Our organization is non-partisan, and sometimes that is difficult. In the years that I have been doing my job, I've had reason to criticize this government, the Liberal government, and what was then known as the Progressive Conservative government.
I will be very candid with you, Madam Lavallée. I detect in the current government two discordant messages. During the last election campaign a Conservative fundraising letter came into our hands that asked if the money being spent on CBC was being well spent or not. It caused us to commission a public opinion poll from Nanos Research, to find that Canadians answered 63% yes and 25% no. We asked the Prime Minister to give his answer to the question, and he wouldn't.
Minister Moore says good things, things I would want a heritage minister to say about public broadcasting. But there are other messages from the government. I thought that Mr. Rodriguez's question two weeks ago and Minister Moore's response put that to rest. Effectively, Mr. Rodriguez used the word “guarantee”, as in, would you give the committee a guarantee? The minister said yes. Then to read on Friday that the CBC is once again being put through an exercise that could lead to a 5% cut 12 months from now was most unfortunate and inconsistent with his guarantee.