Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
I want to thank the minister for coming. I want to reiterate, perhaps, or to echo my colleague's comments that it would be very nice if we could have you for two hours. That way we could explore a lot of things that I would have liked to ask about, not the least of which is that it's nice to bring in this yearly $60 million to the CBC. It would be really nice to make it permanent, and it would be really nice to give the CBC some money to expand its reach digitally and to build its infrastructure.
My major question, my focused question, is about the idea of passing on cultural heritage from one generation to the next, which the minister spoke so eloquently about, and about Canadian heritage. It's nice to hear that the minister says there will be no changes to the regulations with regard to foreign ownership. Therefore, my question relates very specifically to this.
We know that the Alliance Atlantis Canadian film distribution library is being sold to Goldman Sachs in a sort of a roundabout way to what is considered to be a Canadian company, but we know that's really a shell.
This is the largest and most comprehensive legacy of Canadian film and television fiction in Canada. It is an essential part of our Canadian heritage. It took 35 years to accumulate. There are 1,200 Canadian films in this library. It was built with $2.5 billion, mostly of taxpayers' money coming from Telefilm Canada, from the Canadian production fund, from federal and provincial tax credits, and SODAC in Quebec. This is taxpayers' money; this is not just another private sale.
This actually violates the 1998 foreign distribution policy that says that foreign ownership in Canadian film and TV distribution cannot exceed 30%. It also violates the regulations, which the minister says she's supporting, that Telefilm Canada can only invest in Canadian productions where the distribution rights must be held by a Canadian distribution company.
We know the distribution is essential to a viable and healthy Canadian film industry. I would like to ask the minister whether she's going to oppose the 1998 foreign distribution policy and the regulations to ensure that this library does not leave Canadian hands and go into a foreign company's distribution library.
I would like the minister's assurance that this will not happen.