Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you, Minister and officials, for being here today.
You made the comment about Meta, and those are the big rich guys. We've talked about the federal government's advertising before. It cost $24 million in 2019-20, and it went to the big rich guys. Then it went up to $51 million, and it headed for $64 million in 2021-22. That's the advertising this government did on international platforms outside of this country. A bit of that is that you gave them money and then wanted to take some back.
However, the media-independent non-daily papers in my region, say they used to get 30% of their revenue from federal government funding. Now they get virtually zero. Why do you favour the big international platforms and send money out of the country when you could be supporting advertising in our own country? It would not be a subsidy, but advertising.