In fairness to the current government, its predecessors—going back to the beginning when I was following this subject, which would be about the beginning of the Mulroney years—have all appeared to be persuaded by the Department of Finance's view that it's very important to maintain fiscal responsibility.
As I get older and become more skeptical, I also think there's an element of subtle control that governments—well, your party has never been in government—such as the Liberal and Conservative governments successively have done. For example, almost at the beginning of this century, a practice began of giving the CBC $60 million in the 11th or 12th month of the fiscal year, through supplementary estimates.
It doesn't take too long to figure out that if you wanted the money, you would behave. That is a bit less of an arm's-length relationship than NHK enjoys in Japan, or Deutsche Welle, or the British Broadcasting Corporation, Mr. Angus.