Official Languages committee  I don't want to engage in conjecture about what could happen. The only thing I want to repeat, Mr. D'Amours, is that in a situation where we are suddenly invited to provide coverage of the Olympic Games to Francophone Canadians all across Canada, we cannot, in our current circumstances, consider doing that with losses that would worsen our current economic situation, given that 800 jobs have had to be cut and that people will be receiving layoff notices from us.

Official Languages committee  To be perfectly frank, I thought it was very clever of the people at CTV to do what they did. They made that suggestion when they appeared before you, and then passed on the information to us afterwards, which influenced the discussions. Rather than discussing CTV's service delivery based on the contractual conditions, CBC/Radio-Canada now suddenly finds itself in the position of having to explain to you why this offer, that we have yet to receive and which was suggested here, would be a problem.

Official Languages committee  No, we have not yet received that written confirmation. However, the Minister did verbally confirm that to me. Also, I believe the Treasury Board has minutes of that confirmation. It has not yet reached the stage where it is an actual parliamentary vote, but the Treasury Board has approved the amount of $60 million.

Official Languages committee  Ms. Guay, I can only remind you why we are still negotiating at this point. The President of the CRTC wrote to Mr. Fecan and myself to express his concern about coverage of the Olympic Games. He asked us to consider reopening the discussions that had been ongoing since 2005. I repeated what I called the Lafrance conditions—in other words, the conditions laid down in 2006.

Official Languages committee  I care very, very deeply, madame, about delivering our service, the CBC/Radio-Canada service, to as many Canadians as we can at all times.

Official Languages committee  I care deeply about the francophones who are outside Quebec. I'm a francophone. I understand what that means. We don't own the rights to the Games in 2010. CTV owns them and tells us, “We don't need you. We have met the conditions of the bid, which was—”

Official Languages committee  Mr. Blaney, I believe you are referring to the 2005 offers, which were discussed subsequently. However, that is not what was on the table yesterday, when CTV's new proposal was discussed.

Official Languages committee  A few years ago, we used to broadcast the Saturday night hockey games, and that is the agreement Ms. Glover has asked us to comment on.

Official Languages committee  Mr. Frappier even made the following comment to you this week: Francophone services outside Quebec do not make much money because the marketable value of advertising time, compared to the audience that is generated, is relatively low.

Official Languages committee  The economics of the situation have changed. It will be explained by Sylvain, who was part of that transaction. He'll tell you why this was not an ideal situation for us and why we are no longer in that contract.

Official Languages committee  That's why we exited.

Official Languages committee  No, but that's their bid, Madame Glover. Those are their partners. In the same way, as I told you a few seconds ago, we made a bid for $93 million with our partners at that time, which were CanWest Global, the Score, La Presse, and Telus. That was our consortium. We bid $93 million U.S.

Official Languages committee  Yes, but we lost the bid, madame. We don't own these rights.

Official Languages committee  Mr. Godin, we presume that to be true, but we are not a party to the contract that CTV signed. I presume that the answer is yes.

Official Languages committee  I did not refer to legislation; I talked about our specific mandate.