I met with both Pierre Karl Péladeau and his vice-president, and I met with Jim Shaw and his vice-president to find out what their concerns were and to echo the call by the minister to resume payments. The minister, as you know, suggested that they should make payments.
I should add here that the obligation to make payments is annual. The obligation to make monthly payments is by convention or custom. It's not spelled out in the regulation. So technically, neither Shaw nor Quebecor were offside in not making payments prior to August. However, the tradition had arisen that these would be done monthly on the basis of a directive from the CRTC.
So the industry had built up on the basis that there would be monthly contributions and that's how the funding arrangements were. By their withholding the monthly payments, they really caused a disarray in the industry and a lot of uncertainty, and the production for next year, which is being done right now and has to be funded right now, was in doubt. Therefore, the minister suggested in very strong words that they should pay.
I went one step further and said, if you don't pay, I will have no choice but to amend the regulations and make you pay on a monthly basis. Probably that would lead to confrontation, and I prefer to work things out.
Here there is clearly an issue. You have raised it several times over the last two years. You feel it is unaddressed. I am prepared to address it, and what I'm prepared to do is to address it quickly so that it's resolved by August 31.
Now, I'm the new kid on the block. I didn't choose this crisis. It was imposed upon me, basically. I'm here, and I'm willing to solve it, but work with me rather than against me.
Obviously, something in my argument, whatever it was, convinced them that this was a good approach and they resumed payments. Therefore, when Shaw agreed to resume payments, I issued the press release setting out the task force's terms of reference and its timetable.