Official Languages committee  Thank you.

Official Languages committee  Thank you for your question. I'm going to talk specifically about my experience with young officers who come to the military college. Young people across the country who come to us know that, at the military college, if they are officers in the Canadian Forces, they'll have to become bilingual if they want to advance in the organization.

Official Languages committee  However, when they rise through the ranks to hold a senior non-commissioned officer position at my headquarters, for example, they must be bilingual. Among officers, this is a fact that is absorbed more quickly in the first years, and there's a reason for that. Does everyone completely accept it?

Official Languages committee  We currently don't have any difficulty. We're trying to increase the number of instructors. We've found other methods to assist us. In some cases, for example, we specifically lacked bilingual francophone instructors. So we took one of the courses in which we had a bilingual instructor and we gave the contract to another college, a technical college, so that the instructor could give the course in French.

Official Languages committee  Thank you for that question and thank you for the opportunity to address the points that were raised by the ombudsman at the time. When I spoke to this committee nearly two years ago, we were just starting. I had just taken command of the academy four months earlier. It was one of my two essential priorities.

Official Languages committee  They don't constitute 100% of the school's teaching staff.

Official Languages committee  In fact, we have a lot of bilingual staff at our schools, especially in the schools I command, but not all are 100% bilingual. That's not possible. Not everyone is bilingual, especially when—

Official Languages committee  No. In fact, we have bilingual instructors, we have them everywhere, but—

Official Languages committee  Yes. In fact, we're working toward improvement to a certain degree, but it wouldn't necessarily be an advantage in certain cases, however. Let's take the example of a basic mechanics course and a lower level course. If the course is given in English, for example, by a master corporal who has the technical expertise, there would be no benefit to us in ensuring that all instructors are bilingual, particularly when we are short of them and we need some elsewhere.

Official Languages committee  You're right. Ideally, I would like all the schools to be completely bilingual, but in practice—

Official Languages committee  I'm going to hand over to Colonel Meloche because that question is related more to the official languages policy.

Official Languages committee  Thank you, Mr. Chairman. In fact, we don't have any shortage. You're obviously talking about military colleges.

Official Languages committee  When the two military colleges of Royal Roads and Saint-Jean were closed, there was an increase in the number of recruits at the Royal Military College in Kingston. The programs at Kingston are given in both official languages. The percentages of enrolled anglophone and francophone officers did not change as a result of the college's closing.

Official Languages committee  Thank you for your question. First, I want to point out that I'm not responsible for the recruitment group; another general handles that. All recruits joining the Canadian Forces, officers and non-commissioned officers, have to go to the recruit school in Saint-Jean for their military training.

Official Languages committee  I'm going to let Colonel Meloche talk about the situation prevailing in the air force, since that area isn't my responsibility. However, I would like to clarify certain points concerning course development. I believe you said that the instructors should not develop courses. But they're the specialists.