Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you and good morning ladies and gentlemen. I will be making my presentation from the deck that you have before you.
We've interpreted your request here as that of setting the stage for further study of the public broadcaster and helping you embark on that review. The deck will set out some context pieces. I wasn't proposing to give you the answers, because those would be premature at this stage, but I will help structure and feed your own reflection. Of course, as the chairman knows, it would be difficult for me to speculate on future government policy on this, but I'll help you as much as I can with the information we have.
Firstly, on page 2 of the presentation, I provide an explanation on the public broadcaster's position within the Department of Canadian Heritage.
The Department of Canadian Heritage and CBC/SRC make up the Canadian Heritage portfolio, but neither is a subordinate of the other. The two form a single entity. Here we are representing the department. Obviously, we support the Deputy Minister when she takes a position, but we do not represent la Société Radio-Canada nor do we have a direct link to it. I wanted to point this out.
On page 3 of the presentation, there's a brief, and obviously incomplete, history of the public broadcaster, but I'll leave you to read that at your leisure.
There are perhaps three points worth remembering in this context. The first is that right from the origins of the public broadcaster at the time of the Aird commission and the first legislation, it was always understood in Canada that we would go toward a mixed system. There were other models available, but we have a mixed broadcasting system today that has private, public, and community elements within it.
The second point is that we're currently operating under the 1991 act, which itself is based in large part on the Sauvageau-Caplan report of 1986. You can imagine that the context then, or the technology existing in 1986, has moved considerably since then.
The third observation that hit me this morning while preparing for this is that you'll notice the 1957 report ended up in legislation in 1958; the 1964 report took four years to implement, or until 1968; and 1986 recommendations took form only in 1991. So every time we do this it seems to take a little longer, because I think it gets a little bit more complex every time we tackle this issue.