Official Languages committee  I'll give you a very good example. The Canadian Forces have been running ads in Quebec in our daily paper for months, five or six times a week. As community papers, we received the ad once or twice in the entire year. The French papers outside Quebec probably have received it 10 times.

Official Languages committee  The APF represents about 35 newspapers, French papers outside Quebec. I don't have the numbers. I can't prove it to you, because this is something that Public Works has, which I'm sure would be available to your department should you ask for it, but this is what it is. The federal government advertises in the French papers in order to support them.

Official Languages committee  I understand that, sir. I understand the reasons or the argument for why these French papers are supported more than the English papers in Quebec, but I don't know if the argument makes sense. The argument is that in Quebec we have quite a few English institutions in order to provide services and get federal messages out.

Official Languages committee  I know for a fact that our executive director presented those recommendations to the people holding the meetings, but up to now, we still don't know. I know that there have been some changes to the program, but they don't go far enough to include free-distribution papers or controlled-distribution papers like mine.

Official Languages committee  It was a discussion. It was an invitation to our executive director, Mr. Greg Duncan. He attended the meeting and represented our association, and of course the interests of our newspapers. There were no other invitations for newspapers or publishers like me.

Official Languages committee  Personally, I never received funding. I never received funding because all my papers are free-distribution papers. They are controlled-distribution papers. We don't sell the papers by subscription; they are distributed to a certain geographical area.

Official Languages committee  It gives us the possibility of actually going out and trying to sell 5,000 copies in order to qualify for the program, but I don't see why we have to go to this length in order to be able to get a program that we personally believe we're entitled to. We are providing good information to communities that otherwise would not get that information in a minority language paper such as ours.

Official Languages committee  You know, I really don't think it's fair, because I am looking at the list of all the people who are getting the funds; some of them are huge multinational corporations that I personally think don't need the help of the federal government, and here we have newspapers that are basically struggling.

Official Languages committee  Our association has been consulted. Our executive director, Greg Duncan, has been at quite a few meetings, and we have voiced our concerns and opinions. Yes, we have been consulted.

Official Languages committee  Good morning. My name is George Bakoyannis, and I thank you for the opportunity to be here today. I am the secretary-treasurer of the Quebec Community Newspapers Association. I am also the publisher of five community newspapers, three of them being official language minority community newspapers.