Tuesday, April 26, 1994
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VOLUME 133 NUMBER 057 1st SESSION 35th PARLIAMENT OFFICIAL REPORT (HANSARD) Tuesday, April 26, 1994 Speaker: The Honourable Gilbert Parent HOUSE OF COMMONS Tuesday, April 26, 1994 The House met at 10 a.m. the strength of the officer corps of the regular force has been declining. As a result of the 1994 budget the number of officers _______________ will continue to decrease until 1998. Thus the number of cadets in military colleges will obviously be reduced from the current Prayers level of about 1,600 to about 900. A single college will therefore _______________ be sufficient to meet our needs. Once we have one military college it will have to be fully ROUTINE PROCEEDINGS bilingual for two reasons. First, our college must accommodate young Canadians from all regions of Canada, whatever their [Translation] first official language. Not only must these young Canadians know they are welcome in their military college; they must feel GOVERNMENT RESPONSE TO PETITIONS at home there. Second, the principle of equality of the status of the official languages as well as the spirit of the Official Hon. Fernand Robichaud (Secretary of State (Parliamen- Languages Act require us to ensure that the training of officers is tary Affairs)): Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 36(8), I carried out in both official languages. have the honour to table, in both official languages, the govern- ment’s response to certain petitions. Bilingual training is also important because our officer corps must be able to command personnel from both linguistic groups. * * * It was therefore recently decided that beginning in academic year 1996–97 all graduates of the Canadian military college MILITARY TRAINING must be functionally bilingual. I shall return to this point in a Hon. David Michael Collenette (Minister of National De- few moments. fence and Minister of Veterans Affairs): Mr. Speaker, I rise in [Translation] this House today to provide information to my hon. colleagues on a subject we all care about, and that is the opportunities the The establishment of a fully bilingual military college is Department of National Defence will provide young Canadians typical of the challenges we face in Canada. Among our goals is to receive officer training in the Canadian forces, in a fully to promote relationships based on respect for differences as well bilingual Canadian military college. as harmony and co–operation in the name of a common cause: to [English] serve and protect Canada. The Department of National Defence has taken on this challenge willingly. My department has I promised the hon. member for Roberval some weeks ago, developed both a transition plan for the period from 1994 to when there was topical questioning as a result of the budget and 1997 and a plan to make the Royal Military College in Kingston the closing of the Collège militaire in St. Jean, Quebec, that fully bilingual. within a number of weeks I would make a progress report to the House to let members know what the Department of National As part of the transition plan measures will be put in place to Defence is doing to ensure the bilingual nature of the military ensure the replacement of the programs currently offered by the college system once there is consolidation at Kingston. three military colleges by the end of the 1996–97 academic year. We are also considering several options to replace, starting in Tomorrow I shall be appearing before the Senate finance 1995–96, the qualifying year offered by the Collège militaire committee. I understand the prime focus for the questioning on royal de Saint–Jean, in Quebec. that date has to do with the collège militaire and its closing. I felt it was only courteous to members of the House that I make a (1010) statement in my own Chamber to let the House know how our At the same time, the Department of National Defence is thinking has evolved before I went to the Senate committee. developing a plan to make the Royal Military College fully The amalgamation of our three military colleges into a single bilingual. Here is an outline of this plan. The Royal Military institution has been dictated by both budgetary constraints and College is already partially bilingual, the science and engineer- the operational requirements of the Canadian forces. Since 1989 ing curriculum having been taught in both official languages for 3479 COMMONS DEBATES April 26, 1994 Routine Proceedings many years. Both French and English have also been used for a I draw this to the attention of members on the other side of the long time in daily activities, alternating from week to week. House, especially my friends in the Bloc Quebecois because they were most concerned about the consolidation into one The plan national defence officials are presently working on college at Kingston. I have great confidence that General is geared toward making the Royal Military College fully Émond, the commandant now at CMR, will be able to realize our bilingual and creating an environment where young franco- goals in making the Royal Military College in Kingston a truly phones and anglophones will be motivated to study to become proud bilingual institution all of us will admire. bilingual officers of the Canadian Armed Forces. [Translation] This plan will have an impact on the four pillars of the Brigadier General Émond graduated from the Collège milit- Canadian military college system, namely academic training, aire royal and received a diploma from the RMC. We are the military training plan, sports and physical fitness, as well as counting on him to make our new college continue to reflect the second language skills. It will apply to the directing staff and the National Defence vision of bilingualism among Canadian officer cadets and affect administrative support and all aspects Forces officers. of the daily operations of the college. I will now outline in greater detail the bilingual officer corps [English] concept within the Canadian forces. This concept was adopted by the Armed Forces Council on June 28, 1988. It met the senior As part of the rationalization of our military college system officers’ need to lead their subordinates in both official lan- all academic programs that are retained will be offered to new guages. entrants in both official languages. To meet this objective college commandants and principals are currently assessing This concept is now being studied by a special joint task force francophone and anglophone staffing requirements, both mili- made up of representatives of National Defence and of the tary and civilian. Commissioner of Official Languages. We intend to refine this concept and resolve the issues raised by the Commissioner during our consultations. Because the level of bilingualism demanded of the Royal Military College graduates has been raised, increased emphasis (1015) will be placed on the day to day use of both French and English at the college. Cadets who need to upgrade their second lan- Our goal is to establish the following policy: effective Janu- guage skills will take summer language training in an appropri- ary 1, 1998, all officers promoted to the rank of Lieutenant–Col- ate linguistic setting. onel will normally have to be bilingual. I already mentioned this fact during oral question period in this House. The bilingual nature of the college will be enhanced by the simple fact that the cadet population at RMC will soon be 30 per The steps taken to offer second–language training to franco- cent francophone and 70 per cent anglophone, as compared to phone and anglophone officers are part of the Official Lan- the current breakdown of 17 per cent and 83 per cent respective- guages Program of the Department of National Defence. This ly. program is based in part on the 1988 Official Languages Act and contains the following elements: language of work, equitable As for the military staff, the commandant is already working participation, communications with the public, service delivery with personnel staff in Ottawa to ensure that the staff composi- and language training. tion of the college reflects its requirements. [English] [Translation] First, with regard to language of work, we have adopted a special model that takes into account our unique environment It must be pointed out that in July Brigadier General Charles and the organizational arrangements needed to achieve bilingu- Émond, who is the current commanding officer of the Collège alism within the Department of National Defence and Canadian militaire royal de Saint–Jean, will be taking on his new duties as forces. The second element is equitable participation. commanding officer of our new centralized military college. In 1992 a detailed review of the linguistic designation of [English] every unit and every position revealed that much still has to be done to increase the number of bilingual anglophones in the military. In other words the commandant at the Collège militaire de Saint–Jean, Québec, Brigadier General Charles Émond, will [Translation] move to the Royal Military College in Kingston to ensure the smooth transition to one college system and that the bilingual To examine the participation rate of francophones within the presence will be maintained. Canadian Forces, we undertook a comprehensive analysis of 3480 April 26, 1994 COMMONS DEBATES Routine Proceedings recruitment, enrolment, promotion and attrition rates of officers statement. I think they got an hour or two, but they were most and non–commissioned members in the last 15 to 20 years. gracious in letting me go forward with the statement today. This review of all ranks and military occupations ended in I would like to mention for the member for Charlesbourg who December 1992. It found that, by and large, the goal of equitable arrived just as I was beginning that one of the reasons for participation was reached except in three out of 135 military making the statement today is that I felt it was only courteous to occupations.