Mr. Chair, I extend special thanks to my dear colleague for asking this question. I realize that he has a great interest in this issue. I have had the pleasure of attending convocation ceremonies with him in the past.
It is a question of needs and capacity. As my colleague knows, Canadian Forces recruitment is on the upswing at this time.
We have another facility which the member has referenced, the Royal Military College, which also has language training. In both institutions we have a great history and, as he has indicated, a tremendous amount of pride, pride of participant and family, and the pride within the Canadian Forces broadly. There are many graduates from both institutions, as was the case with Royal Roads.
With respect to the university status, Royal Military College Saint-Jean was in fact reopened by the Conservative government in 2007, something of which we are very proud. In fact, it has seen enrolment grow. It has enhanced our capabilities, without a doubt. Saint-Jean also delivers two main fully bilingual programs for officer cadets, including a two-year Quebec CEGEP program that greatly enhances our capability.
The department is very much aware of the interest to the province of Quebec and many of those who live in the area of Saint-Jean to have that capability expanded. We are not ruling anything out is the short answer.
The reality is that we have the capability right now with the service provided by both of these formidable institutions, RMC Saint-Jean and RMC Kingston. As part of our commitment to expanding the Canadian Forces, we have made a number of important investments when it comes to the area of official languages, not just at these two institutions but across the Canadian Forces more broadly. Offering college and university level courses at both RMC Saint-Jean and RMC Kingston contributes to our ability to offer training to our personnel in the language of their choice.
We will continue to make those decisions based on all of the information, but most importantly, based on the need, based on the capability and based on budget. Those are considerations that I know the hon. member would agree with.