Yes, absolutely.
The CRTC is considering drawing upon a fund that supports community programming. This would be added to the amounts we spend ourselves to improve this programming. This money would be allocated to traditional local broadcasters.
First, you need to know that these broadcasters are vertically integrated for the most part, and so they own the networks and the media services. For instance, Bell Media, which belongs to CTV, and other conglomerates, have the means to invest in their own businesses and to put incentives in place so as to obtain subsidies for specific services, even though they already make enormous profits from their other services.
Secondly, we fear that such subsidies will have an adverse effect on the independence of the information produced by our own services, for instance Optik Local.
Thirdly, the subsidies that may be given to traditional television services and news services will not ultimately encourage change, even though some changes may be necessary. Continuing to proceed in the same way as in the past may not be beneficial for the future.
So we feel that granting subsidies is not necessarily the right path to follow at this time.