Canadian Heritage committee  Sir, I'm sure you understand that I'm not going to describe here what we are going to do with respect to our programming and let our friends at CTV or at CanWest understand and prepare for the changes we're going to make. These changes have been under way for a long time—they go back three years, actually—because we understand that Canadians are consuming their news in a different way.

Canadian Heritage committee  You are right. Some aspects of the drop in our advertising revenues were expected. Moreover, we have approached the CRTC several times since November 2006 and we have submitted several briefs to them since that time, and we have been constantly reiterating that the model is broken and that the earnings that came from a single source of funding for television, namely advertising revenue, were not going to allow private and public broadcasters to make it through the years ahead.

Canadian Heritage committee  We would have to get the dollar equivalent of the cost, in the form of ongoing funding. If we are to keep employing these 800 people, we can't lose this funding next year, so it has to be ongoing funding.

Canadian Heritage committee  The numbers you're referring to, sir, are 2006 expenses. We're in 2009. Let me tell you what I've done since I've arrived. You are referring, though, to an important point: the use of taxpayers' money. I respect that a lot, and we are very well aware at CBC/Radio-Canada of the importance of using these funds smartly.

Canadian Heritage committee  Mr. Pomerleau, I would just like to correct one comment you made, if you don't mind. I did not come before the committee today to ask you for additional funding. I would remind you that we have a mandate that is very different from the mandate of the other broadcasters who have sat in these chairs before you over the past 10 days.

Canadian Heritage committee  The programming resources?

Canadian Heritage committee  There's a $60 million one-off amount, which Madam Lavallée referred to a few seconds ago, that the government, since 2000, has been giving to us. We have to ask for it and request it on a yearly basis. But the appropriation comes to us and then we allocate the dollars according to our priorities.

Canadian Heritage committee  What we are trying to do right now is make the most of a really bad situation. We have a recession. We are trying to use the assets that are least likely to be affected by the recession in trying to generate $125 million of cash. We'd like to think that we're going to do this and we're going to preserve taxpayers' money in the best way we can.

Canadian Heritage committee  There is surely a concern. You referred to the bonuses particularly to bankers in the States. I would like to simply put back in perspective the size of the bonuses we're talking about for 553 people.

Canadian Heritage committee  If your question is what will I do about this, I will take the question under advisement. I'm not aware of the details surrounding this tower.

Canadian Heritage committee  Okay. I'm listening, sir.

Canadian Heritage committee  I'm sure you realize that these questions are questions that we have great senior executives on our team looking at right now. We're trying to understand the impact of 800 jobs on our company. We have programs right now in place to try to generate some financial flexibility. As I have been saying, one of the first things I'm trying to do here is to create some margin so that we can reinvest some dollars in the regions and in the people in the regions.

Canadian Heritage committee  The numbers that I have in front of me, with respect to our parliamentary appropriation, are the following. If you look at the nominal dollars that we had in, say, 2004-05, it was about $1.37 billion, then $1.98 billion, then $1.114 billion. These numbers are all numbers that are taken out of our annual reports, so there are no surprises here.

Canadian Heritage committee  So here's what you're referring to, sir. In the context of preparing the 2009-10 budget, 553 of our managers are on an incentive program. They're not on a guaranteed bonus program; they're on an incentive program. These programs allow an executive of CBC to get a bonus, based on some percentage of his or her salary, if the targets are met.

Canadian Heritage committee  It's a target for next year, yes. I can do the math.