I have asked the question several times: Are we going to ask the Canadian public to support a federal national institution for 20% of the population? Personally, I find that a bit extreme, to be very frank.
We have 80% of the population who listen to the radio, for a total of 95,000 hours of local radio every year. People watch 45,000 hours of television, of audiovisual production. So to say that the CBC is a failure, you have to have ignored that.
When it comes to English-language television, you really seem to be living in the past. We know very well that in the anglophone market, the CBC is not the only one that has lost its television audience. People are migrating to YouTube, Connected TV services, and so on. That is very clear to see.
When I arrived, very few people were watching CBC Gem, and today, two million people do every week. That really is a major shift. There is a sea change happening, Mr. Berthold.