Thank you, Mr. Chair.
To our guests, I've been here long enough and been on enough different committees to realize what a tough situation you're in. I know in a situation like this, with the cuts, it's difficult for you and obviously not so friendly here and somewhat friendly over there. So from this side, I would just like to say, you guys look marvellous today, by the way. You look great.
That being said, what I'm going to do is to make a comment on the Trade Routes program. Whether you choose to respond is entirely up to you. Perhaps this belongs, like many of the questions here today, on the floor of the House of Commons, and not necessarily in front of you. Granted, the minister is not here.
Here it goes. On the Trade Routes program, one of the things several witnesses before us talked about—and not just about Trade Routes, but PromArt as well—was how this money signified, to them, a steady money flow. It's not money that's dependent on the private sector, which is taking a huge beating these days, as we all know. Therefore, the Trade Routes money created an indirect mechanism or indirect opportunity for them to receive money.
Now, according to this and the minister's statements on February 7—and you reiterated this as well—there will be a $7 million investment for a $2 million direct benefit. That means we're top-heavy with an inefficient mechanism.
You talked about the places that you need to close because they are too expensive to operate. Therefore, my point is that $7 million is going into this program, and $2 million of that—the money I'm talking about—will translate into an even greater benefit to our witnesses. So instead of destroying the program, why wouldn't we reduce the $5 million to get to our $2 million direct benefit?
This is why we use terms like “ideological cut“ to describe this, because what you've done is that you need to shave off an inefficiency, but with the philosophy of the program staying intact. And according to every witness, this was the program that helped them to distribute...as opposed to relying on something like YouTube.