Mr. Chair, I'm not going to belabour the point. I certainly understand Mr. Abbott's concerns with this article. I don't believe it was a fair article. But again, there's some journalistic licence that reporters take. I'm looking forward to receiving some of the information that Mr. Abbott's going to present to us.
If in fact there are already standards for the kinds of programs that are funded by the Government of Canada, whether through tax credits, through CTF, or otherwise, someone would have had to establish those standards. It may have been the previous Liberal government. I hope what I'm hearing here is not that it should be the Liberal standards that prevail and that they should never be reviewed by a new government that comes into place. I hope I'm not hearing that.
The other point I wanted to make, Mr. Chair, is when we're talking about taxpayers' money I think we need to be cautious about calling this censorship. I'd be the first to jump up and down about trying to interfere with the ability of Canadians to receive the kind of content that they want, even if we don't feel it's acceptable ourselves. But we provide in our communities, our society, quite a wide range of opportunities for people to express themselves and to enjoy themselves--provided they don't hurt others. I think that's one of the qualifiers.
But when we're talking about taxpayers' money, I believe there's a higher standard that we can--and perhaps from time to time should--apply to make sure the expectations of those very taxpayers are met. Now, that doesn't mean that we basically outlaw 90% of what's being funded. But from time to time, I believe, a review is warranted. I'm hoping that when we get the information from Mr. Abbott we can actually get to the bottom of this unfortunate story, find out exactly what's happening, whether this is a form of censorship that's being alleged or whether this is something very routine that governments do from time to time.