I want to focus on the comments about generating cable fees, which I thought were quite interesting. I know that the British Broadcasting Corporation charges a licence fee of approximately £120 per household per year, which is $250 Canadian. This is mandated by the British government, and it generates about £3 billion in revenue. This is about $6 billion Canadian. With 60 million citizens in the United Kingdom, this works out to about $100 per capita in funding. I know that your public resources are approximately $1 billion Canadian. With 33 million Canadians, that works out to about $33 per capita.
Could some of the funding shortfalls you feel you face be addressed by this new carriage formula?
Secondly, we as members of Parliament get complaints about Radio 2 trying to diversify and the lack of expansion into the largest market in the country, the greater Golden Horseshoe, which includes Barrie, Kitchener, Waterloo, Hamilton. This is a market of almost 10 million, and will grow by three or four million in the next 25 years. How many of your problems are due to your not having access to greater revenues?