Reduced CF bilingualism

Sounds sensible to me, though Steve Staples smells a Conservative plot.

The military is giving up on the idea of a fully bilingual army, navy and air force.

Nearly two decades ago, the Canadian Forces adopted what it called "a universal approach" to bilingualism, aimed at making sure everyone in uniform could speak both official languages.

"We’ve changed our approach and we’re going to be a little bit more selective now on who has to be bilingual," National Defence spokeswoman Tanya Barnes said Thursday.

"We’re moving away from our universal approach, with everyone being bilingual, to the functional approach. Only those (Canadian Forces) members that must be bilingual are going to be required to become bilingual and then these people are going to have priority access to second-language training."

People in leadership roles will still be required to speak both official languages, she said.

Senior officers, from colonels and naval captains on up, will need to be bilingual, according to military documents. So will senior non-commissioned officers, such as chief warrant officers and chief petty officers...

About 73 per cent of the people in the military are anglophone and 27 per cent are francophone, according to a recently released Canadian Forces document.

The military has a large number of anglophones with a low level of bilingualism and a large number of fluently bilingual francophones, says the backgrounder.

"As a result, francophone personnel have found themselves filling the majority of (Canadian Forces) positions that require fluency in both official languages."

Many anglophones have been denied the opportunity to serve in positions where they need to speak French, says the document.

"They have, more frequently than francophones, been held back from promotion owing to a lack of bilingual ability."

One defence analyst questioned whether the military is taking advantage of the fact that there is a Conservative government in power to make the changes.

"There is no doubt there is an anti-Quebec odour to a lot of their support base," said Steve Staples [see penultimate para at link], of the left-leaning Polaris Institute, based in Ottawa...

Discussion thread at Army.ca.