Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to be able to respond today to the hon. member for Gatineau because yesterday, in the Standing Committee on Official Languages, the hon. member had the opportunity to put questions to the Minister for la Francophonie and Official Languages and the Minister of National Defence.
I would like to quote what he said at the end of his comments, “I was being long winded. There is no question in everything I just said, but you can respond to my comments—”. Once again, the Bloc says a lot, but it will never be able to do anything.
Rest assured that the Department of National Defence and the Canadian Forces recognize the importance of our official languages.
Recently, the Office of the Commissioner of Official Languages conducted two investigations. In her findings, the commissioner made 13 recommendations to the Canadian Forces for improving respect for the legislation. The new Canadian Forces official languages transformation model is the response to the 10th recommendation. The official languages transformation model marks the arrival of a brand new approach to managing official languages. The previous approach failed. Our new approach will help resolve past problems and will be more realistic. This new plan will strengthen respect for the Official Languages Act by the Canadian Forces and it will better take into account the unique nature of the organization and the needs of the Canadian Forces, and this is how.
The model describes three specific objectives guiding the overall vision: ensure that linguistically qualified civilian and military personnel are provided in the right place and at the right time to effectively support Canadian Forces operations and to comply with the Official Languages Act; put in place an enhanced official languages awareness and education program that will ensure that civilian and military employees are fully cognizant of their linguistic rights and obligations; establish a performance measurement system that will accurately monitor the ability of Canadian Forces civilian and military personnel to consistently provide bilingual leadership, instruction and services, when and where required by the Act.
The model will focus on senior military officers. Senior officers will continue to have priority access to second language training.
I want to emphasize this because of the erroneous perception articulated by the member for Gatineau that bilingualism is not a condition of service for senior officers. At least 70% of newly promoted colonels and captains must achieve the highest level of linguistic ability during the year following their promotion.
The model requires all senior officers serving in bilingual regions or positions to achieve a superior level of language ability. The scale is the same as for the public service. It is therefore false to suggest that with this model, we are abandoning our obligations.
The Canadian Forces are committed to offering second language training to military personnel who need it to fulfill their duties well. The Canadian Forces will focus their resources on offering an appropriate level of second language training to individuals who require it to improve overall compliance with the act. The act does not require all federal employees to be bilingual.