It's not a question or right or wrong.
We clearly didn't have a discourse or understanding on this. I asked them, “What firm commitments are you willing to make?” They did not give me any. They claim they intended to—and I read you out the process. I think we shouldn't dwell on it.
The fact is that we were not prepared to give fee-for-carriage or consider it unless there were firm commitments. There were no firm commitments on the table.
Today, I just testified to you and said in point four that we want to explore “mechanisms for establishing, through negotiations, the fair market value of these stations' signals....backed up, if necessary, by CRTC arbitration”. In plain language, what that means is that you negotiate the value of the fee that's being distributed. The cable companies distribute it. It has to be evaluated; otherwise you won't be distributing it.
What is it you want? Do you want me to set the value? No. We won't do that. You negotiate that with the broadcasters. If you can't come to an agreement, come to us and we'll arbitrate it.
So there will be a fee. The amount of the fee will depend on the market of the station in question. You can't do it by having, as they said, 50¢ for each signal. It may very well be different for different markets. But you are the players in the market. You negotiate. If you can't negotiate it, I'll arbitrate it for you if I have to.
That's how we're going to approach it.