We think it is quite absurd that a double standard is applied to special interest and specialty channels. Specialty television was vulnerable at first. So extremely particular conditions were created to enable those channels to establish themselves in the television universe. Today, specialty channels—you and I both saw the reports of the companies, Astral Media, which is very prominent in Quebec—make a lot of profits and remit quite little in terms of production licences. As I said earlier, it's in the order of perhaps 10% or 15%.
So as Mr. Legault said, with advertising declining as a secondary source of funding, we thought it was at least logical that part of the fees paid to DHT and cable providers should be remitted to CBC/Radio-Canada, because the value of CBC/Radio-Canada raises the value of the bundle offered by Vidéotron, Cogeco and Bell ExpressVu. It was said that part of that money should go back to CBC/Radio-Canada, of course, but provided part of that new fee was required to be put back into priority programs and especially into dramas in order the make the wheels go round.
You talked about the Internet earlier. We agree on that: nothing is free. If writing, acting and directing were free, I don't see why people would do that, unless they were gentlemen artists. That makes no sense. It is necessary, of course, to legislate the Internet, to make it so our conventional structures with those people are reproduced in one way or another, since the only way for an artist to earn a living is to get paid for the work he does. If he is not paid, I don't see why he wouldn't be a taxi driver or something else. So it's the death of creation and of a general culture if a society cannot support its artists.
The Internet changes nothing in the situation other than... There used to be large forges, horses and people highly equipped with nails and horseshoes. Today, they no longer exist: we sell tires. You can have the most beautiful forge in the world, which would be the old television, if no one watches it; you have to take the path of culture in order to express yourself.