Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Good morning, Mr. Semianiw.
Mr. Meloche, good morning.
I'm pleased to give you the flag of your native city, general.
This is the second or third time we've met. At the time, the Minister of National Defence, Mr. O'Connor, came to present the Transformation Model to us, and there were a lot of questions. Light was also shed on the fact that a unilingual francophone military member had less chance of obtaining a senior rank in the armed forces than a unilingual anglophone. And thus an injustice was pointed out at the time.
Since then, I see that efforts have been made. As an example, there is the letter that you sent, which emphasizes that if senior officers do not have their CBC levels by December 31, 2009, they'll have to find another occupation. That's a measure that will have to be put in place, but I recognize the very good intention in that area. It could definitely be a model for the federal public service as a whole with regard to senior public servants. I'm also thinking of deputy ministers, who aren't required to be bilingual in Canada. However, that's another matter, and I'll talk about it on another occasion.
That said, the 2005-2006 report of the Commissioner of Official Languages stated that 41.8% of military members occupying bilingual positions for the purpose of service to the public met the linguistic requirements of their positions; that is to say that only 42% of bilingual positions were held by bilingual persons. Has the situation improved since that time?