Sure. I think you've articulated well, as have others, the importance of this with regard to the credibility of the institution of the CBC. We've seen in other instances--and I don't even have to mention an example, because I think some will pop into people's minds--that when even a small sum of money is spent in a way that might be seen as a little bit dodgy, people will just say, “Well, that whole fund has to go, that whole program has to end”, you name it.
I think this is something CBC has to be mindful of. When there are expenses that are made public, that are maybe sometimes troubling--and by the way, we face this as politicians all the time, so I'm not speaking, and none of us can speak, from the perch of virtue. We are all in a business that is full of examples of politicians doing things that are untoward. But you try to develop mechanisms not only to force accountability but also to inspire confidence among the public that the accountability mechanisms are being followed.
We've done our best as parliamentarians to do that, and we try to impose that. This is one of the reasons, if you remember back to 2006 when our government was first elected, that we had our five big priorities. Article number one, issue number one of our five big priorities was to bring in the Federal Accountability Act, which was to draw a number of crown corporations and agencies under the umbrella of responsibility for access to information requests. Included among them was the CBC.
The CBC has a responsibility to respect the access to information laws of this country and to comply with them as quickly and as effectively as they can, of course recognizing the fence that must divide journalistic integrity and professionalism and access to stories about how their day-to-day expenses are being spent. This is a mandate they've been given, and it's a responsibility they have. I suspect--even though we haven't seen it in the past, and there have been some critiques--that the message and the concern that people have raised about the CBC has been heard and that we will see better results in the future.