When I say that we should have a kind of general media and cultural content support fund, I see using it to take advantage of what some people call Hollywood North, the idea that we have a lot of skilled labour in this country from the film and television business who have been producing for Hollywood and the TV networks in the U.S. One of the first Internet-to-TV programs was actually built out of Vancouver by people who had been working on Hollywood productions. I see video games. News bureaus were cut from nine to two by the likes of CanWest in a spate of three years at the beginning of the 2000s; I see them being reinstated. I see a lot of these kinds of things.
When we look around at the kinds of things that are emerging, there are many green shoots that are very good on the horizon. These are not just fly-by-night operations being put together by people with low skills or by hacks; these are done by former journalists who have been fired or laid off.
Look at the roster of iPolitics. It has a roster of some of the best journalists in this country. Some of them happen to be my colleagues. Look at Blacklock's Reporter, look at Canadaland. Look at Policy Options, with Jennifer Ditchburn. She's a major parliamentary reporter, very good at what she does and also very knowledgeable, who did her MJ with us at Carleton, and now she's the editor at Policy Options.
We also have the emergence of topical experts across a range of issues. Craig Forcese at University of Ottawa, on the national security file, is one of the tops, bar none. There is Michael Geist, in the digital media copyright area, and my colleague at Carleton, Josh Greenberg, on public health and the environment.