If I could add a quick comment, I think there's an important issue here in terms of accountability. It's slightly different from what Tony has been emphasizing.
It seems to me there's a real gap in the accountability line for the CBC. You have a mandate spelled out in the act, which by necessity is struck in fairly broad language. It's a question of how that broad language is defined and practised as a programming philosophy.
In my experience there's nothing between the act and what comes next. It tends to be a series of annual corporate plans, which is one of Ottawa's great charades, frankly. Every year the corporation produces a plan. It tables it with the minister, and nothing is ever heard about it again. When I was on the board, nobody ever got any feedback from the government about the plan. There was never any attempt to call the corporation when that year was up and say, “Okay, here's what you said you were going do. Did you do it, and if not, why?”
It seems to me that somebody has to play two roles here. One is to take the general language of the act and apply it, whether that's this committee.... Given the kind of media world we live in today, maybe it's the board of directors, whose role I think is too minimal at the moment. There has to be some way to check performance against promise. I don't see that in the present system.