to that article, Major-General Daniel Gosselin, a Francophone with 33 years' seniority in the Armed Forces, said that the problem is not as serious as Mr. Côté seems to believe.

Just before that, it states that Mr. Côté met with approximately 40 young recruits at a meeting last year and that the ombudsman's investigators spoke with many other recruits during a visit to the base in June. Mr. Côté added that he found it unfortunate that every new member of the Armed Forces, Anglophone and Francophone, winds up in a training environment where he or she is spoken to in a language that person does not understand and that there's no way to raise the issue. In his view, they suffer as a result and their morale is low.

I find that serious. It's unacceptable.

The government defended itself by saying that we were at war in Afghanistan, that we were spending a lot of money and that there were problems. They raised the fact that even the receptionist wasn't bilingual. Is it that costly to hire a bilingual receptionist? That's a problem.

Earlier my colleague Mr. Nadeau talked about slow learners. As we speak here, it is the Canadian Forces that are the problem; this is the second official language, or one of the official languages. In New Brunswick, for example, Anglophone nurse practitioners have all passed their exams, and four of the five Francophones failed them. Are we that slow? No, that's not the problem. The Francophones have translated manuals and they can't follow them. So there are deficiencies.

Now, sending Francophones to the Borden base to make them mechanics or chefs when the instructors aren't bilingual puts them at a complete disadvantage. Even today—I'm talking about the present, not the past—in the December 2 edition of the newspaper, they talk about a unilingual Anglophone on a naval reserve. This is a person who has just been appointed. A woman will be leading the naval reserve, but in English only: she's a unilingual Anglophone.

At Borden, are there any instructors who only speak French, not English? Are there any generals who only speak French and not English? Does this problem exist in the other direction? I've been here since 1999, and I've never heard of the reverse problem. I think that this is insulting, that it isn't fair and that it isn't right. National Defence is like the RCMP: you represent our country; you represent the laws of our country, and they're being broken.

I'd like to hear your comments.

[The Chair, Conservative, Steven Blaney]

Mr. Godin, you've used up all your time on your comments. You'll have a chance to speak again.

[Yvon Godin, NDP, Acadie—Bathurst, NB]

I'll take it on my next turn, Mr. Chairman.

[The Chair, Conservative, Steven Blaney]

All right.

Mr. Lemieux.

[Pierre Lemieux, Conservative, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

I don't think there are any quick solutions. Something has to be done, but it's not a matter of money. I was a member of the Armed Forces for 20 years. My colleagues know it, but perhaps not you.

And I'd like to remind the committee that our military has been in decline for over 20 years. When I joined the military

in 1980, 85,000 persons belonged to the Canadian Forces. When I retired in 2000, there were 63,000. So we're talking about a significant decline in human resources. We note that the rate is high, perhaps because of Afghanistan, our NATO commitments or our training commitments.

These are very real commitments.

My concern is that the Canadian Forces, right now—the soldiers we're talking about—are stretched very thin. They're asked to do a lot with very few resources. So I see the first challenge as being with resources. As I have said, when I speak of resources I'm not talking about money, because money will not fix this problem. I'm talking about having trained, qualified personnel.

When we come to instructors, Monsieur Godin might say, just throw a mechanical instructor in there, for heaven sakes. But we're talking about military equipment, and military equipment is different from civilian equipment. You can't find very many weapons technician instructors in the civilian sector, not ones who are fully conversant with military weapons systems or with fire control systems. Not only do you have to have someone who is capable of instructing in French; you have to have someone who is qualified on military equipment, and it's very specific military equipment. I see that as being one challenge.

The second challenge is bilingual training.

As our commissioner said, bilingualism training in the Canadian Forces has been a real failure in the past. I was part of that system.

Given that situation, the Canadian Forces are presenting a new program designed to improve bilingualism. The fact remains that, for the moment, we're living with the consequences of a failure. There aren't enough bilingual individuals who qualify to take training in both official languages.

I look forward to seeing positive results with respect to the new bilingualism policy. But I want to be clear: the situation in Borden has to improve, and we have heard some of the initiatives that have been taken to improve it.

I'd like to ask a couple of questions. One of them is with respect to bilingual instructors. As you know, we've asked the Canadian Forces to focus on recruiting and to increase the number of people who join the forces. My understanding from contacts I have is that at CFB Saint-Jean, where recruit training—the basic training—is done,

the capability to train recruits in a Francophone environment has increased. There has always been training in French at Saint-Jean. That's why I would like to know whether you are able to transfer bilingual or Francophone personnel from Saint-Jean to Borden.

I ask the question because my understanding is that Saint-Jean has been able to accelerate its training. They've been able to graduate many recruits, but not to do the follow-on training. The follow-on training is where there are still choke points. It might be possible to decrease some of the training resources at Saint-Jean and increase some of the training resources at other institutions.

[MGen Walter Semianiw]

Mr. Chairman, the questions and comments posed raise a number of issues.

First it comes down to the issue of commitment. I would like to put this before the committee so that you are aware. Currently we are making many changes across our personnel management system. Starting this month, there will be no promotion to the rank of lieutenant general or vice-admiral unless the individual has a CBC competency.

Then I'll really take measures to increase the percentage of newly promoted colonels/navy captains to 80% by 2008 and 90% by 2009 in order to guarantee that military members promoted to the rank of brigadier-general or commodore after 2011 really have CBC language competency.

Mr. Chairman, I would submit that's an example of commitment at the strategic level to move ahead with the plan in a very aggressive way.

I'll let General Gosselin address the Borden and Saint-Jean issues.

[The Chair, Conservative, Steven Blaney]

Unfortunately, we have to move to the next witness.

We're going into the last round and we'll begin with Mr. Bélanger.

