Yes. CBC is obviously a very important institution for the country in terms of culture, but economically as well.
As the minister in charge of official languages, I would say that only the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation provides information and news in every region of the country in both official languages, on every electronic platform—be it radio, television, websites or iPad applications.
The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation is very important for our country's cultural future.
After the election, I sat down with the president and the board of the CBC. I asked a simple question about the 2015 plan that they've outlined, which I believe every member of this committee has had access to and had a good discussion about. I asked how much money they need to achieve it: how much money they need to achieve their mandate in the Broadcast Act and how much money they need to achieve the opportunities that are expressed and outlined in the 2015 plan.
Budget 2012 provides those funds. It's still providing more than $1 billion every year to the CBC. They have the funds necessary to fulfill their obligations under the Broadcast Act, and the 2015 plan—I don't mean to just gloss over it—is pretty impressive. This is stuff that this committee, and the Senate committees that have examined the role and mandate of the CBC in years past.... Certainly I think it is a strong, effective approach to public broadcasting.
The pillars of it, of course, are that it be 100% Canadian content, with no Wheel of Fortune, no American films; that Canadian films, television shows, news, shorts, children's shows, and animation—all Canadian creations—be shown on the CBC; that they fully embrace the digital opportunities, because I think it's critically important for the CBC to make those connections with young Canadians, so that the next generation of young Canadians think of the CBC as a go-to place for Canadian content. Their full embrace of digital technologies has, I think, been very well received and well regarded and is essentially the centrepiece of their 2015 plan.
I also think, as I said, that their national footprint, maintaining services in all regions of the country, with zero station closures—there's not one station closure—and the maintenance of their national footprint in both of Canada's official languages is core to their mandate. Those things are all built into their 2015 plan, and they have the funds to start to deliver on that plan.
Would CBC, like everybody, prefer to have their budget increase by 10%? Sure. Everybody who has come before this committee, I'm sure, has made that argument. But the reality is that we have an obligation. We made a commitment to Canadians and were elected on a platform commitment to balance the budget in the medium term and to do so responsibly. Responsibly means doing, I think, what we did, which is sit down with all of our crown corporations and all of our agencies and ask them those questions—not how much money they want but how much money they need to fulfill their mandate, what their goal is, what they are planning to achieve in the coming few years, and how they can best do it.
That's what we did with the CBC. We didn't work against them; we worked with them in this process, so that they have the funds available to deliver their 2015 plan.
It's not going to be easy. They're going to have some challenges, there's no question, but they're going to be able to do it. A great deal of credit certainly goes to Hubert Lacroix, the president and CEO, the board, the management, and the team that they have there, who have I think come together with a really ambitious plan for the coming five years that will serve the country very well.