Thank you very much for coming to the committee today, Minister.
I want to touch on an issue that has actually been raised by many of my constituents in Brampton—Springdale. We have a very multicultural, multilingual, and multi-religious riding. Community channels are very important to many of those constituents and to Canadians. Canadians pay almost $133 million in subscriber fees for community channels. Over the past few years, we've seen a reduction of almost 86% for distinct community TV services. In a province such as New Brunswick, where there were nine community TV channels at one point, we have only one at this particular point.
We've also seen that only 30% of current community programming is actually produced by local community members. Seventy percent of community programming is produced by staff versus the local community on the ground. In the past 20 years, the CRTC has only assessed this three times. I want to know your thoughts on this.
I know in the past few weeks, in particular, CACTUS has raised this issue. I believe a hearing is going to be held by the CRTC on the 26th. They have been asking for further information through the Access to Information Act, but they have not been able to receive it.
What are your thoughts in terms of more transparency and accountability? Does the department have a particular vision on how to work with these communities and cable companies to ensure we increase community programming and actually get more volunteers on the ground to produce local content for local community programs?