Thank you, admiral.
Mr. Chair, members of the committee, ladies and gentlemen, good morning.
After being Director of Official Languages for the past three years, I assumed the command of the Canadian Forces Support Training Group and CFB Borden on May 28, 2010. I would like to start by outlining some of the accomplishments realized in the last year as they relate to both CFB Borden and the Canadian Forces as a whole.
As commander of CFB Borden, I made official languages one of my top priorities. I have involved the leadership and made one of my school commandants the official language champion for Base Borden.
All new personnel posted to CFB Borden are briefed on their OL rights and obligations. We have a good partnership with the translation bureau and now have more translators on site. I have changed the name of the base newspaper from Borden Citizen to Citoyen Borden Citizen. Things are moving in the right direction.
I'll now touch on the Canadian Defence Academy and our training authority. The Canadian Defence Academy continues to provide second official language training. Since the last hearing, the number of registrations has exceeded 3,000. In this area, we should note that the number of candidates for the year-long language training has increased dramatically, from 91 in 2008-09 to 118 in 2009-10, and now we have 237 this year.
The three environments—the navy, army, and air force—are also making a lot of progress.
For example, the navy has produced naval training instruction that includes guidelines for the application of OL policy within the naval training system. Translation support to training establishments is one of the highest priorities for the Chief of Maritime Staff.
I'll give you another example, this time with the air force. We should note that all basic air maintenance courses for all four maintenance technician occupations, which represent 40% of the air force, are now available in both official languages.
The army continues to strive toward 100% of its training being offered in both official languages. All combat arms courseware is already available in this format.
You will recall that our communication strategy first focused on gaining acceptance of the functional approach by DND and Canadian Forces senior leaders and on securing their support. As mentioned earlier by RAdm Smith, we now have their support. In light of this, at the end of 2009, the Directorate of Official Languages shifted its focus to DND and CF managers, while continuing to educate CF members and civilian employees on their linguistic rights and obligations.
The directorate continues to raise OL awareness through other venues as well. A few examples are its participation in the orientation courses for new civilian employees, a kiosk at NDHQ during National Public Service Week, and a kiosk at the National Defence managers' network symposium. There, the Directorate of Official Languages conducted a workshop to enhance managers' general knowledge of the Official Languages Act and linguistic rights and obligations.
The directorate also created its own bilingual online newsletter, “Let's Talk--Parlons-en”, after redesigning its Intranet site. Six well-received issues have been published in 2010.
As for CFB Borden, we organized again this year the very successful OL open house.
Outside of our regular OL mandate, National Defence has continued to provide assistance for special events. One example is the support provided to the 2010 Winter Olympic Games in Vancouver. In this case, I personally travelled to Vancouver to brief the commander and his team on matters related to the active offer and communication with and services to the public.
In conclusion, ladies and gentlemen, we are advancing on all fronts. Much progress has been accomplished and more is well underway, and it is despite the unprecedented high operational tempo sustained by the CF for the past five years. From my perspective, as Base Commander Borden, I remain very confident that we are headed in the right direction to fully integrate linguistic duality into our organizational culture.
Thank you.