Coming from the perspective that Mr. Fast just outlined, I have managed to retrieve the precise words used by Mr. Shaw in his testimony. In part, he said, “Prior to our announcement to withhold CTF funding, few decision-makers cared to hear our views.” In the next paragraph, he said, “We are here because the issue is important to us and we want to participate in the process of finding a better way to bring more quality to Canadian television in the future. You may disagree with the methods we used to get attention, but I hope you won't disagree with our goal.”
If we were to proceed with recommendation 1, that would be to call him a liar. It basically is to say that we not only aggressively disagree with the method he undertook—albeit a totally legal method, albeit completely within the law—but that we also don't believe his goal is to make a better system.
At the conclusion of his testimony, he said, “The sincere and cooperative consultations that we have had over the last few weeks and months have reassured us that our message has been heard.” That, of course, is in reference to the meetings that he would have had both with the minister, other people in the ministry, and Mr. von Finckenstein.
The fact is that it took ten years of a constant slow boil on the part of Shaw, and to a lesser degree Vidéotron, to actually get some decision-makers and the minister to finally listen. I should also say, without condemnation of prior committees, that the heritage committee never took this on either until they actually precipitated a crisis.
The most important thing to bear in mind is that they precipitated the crisis within the law. They were fully within the law. They were completely within even the regulations. They did not break any regulations, rules, or law. For this committee to come forward and say we condemn them for doing all of this bad stuff within the law is, I think, really quite immense. I just can't imagine it.