Five minutes? We're going to decide the future of CBC in that time?
Mr. Chairman, I want to focus on something not in terms of the actual programming, but I need to set the stage.
In the previous Parliament this committee spent a lot of time looking at Canadian broadcasting, the CBC in particular. There seemed to be a consensus around this table that there needed to be a review of the mandate of CBC. The minister, when she was in the opposition, had supported that, as the minister supported that same thing. Then in June things came to a halt. For some reason the decision was made somewhere that we were not to proceed with a review of the mandate of CBC, which is unfortunate, because there seemed to be a bit of goodwill all around to at least look at it.
I'm going to imagine that at some point in the future this will occur. It has to occur. My question is for that reason.
I would like to know what elements, in your opinion, should be included in the mandate review. What should be looked at as a minimum and what would be nice to be looked at? For instance, in the area of the overall orientation of CBC, more or fewer commercials would seem to be a fixation for a lot of people, including our Prime Minister. And what funding formula should presumably be looked at also to accompany whatever orientation we wish to determine? How should technology be reflected in the mandate review, and the relationship of CBC with the universe of broadcasters, or the relationship of CBC with the CRTC? Should there be any regulatory or legislative review?
I would like to know.... I understand you haven't got enough time to answer all of this, so I'll invite you to say what you can, but also to forward some documents, some thoughts on paper, to all of us, because I expect we will keep pushing and will eventually see such a review.
So what are the minimum elements, in your opinion, that would have to be looked at in such a review, and what are the ones that would be nice to be looked at?