Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Madam Minister, for coming here this morning.
You speak of this as a complex issue, but I would suggest that what we're dealing with is actually something very simple. We're looking at a power play by industry, a very audacious power play. Shaw and Vidéotron made their move at a time when there was no leadership at the CRTC. Without leadership at that moment, it fell to you as the minister to stand up and speak very clearly. The message that should have been given then is the message you're attempting to give today, which is that they will give their monthly payments and other issues will be dealt with later.
Yet nothing was said at that time. We heard nothing really from your office, even after you met with Shaw and Vidéotron, and yet Shaw came out very publicly from that meeting. They were saying that their understanding after meeting you was that this fund was “dead, done, gone”. They gave a very clear public message, and still we did not hear anything from your office regarding the seriousness of this issue, and at that time, domestic and international financing deals for television were going up in smoke. We needed a clear voice.
You met with the CTF. Our understanding from those meetings was that you said you wanted to keep this out of the papers and you didn't want them using their powers to take legal action, so they were sidelined; the CRTC, you say now, has a mandate, but they were on the sidelines because you were at the same time saying you were looking into this matter. I think it would be inappropriate to suggest that the CRTC would be moving independently while you, as the minister, were saying you were looking into this matter.
Now we come to today, which is the moment when, in crisis management politics, the minister comes before committee and makes a dramatic announcement and everything is good. That's what we fully expected would happen this morning, yet yesterday afternoon Vidéotron pulled the rug out from under you and made a very clear announcement to the nation that this was not going to be, that the CTF was a finished body. They were going to dictate the terms of what they were going to put in, which is money to their own organization to produce their own shows and to help their own bottom line. They did that, I think by no accident, the night before this morning's meeting.
In light of this very clear power play by industry, what is your message to Vidéotron going to be? Are you going to ask them to continue their payments and then look favourably upon this move they're making, or are you going to say no, these are the terms of your licence, these are the terms that the CTF was set up by, and you must comply? What is going to be your answer to them?