Canadian Heritage committee  Mr. Chair, thank you very much. I want to repeat again what I said in my open remarks. I have really enjoyed the exchanges at this committee. They have been intelligent, and the questions have been legitimate and on target. I think we all come out of each of these sessions thin

Canadian Heritage committee  I must say that the CRTC policy was designed for the private sector. It does very little for us. Perhaps Richard could find a minute in Hockey Night in Canada, but it will be very difficult. If we want money that does not come from the government, we absolutely have to charge wha

Canadian Heritage committee  It is more than that. The CRTC approved an increased number of minutes all day, not just in prime time. So it went to 14 minutes this year; it will go to 15 minutes next year, and after that, it will be completely open. On the French side, we think that that is too many minutes,

Canadian Heritage committee  Firstly, almost all public broadcasters in the world take advertising. They need it in order to fund their operations. Maybe it's because I'm from the private sector, but I think advertising plays a very important role in keeping your nose to the grindstone in terms of your rel

Canadian Heritage committee  In my opinion, the beauty of the contract is that it's a negotiation and the question of micromanagement almost disappears, because it's a question of sitting down and there not being an obiter dictum, as there is sometimes with the CRTC. I would see it as a conscious negotiatio

Canadian Heritage committee  Thank you very much for your comments. I really do appreciate them. I have one correction: I don't think we have closed any radio stations over the last while. We did close some television programming. What we're talking about is the dramatic change in the demographics of this

Canadian Heritage committee  It would go a long way to giving me a level of comfort for the future of the public broadcaster, but I go back to my original point, Mr. Scott. It is not necessary, given the history of this country.

Canadian Heritage committee  Governments have been extremely respectful of the job.

Canadian Heritage committee  A great Canadian program.

Canadian Heritage committee  There is no correct answer here. The answer is a function of where one believes we should be going and how we should do it. I believe it's quite simplistic to argue simply that because the Prime Minister appoints the president, therefore there is political intervention and inte

Canadian Heritage committee  We do not have the funding for it. Some people in my office would say we lowballed the funding, but the reality is we think we can pull this off with one-time funding of $25 million to build the facilities, and then continued funding because the core of our business in that area

Canadian Heritage committee  One time, yes.

Canadian Heritage committee  They won't be regional offices. We have submitted a plan to open local radio stations in 15 communities. If you look at our map of services, it's very tilted toward the east, yet certain places in Ontario, such as Hamilton and Guelph--large growing areas--have no local service. W

Canadian Heritage committee  The funds we've asked for to open those stations are designed to address eight million people.

Canadian Heritage committee  Yes. They're actual producing centres. The most successful part of CBC, both French and English, is the local radio service. I think we're number one and number two in 12 out of 15 communities in Canada--the largest communities in Canada--in terms of our morning shows and our af