Community media are important because they fill a gap in the following. There are things that the CBC does that are exceptional. Our stations couldn't cover the Olympics in the same way they do. There are things that commercial radio does that are very good. They promote very popular music, and they have a for-profit model. Community radio fills that gap, the gap that represents local communities, communities outside of the major urban centres, and there are millions of Canadians who do not live in major urban centres and who do require local news and information.
Let me give you an example. People on Cortes Island, during the middle of the pandemic, were not getting the news they needed; they were getting the news from Vancouver. They needed to know what was happening on Cortes Island, what that local community was doing, what volunteers were needed, what was happening at the local health centre and what local municipal officials were doing. That was the sort of coverage that community radio was able to provide.
I do want to be clear on this. I'm not speaking only about community radio in this context; I'm speaking about community broadcasters writ large, and that includes television stations. These are broadcasters that have boards of directors and staff based in those communities, and they are supported by a network of more 10,000 volunteers, all of whom come from those communities.
Without that on-the-ground knowledge, you just can't get quality coverage, and without quality coverage, the average Canadian is going to turn to Facebook and Google for their news, and we know what happens then.
This system is built on a pillar of three major aspects: community, commercial and public, and unfortunately community has been woefully underserved and, as we see, we're continuing to have a conversation about multi-billion dollar deals in the commercial sector, and we need to make sure that, as that conversation happens, there is recognition for community media.