The only thing I think the committee should seriously consider, given everything that we've heard and the two things I've heard, is the fact that we're talking about “journalistic, creative or programming independence”. There is a concern that this is not sufficient to protect freedom of expression, editorial freedom, or journalistic integrity. That's what I've heard and that's what I've also been told by other stakeholders.
When I looked at the Broadcasting Act with Emily and her group, we found various provisions in the Broadcasting Act that deal with broadcasters generally and the CBC, and they do speak about freedom of expression and “journalistic, creative or programming independence”. They use all of that, generally speaking.
Perhaps the committee could consider having proposed section 18.2 amended so that it would read at the end, “could easily be expected to prejudice the corporation's freedom of expression and journalistic, creative or programming independence”. That would truly mirror the Broadcasting Act in its other provisions. It could alleviate some of the stakeholders' concerns.
The other option would be to leave it as is, and instead of “independence”, use the word we have in the current section 68.1, which is “activities”. So it would read “its journalistic, creative or programming activities”. I think that's much broader than just the concept of independence, although we don't know at this point how we would interpret it. That concept has not been interpreted under section 68.1 either.
Those are two options, I think, that might go some way to alleviate some of the concerns of the stakeholder in relation to freedom of expression and editorial freedom.
In terms of journalistic sources, as I've said, I do not think there is an issue with the discretionary exemption in relation to the protection of journalistic sources, nor have I found any evidence that this would affect the competitive position of the CBC.