Mr. Speaker, there has been some discrepancy in the last few years because of the massive downsizing of the military put in place by the former government. It took $14 billion out of the budget from 1989 right through to 1997. We have added an additional $7 billion worth of cuts. Obviously there will be variations of the nature that the hon. member mentioned.
I want to tell the member that by 1997 anybody aspiring to the lieutenant-colonel rank of the military will have to be bilingual. That means we are putting on notice anglophones who want to be generals or chiefs of staff that they have to be totally and absolutely bilingual.
We have been improving the situation in the last few years. The college was opened in 1952 for the simple reason that, yes, there was a disparity in terms of the language preference of officers. However, because of the events of the last 25 years, the Official Languages Act and the appreciation in the rest of the country of the duality of Canada with respect to the French and English language and culture, there has been a great improvement. That improvement will continue even with the centralization in Kingston.
As for the last comment, I certainly agree with the right hon. Prime Minister because he had it bang on yesterday with what he said. He embarrassed those members. They will find it tough to go home on the weekend and face the people of Quebec after the blow that he dealt them yesterday.