Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I would like to thank Mr. Norlock for beginning the discussion on CBC.
I agree with the hon. member when he says that the two other political parties who governed previously made cuts to CBC. If I remember correctly, the Liberal government made $250 million in cuts to CBC. And the current Conservative government made $115 million in cuts to CBC's budget.
All these cuts can do nothing but affect CBC's services in official language minority communities. When CBC is working to get money from private-sector sponsors, it has to do so based on audience ratings. However, the programs that will be broadcast will come from Montreal rather than Moncton, Caraquet or Shippagan.
That's one of the problems with our public broadcaster, which is a Crown corporation. In our democractic country, I think that we are moving away from CBC's mandate. Any good democracy anywhere in the world has public radio and television, which does not get funding from large companies supported by certain governments.
The federal government is not ashamed of giving large companies tax cuts to the tune of $40 billion. Nor is it ashamed of giving tax cuts to banks, when their profits in recent years have been over $22 billion and their presidents have received bonuses of $11 billion.
However, the government is cutting $105 million from a public agency. It scares me to see what the government wants to do to our public broadcaster. I would like to hear what you have to say about that, because I believe that you are passionate about CBC. You even addressed the courts to have the power to investigate CBC.
My question is this: Are you going to go forward and force the government to invest in CBC so that the corporation is better able to serve all Canadians across the country, and not just the people in big cities like Toronto and Montreal?