Yes, in northern Canada. Some were just below “north of 60”, but most of them were above 60 degrees north. Also, as you mentioned quite rightly, the act does not refer to the CBC as having a mandate for aboriginal peoples. It only refers to aboriginal peoples as having an opportunity to be part of the broadcasting sector if resources are made available.
Now, the resources have never fully been made available for us to be anywhere near something like a CBC. What we now have, in fact, is the creation of a system whereby the CRTC used the Broadcasting Act to establish what is called “9(1)(h) carriage”—mandatory carriage—and a subscriber fee that allowed APTN to be created. If the CRTC had not established that form of carriage, APTN would not exist today, and neither would TVNC, because Canadian Heritage had cut back the funding to the northern societies.
Basically what we have now is the only network that has a mandate to reflect aboriginal peoples. But I'm going beyond that to the extent of proposing to this committee that the CBC as a national public broadcaster has a duty, to a certain point, to be a reflection of aboriginal peoples to a certain extent.
We are part of the public. When you have networks like CTV, CanWest, and others who are willing to partner with APTN and create programming that is reflective of our lives, our realities, our cultures, our communities, then I have to ask that the CBC be willing to partner with APTN—and I'm hopeful that it would be—to become part of that reflection of who we are to all Canadians.
As a committee, I'm sure you're very well aware that there are still many stereotypes, many prejudices against aboriginal peoples in Canada, and many misconceptions. The only way those can be addressed is for Canadians to be exposed to the reality of who we are as aboriginal peoples. I think CBC has a key role to play there, and basically my suggestion to the committee is twofold.
I don't think they've been doing that part well, and they may say it's not part of their mandate, to which I'm suggesting that maybe this committee should make it part of their mandate, to a great extent.
But it needs to be in association with APTN. I don't think anybody but aboriginal peoples should speak for aboriginal peoples. We can speak for ourselves, but we would be willing to work with the CBC to create programming that would reach out to Canadians as well as aboriginal peoples and reflect who we are to everybody.