Thank you, Madam Chair.
I want to touch on something that Ms. Ashton said. In all of these discussions, one thing that Canadians said loud and clear is that they support a strong public broadcaster and that they believe fundamentally in the idea of a public broadcaster that is supported and does a good job of telling the stories of Canada, of Canadians. For rural communities, indigenous communities and so many who have no other access, the CBC is a critical and essential part of this country, an institution of this country.
A lot of research and polling gets done. Angus Reid did a study, and they said something that's very interesting. They said that defunding the CBC is considered to be “bad” by the vast majority of Canadians. If we want to have a thoughtful discussion in this committee about the CBC, about building a strong CBC and about ensuring that there is a strong public broadcaster—and I think we should—then we do need to ask difficult questions of the executive. We need to ask difficult questions so that CBC/Radio-Canada is not just present in this country but it is a strong, vibrant force for telling the story of Canada.
In a world where corporate interests get to decide what we hear and what we don't, having a non-profit public broadcaster in this country is a critical part of who we are in this country, whether it is telling the stories of rural Quebec, making sure that we have strong francophone content at Radio-Canada for the francophone communities in my riding of Vancouver Granville or telling stories about the north.
It's important that everyone have access to content in French.
That is the role the CBC needs to be playing.
I think our opportunity here in this committee is to have these conversations with the executive and to get beyond the idea of “Let's do everything we can to tear the institution down.” We hear a lot about defunding the CBC and how it is—as the Leader of the Opposition called it—a “billion-dollar propaganda arm”, but really, let's get into the substance of what I think many of us really care about, which is having a strong institution that Canadians can look to and can rely upon and that is, quite frankly, a reflection of who we are as a country.
These discussions with Ms. Tait can be tough. We should be having tough conversations, but I think we should be looking at how we improve institutions and build institutions in this country. I think we're all, hopefully—well, many of us—committed to that work. I challenge all of us, regardless of our political stripe, to make sure that the conversations we have on this topic get us to a good place in the interest of all Canadians, regardless of where in this country they live.