A few nights ago I was listening to Fox radio. I listen to radio at night. This was Fox shock talk, which referred to CNN as the communist news network. It's this kind of polarizing, which is there in the United States, that I worry about here. It serves to polarize the country, and it may serve to get an audience, but in the long run you end up with not very thoughtful news and information.
In terms of the news source, let me for the fun of it give you an example. This is true in broadcasting as well, but it might be more easily demonstrated in print.
In Vancouver, The Vancouver Sun, Vancouver's largest newspaper, used to have, I think, four people covering the legislature in Victoria. Now I think it has one columnist and uses the sister paper, the Victoria Times Colonist.
In Alberta, the Edmonton Journal and the Calgary Herald used to have two reporters each and were very competitive with each other. Now, I understand, they have one reporter each and share news back and forth, so there's that kind of competition.
In this province, The Windsor Star, The Hamilton Spectator, The London Free Press, and The Kitchener-Waterloo Record all used to have reporters covering the provincial legislature. Now none of them has. Three of those papers had reporters up on the Hill, and none of them has.
That's in the newspapers. But I can assure you that particularly in medium and small-sized broadcasting markets the same thing is going on. There is a withdrawal of coverage in news and information.
I'm just receiving a note here. Monica is just letting me know—and this is true—that the CRTC unfortunately has dropped its regulations regarding news programming from radio and television. It used to demand that when people had their licence they would be expected and obligated to have so much news and local programming. Now that's not true.
All I'm saying, I guess, is that in this polarized atmosphere the idea of having a strong, independent public service broadcaster becomes more and more important for the health of the country; there's no question. Those folks who criticize the CBC because they see it as left-wing, or liberal, or communist, or socialist, or God knows what all, are making a large mistake, and making a mistake that's bad for the country. I think the CBC strives to be a strong, independent broadcaster in the service of Canadians. That's the difference here: in the service of Canadians—the breadth of Canadians, not simply shareholders.