[Mauril Bélanger, Liberal, Ottawa—Vanier, ON]

Mr. Semianiw, Monsieur Gosselin, allow me to be pessimistic, because as associate minister of defence at one point, I was responsible for these files and I'm very disappointed that the military has abandoned the course that we'd set back then to do much less.

To follow up a bit on Monsieur Nadeau's questions, in 1967 we did the bilinguisme et le biculturalisme commission, and in 1969 we in this country approved in Parliament an Official Languages Act. I want to know this. Is National Defence subject to that act, sir?

[MGen Walter Semianiw]

Mr. Chair, on the two issues, first on the question posed on the abandonment piece, clearly my view is that I see it differently. We haven't abandoned it.

[Mauril Bélanger, Liberal, Ottawa—Vanier, ON]

Sir, my question is whether National Defence is subject to the Official Languages Act?

[MGen Walter Semianiw]

Yes, it is.

[Mauril Bélanger, Liberal, Ottawa—Vanier, ON]

Thank you.

So how much time has elapsed since 1967 to actually respect this act?

[MGen Walter Semianiw]

It depends in what measure and what scope.

[Mauril Bélanger, Liberal, Ottawa—Vanier, ON]

Since 1969, sorry.

[MGen Walter Semianiw]

It depends in what measure and what scope. If one looks at the Canadian Forces at large to try to find areas where perhaps there are challenges, the answer is yes, and there were those same challenges through the sixties, the seventies, the eighties, and the nineties. They continue today, but with the plan our intent is to move forward

The challenges have been there throughout; they are not something new that has just been developed. Even with the plan that was put in place before, there were those challenges.

[Mauril Bélanger, Liberal, Ottawa—Vanier, ON]

I'm aware of the challenges, but I'm also aware that in 40-plus years we haven't been able to meet them really. Why would National Defence appoint, as Monsieur Godin has brought up, someone in charge of the naval reserves who is unilingual?

[MGen Walter Semianiw]

You're addressing your point to Commodore Bennett, I believe, who just last week was appointed the commandant, naval reserve. First, when we say “not bilingual”, if I can get into some of the details, if you look at what she discussed as part of her change of command parade, her comments were in both official languages--first point.

So clearly there is a will there. Secondly, if you look at the details of where she comes from, from a class of service--class A, class B, class C--which would take a lot of time to explain, Mr. Chair, all that is to say we need to address that as well. In the past, that group of individuals in the reserves were not expected to meet that requirement--even in the past. With the new plan they will be.

[Mauril Bélanger, Liberal, Ottawa—Vanier, ON]

Mr. Chairman, the problem for me—and I think most people will have a similar feeling—is that we're talking about reservists here, that is to say about a possible entry to National Defence. So, in Quebec City, we're appointing someone to the naval reserve who, according to all the reports we've seen on the subject, does not speak French. In my opinion, that shows the attitude, the mentality that reigns at National Defence. That may be the cause of the problem.

What I find comforting, however, is knowing that the Commissioner of Official Languages and the National Defence ombudsman will be closely monitoring what's being done about training in the Canadian Armed Forces.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

[The Chair, Conservative, Steven Blaney]

Thank you very much.

I would like to recall that the purpose of the meeting this morning is to evaluate the situation at Borden.

We'll now go over to the Conservative Party, with Mr. Chong.

[Michael Chong, Conservative, Wellington—Halton Hills, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I want to thank the generals for appearing in front of the committee and also tell them that while my last name is Chong, I'm a Canadian from Fergus, Ontario. I want to ask you, Generals, and specifically the major general in charge of chief of military personnel, two questions.

First, are you aware of any similar problems at other bases; for example, with anglophone recruits in bases in Quebec? Second, are there any similar problems with francophone recruits at bases in the rest of Canada, other than Borden?

[MGen Walter Semianiw]

The answer is that we believe there may be, maybe not to the same scope and scale as that one found in Borden, but General Gosselin is looking already at the Saint-Jean issue, and we're looking into Gagetown as well and how we can do that.

I come back to the question posed here. If one moves to an approach that tries to do everything at the same time, I would submit one gets nowhere. The focus now is on Borden, to get it right in Borden with the leadership behind that, and then to move to the next location. We're going to look at Saint-Jean. I would submit there are probably similar challenges in bases in different locations, for both les francophones et aussi les anglophones.

[Michael Chong, Conservative, Wellington—Halton Hills, ON]

Could you tell us a bit about some of the specific measures you've taken in the last six months or so since this problem was first brought to your attention and what you anticipate will happen in the next six months?

[MGen Walter Semianiw]

I'll pass that to General Gosselin, who will focus on the Borden issue.

[MGen Daniel Gosselin]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

We've done a lot of work. I think we've already moved forward in a number of areas. In other areas we'll see results in the coming months.

For instance, to free up francophone instructors, bilingual instructors, we've now contracted courses out of Borden and other areas so that we have more francophone instructors available. One specific example--and there are a number of them--is that we contracted out a course for firefighters, for instance, to one of the community colleges in an anglophone province. So we can run a francophone course earlier and we'll have the instructor. That's a specific example.

We've also done a significant awareness campaign. Next summer we are moving more francophone people to Borden. We're finishing the assessment. We will transfer more people.

I should mention, as was raised before, that from a statistics point of view we have 1,763 military personnel in Borden. And out of those--in Borden, in that anglophone community--we have 850 people who have declared French as their first official language. It's a significant proportion, considering the area on the base.

So we have a number, but we have areas that we're trying to solve. Obviously the base services are another area we're putting a lot of focus on, especially for the recruits who need initial services when they arrive. So the base hospital and pay services were getting special attention.

[The Chair, Conservative, Steven Blaney]

Thank you, Major-General.

Now we'll continue with Mr. Gravel.