The first time I was hired by the CRTC, a decision had just been made. More power had been given to the federal government in dealing with phone companies. I remember the regulatory framework at the time. There were monopolies, especially telephone companies, and then there were consumer groups. There was a balance between those two groups. As a result of the convergence and competition that ensued, the CRTC started to focus on the relationship between the companies, the former monopolies and the new competitors. I think that is why Canadians were perhaps left out of the equation. We are talking about balance at a number of key levels.
In terms of the Local Programming Improvement Fund, I was not part of the group who ruled on it. That decision was made before I came to the CRTC. That working group had a number of advisers. Some members expressed dissenting opinions, and that was their right. However, the majority of advisers assessed the information that was before them and they came to the conclusion that the fund had been set up to address the challenges with the transition from analog to digital television. Stations were incurring costs because of that.
In addition, at the time, we were dealing with an economic downturn, a recession, a financial crisis. The only source of funding for conventional television companies is advertising, which is in free fall. At the time, the idea was to make sure that we were helping local television companies outside major urban areas with their local production. An investment of about $106 million was made every year. But once the situation passed, the CRTC decided to gradually withdraw from the fund; the benefit was that money could go back to subscribers for the rate increases, given that some cable and satellite companies had simply passed on the costs to their subscribers.