In fact, I have heard this complaint before and shared it with management, because it did not concern journalistic behaviour or information broadcast on the air.
I must tell you that Radio-Canada currently provides French services to 34 cities in Canada, including 16 in Quebec and 18 outside Quebec. There are reporters in 18 cities outside Quebec. These reporters have the mission to cover not only current events in local francophone communities, but news throughout the region.
I understand that some members of the local francophone community aren't happy at times because they believe that their community is not sufficiently reflected on the national station. In my opinion, these communities get a disproportionate amount of air time. If you calculate the relative weight of francophone communities outside Quebec, the percentage of francophones living outside Quebec and the percentage of information broadcast on these francophone communities, you will see that the percentage of information is higher than the weight of francophone communities outside Quebec.
Regional communities in Quebec also bear this criticism. People living in the regions in Quebec feel that there is too much Montreal content on Radio-Canada television. Others feel that CBC television is
much too orientated to what's going on in Toronto.
This is a problem.
If you watch The National, maybe 30% of the information you're going to see is international information. You have to know what's going on in the world. It's exactly the same thing in French. So it's a delicate balance. You have only a certain amount of time and you have to deal with all the communities. I know it's not very easy, but I think, inside the corporation, inside the French services, people are trying very hard to make the information of those francophone communities available to all the Canadians.
One other thing is that when you go to Montreal, many people come from those regions, so we can make sure that what's going on in their communities of origin is taken into consideration when people are building
Le téléjournal or other news shows.