First I will read the motion that was put forward by Mr. Angus on February 1. It is moved:
That due to the ongoing uncertainty of the future of the Canadian Television Fund (CTF) as precipitated by recent announcements from Shaw Communications Inc. and Vidéotron Ltée that they will no longer live up to the terms of their licence by withholding contributions to the fund, this committee will investigate the impacts of the CTF’s potential elimination on the health of Canada's domestic television production and make recommendations to the House of Commons based on our findings.
That's the motion. Maybe sometimes I don't look into things quite as deeply as everyone else, but when I look at this, I think the main thrust is the withholding of funds by Shaw and Vidéotron. I thought it was the task of this committee at that time to make sure they were restored to their monthly payments.
When I looked at all the extra recommendations here, I thought we had a simple task and that our experts had come across with a good response. I think there was only one recommendation from this committee, to make sure the monthly payments continued, that they were put into legislation. That's what I understood our committee was looking into.
Maybe we should have put off our study on public broadcasting until the next session and continued with CTF. If we're going to come out with a whole list of suggestions...we did not have enough witnesses here. Everyone has not been looked at to do that.
I just look at the recommendation that was put forward. It seems to answer the question we were given. The more recommendations you make, the more.... You might think that it corners people or stops them from doing things, but it gives them more of an out.
It goes back to where all our laws came from. There were 10 of them. Now we have so many it doesn't matter what those 10 laws might have been way back when. You can get around the situation by looking at 10(a), (b), (c), (d), (e). It will get you around number 10.
I don't know why we have to make this so complicated, but that's fine. I have spoken as chair and we will now go forward.
Do we want to look at Mr. Angus' motions?