Mr. Speaker, on March 14, I asked the Minister of National Defence about the dwindling enrolment in the Saint-Jean Royal Military College. His reply, which surprised me, was extraordinary because of its contradictory nature.
In fact, in the first part of his reply, the minister says that the state of the economy is causing enrolment to decline. A farfetched argument which does not jive with reality or with the history of Canada's three officer cadet colleges, because during an economic crisis the proportion of enrolment requests for officer colleges compared with the number of requests to become a soldier changes. As usual, the minister is trying to compare apples to oranges.
In the second part of his reply, the minister really went too far by blaming the weak enrolment on the official opposition and the Government of Quebec.
I think it is time to render unto Caesar what is Caesar's. I will explain. On February 22, 1994, the Minister of National Defence announced that the Saint-Jean Royal Military College and the Royal Roads of Victoria would be closed under the pretext of savings, although, of all three colleges of the kind, the Saint-Jean Royal Military College was the least expensive to run.
The day after, on February 23, the minister shed crocodile tears over the closure of Royal Roads and the Saint-Jean Royal Military College and said that it was necessary to close them for the good management of national defence. If this really were the case, neither the Government of Quebec, which was Liberal then, nor the official opposition could have had any influence whatsoever on this decision. The decision to close the Saint-Jean Royal Military College was and still is entirely in the hands of the Minister of National Defence. He should stop playing
childish political games and assume full responsibility for the decision he and his government have made.
The defence minister and the Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs are really laying it on thick when they try to blame the Quebec government and the Bloc Quebecois. Many English-speaking officers have already pointed out that it was a bad decision. Those who make a bad decision and are not mature enough to accept responsibility for it blame others, as the minister is doing.
Furthermore, the minister contradicts himself in his March 14 responses. In his first answer, he says that recruitment is down because the economy is buoyant, adding that "the normal group of people who would be attracted to the armed forces has found other options". In his second answer, he says that "because of the uncertainty surrounding the disposition of the site of the former college at St-Jean, the advertising-was delayed a number of weeks-[but] recruitment is picking up".
The buoyant economy given as one of the reasons for declining enrolment in his first answer does not appear in his second answer. This buoyant economy must have been very fragile since it only lasted two minutes. For example, the Minister of National Defence also says, at the end of his second answer, and I quote: "Twenty seven per cent of members of the armed forces are francophone and fully 24 per cent of all senior officers are francophone". A senior officer is not a corporal or a sergeant, but a colonel, a lieutenant-colonel, a brigadier-general, a major-general, a lieutenant-general or a general.
Only 14.7 per cent of generals and 21 per cent of colonels are French-speaking. I wonder where the minister's figure of 24 per cent comes from, unless he is referring to non-commissioned officers. This shows once again that the minister says what he pleases, without bothering to check the facts.
In conclusion, the minister is inviting me to visit the department and the Headquarters here in Ottawa, and see for myself that people work in French as well as in English. I ask the minister to stop making fun of French-speaking Canadians by uttering such nonsense. I did visit the department on several occasions and what he says is not true, nor is it true as regards the Kingston College, which is not bilingual and which will not become so.