CBC/Radio-Canada's business plan states that the corporation intends to increase its investment in new platforms, that is to say the content that can be watched or listened to on the Internet or on mobile devices such as cellular telephones, Walkmans, IPods, MP3 players and video, by 8% in 2009 and 2010.
We've already seen that with TOU.TV. That's really what Internet television is about. We even wonder how you have managed to make a thing like that profitable, if it is profitable.
I'd like to talk to you about a problem that has been brought to my attention in my constituency. It could have happened anywhere else. In fact, it probably has happened in all constituencies. This is the case of a woman who watched the first season of the series Les Invincibles on line, on TOU.TV. It's an excellent television series, and I understand why she didn't want to stop before the end of the first season. She watched the entire thing and thoroughly enjoyed herself. She did not download it; she merely watched it on line.
When she received her Videotron bill—I say Videotron because 66% of Quebeckers subscribe to it—she was surprised to see an increase of $47 on her bill . As you will understand, if she had gone to Archambault or Renaud-Bray—to mention two Quebec business—she would probably have paid $40 or $45 for the entire series and she could have watched it ad nauseam, if you can become nauseous watching it.
Ultimately, the problem is not that she paid $47 without receiving any material product in exchange. That's not the problem. It is one, but it's not really the problem. The problem is that revenue was misappropriated. The $47 that she paid to an Internet service provider didn't go into the pockets of the producer or of Radio-Canada—I don't know whether Radio-Canada produced the series—or into those of the artists or artisans. No one made a cent from that, except perhaps Videotron, which took in $47 and, as we say in Monopoly, "passed Go".
That makes no sense because that's a misappropriation of revenue. The digital system and TOU.TV, which Radio-Canada has made available, currently make this misappropriation possible. And yet we've seen no attempt by Radio-Canada to knock on the doors of Internet service providers, either in person or virtually, to ask them if they might perhaps share their immense profits, negotiate a better share and especially to see how artists can be remunerated in a situation such as this.
I wanted to know whether this misappropriation of revenue is a concern for you as much as it is for me and whether you're going to try to do something to "render onto Caesar what is Caesar's."