Canadian Heritage committee  But we would like to get back to it.

Canadian Heritage committee  At this point in time, we only have Star Choice Communications involved. There is a requirement by the CRTC for distributors, BDUs, to put out a certain amount of money for the creation of Canadian content. Star Choice decided a number of years ago to put their money with us. They are the only private sector company at the moment.

Canadian Heritage committee  I can, yes. It started out at about $800,000. There was a problem with small markets across Canada, which felt that they were being detrimentally affected by the introduction of satellite. These small markets appealed to the CRTC, and the CRTC made the decision, not only for Star Choice but for Bell, to put up some money to compensate these small markets.

Canadian Heritage committee  I used to ambulance chase quite a bit when we first started out, before we got the contributions agreement with the Department of Canadian Heritage, for which we are very grateful, I have to say. But before that, we didn't have multi-year funding. So I did a lot of ambulance chasing, which meant that I would look at the papers and read the CRTC website to see what was being bought and sold, because each time, as you know, there was a tangible benefits package, and that was up for grabs.

Canadian Heritage committee  For Star Choice, two years ago they reduced it from $800,000 to $100,000, and each year they review their contribution to us.

Canadian Heritage committee  No. But I can tell you that 9% of the projects we funded in 2006 were produced by aboriginal producers. Six projects were funded, and we received nine projects.

Canadian Heritage committee  I didn't bring the statistics on women. We do have statistics on women. I could certainly send them to you.

Canadian Heritage committee  Yes. We don't take any rights. We don't have approval on scripts. We don't do any of that.

Canadian Heritage committee  No, everything is just in one big pot. The only way we break it down, as you know, is linguistically and regionally on the English side.

Canadian Heritage committee  No. We don't have enough money to do aboriginal--

Canadian Heritage committee  We see it as important. We also see having some money for cultural diversity or visible minority producers.

Canadian Heritage committee  We collect statistics on it, but we don't have enough money to divide up--

Canadian Heritage committee  That's correct.

Canadian Heritage committee  I'm sorry, did you say “trends”? Was that the word you used?

Canadian Heritage committee  On subject matter, I wouldn't say there's been a change in trends. I would say there's been a change from documentaries to series. Series are more profitable to produce because you can amortize the costs across all the costs, and doing a one-off is more difficult. It's easier for broadcasters to program a series as well.