We think that, yes. When a union says it costs more to have it done by someone on contract than to do it in house, one is often inclined to think that the union is lobbying for itself. We're saying that there have been a lot of independent productions in the past 10 years or so in a number of fora. Unfortunately, we didn't have any concrete examples. We said that the private sector was more expensive, that it was going to cost more, but the same stars were not involved, there were outside filmings, the number of hours was different, the sets were not the same. We never had any specific cases.
However, we conducted a study and we have a specific case. For the 2004 season, a half-hour program, Virginie, cost $60,000 to $68,000 at Radio-Canada. In September 2004, production of that program was contracted out to Ms. Larouche's production company. It cost $86,000. They used the stars, and the program was produced in the same studios, using the same technicians. It was still produced in Radio-Canada's studios. It was the same cameraman, the same director of photography, the same sound man. It was cost-effective for Radio-Canada because it cost it only 20% of the total cost since it was produced by an independent producer that received assistance from the Canadian Television Fund. It was cost-effective for Radio-Canada managers, but it had just cost $18,000 more for a half-hour program.