Information & Ethics committee  Tax credits are a small portion of the funding.

Information & Ethics committee  The larger portion of funding from the government is direct funding from funds that are created by governments to create more Canadian television. Canadian television can't be produced in this country with the amount of funds available to any network in this country from advertising.

Information & Ethics committee  But could we be fair here to mention that CBC does raise close to $500 million that is not coming from the government?

Information & Ethics committee  I think I've made myself completely clear. I think it's wrong. I think the CBC should open their books more than is even asked for. I think the CBC's books should be wide open for everyone to see.

Information & Ethics committee  I think that's up to the commissioner, not up to CBC and not up to us. We hired someone to do that job, and it's their job to decide whether the requests were fair or not. As I said earlier, I believe they will make those decisions in a fair and honest way.

Information & Ethics committee  Yes, I have.

Information & Ethics committee  Let me say this: no, it's not detailed enough, and it never will be. It can't be, not the way the system works. Even the powers that be within the CBC don't know where every dollar is going. Even the people who put those things on the website don't know where the dollars are going.

Information & Ethics committee  I suppose that's not my decision to make. Do I think it's an important issue in these times and in the future of this country? No, I don't believe it's a very important issue. Even the dollars we're talking about are by government standards not particularly large numbers. I suppose in some ways it does seem curious—not to mention the fact that the courts are dealing with it anyway.

Information & Ethics committee  Absolument. Yes. I will speak English, actually. I do believe that this is all they're trying to do: discredit the CBC. I don't think it has anything to do with getting at real information that will bring any light to the subject of how the CBC works.

Information & Ethics committee  I think I've already shared those theories. I think it has to do with the possibility of embarrassment and of information that could be used against them in what they consider an unfair way.

Information & Ethics committee  That's not a problem. The best way I can answer that is to say that, first of all, within the CBC--and it has taken 75 years to create this--different people have been in charge of different areas, as in any company, and the people who are best at it have learned how to amass funding for themselves and keep funding for themselves and how to work the system to keep money so that they can do whatever they want to do to create television programming.

Information & Ethics committee  I absolutely do believe that the Information Commissioner is smart enough to make those decisions. Frankly, as I think I hinted in my opening statement, I don't think that's the real reason why CBC wants the information withheld.

Information & Ethics committee  As I say, I think it has to do—

Information & Ethics committee  Sun TV and Quebecor would argue that it's unfair that CBC gets the public funding and that they have to compete with them, so they go out of their way to do whatever they can to discredit CBC. It's journalistic only in the sense that they're looking for information to use against the CBC in a journalistic fashion.

Information & Ethics committee  First, to clarify, I said that in an answer, not in my opening address.