I believe it comes down to a question that we should be determining as a committee right from the beginning. The existing situation where we are, as of this minute today, is that we have gone through a crisis that was created in no small part by the withdrawal of the funding by Shaw, then by Vidéotron, their deciding to reverse their position. The issue is now before the CRTC, who effectively have taken the reins of control out of the hands of the CTF. I think Commissioner von Finckenstein certainly gave me a lot of confidence that he's going to be able to make this happen.
Now, we ask the question, what is the purpose of this report? If the purpose of our report to the House is to say this is what we did and this is where it was, then the report as drafted does that. If the purpose of this committee, and it's a perfectly valid choice on the part of the opposition.... If the choice of the opposition is to get into these recommendations and create an extra element for consideration of the public at large and for the consideration of Mr. von Finckenstein and the CRTC, then that's it.
The fact of the matter is to crank it up a notch and to put these recommendations, should they pass, with the wisdom of the collective committee.... Certainly most of them I would be very strongly opposed to, but nonetheless, should they pass, then we've created another point of conflict. It strikes me that we don't need another point of conflict for the CTF and for the producers in Canada. What we need for them is some kind of security of knowing that they have the CRTC with the CTF issues under control so they can go ahead and start producing their shows rather than our creating an extra point of conflict.
I say quite bluntly, that's exactly what these recommendations, should they be included in this report, will do.