As you said, the community aspect is an integral part of the the country's broadcasting system. Our decisions were made in the context of a rebalancing at the local level, a sector that was, may I add, experiencing tremendous difficulty. In our consultations, Canadians told us that they were very worried about the disappearance of these local stations, that are also very important for democracy, since they produce news for cities, counties and provinces. We had to find a way to take care of that aspect of things and our decisions were in line with that objective.
So we looked at the big picture. A lot of funds were going to the community level. Our responsibility also includes ensuring that these funds, that are public funds managed by the CRTC and subject to legal requirements, are used in an effective way. We revised our policies to ensure that we got back to basics and to see what was important to the community environment.
The issue of citizen access is what is important. We tightened up our decisions and we will be doing a very careful follow-up to make sure that citizens have access and can produce and express themselves through community stations.