Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Human Resources Development.
An income security program's telecentre is to be established in May of this year in Bathurst, New Brunswick. In making the announcement the government was proud to jump on the high tech telecommunications bandwagon. However it specified that all 68 persons to be hired must be bilingual.
In the words of one federal employee in Bathurst, the bilingual employees there now speak either broken French or broken English.
Does the minister not agree that the centre would better serve the public in both languages by hiring unilingual French and English-speaking personnel and asking the public to press either one or two on their telephone to get better service in the language of their choice.