Thanks very much, Mr. Chair.
Thanks to all our witnesses for being here. We certainly hope that your families are safe and healthy. We appreciate all of the wisdom and direction you're providing today.
I'd like to start with Mr. Bernhard. Thank you very much for being here. Thank you for raising something that I think all MPs are aware of: the total devastation of small and medium-sized media across the country. We've just seen it in my community, which has gone from four newspapers to one and a half.
Right across the country we've seen this devastation for two reasons. As you pointed out, we have the big web giants that can steal content with impunity. Also, those big web giants are being subsidized by the taxpayer. Of course, advertising that goes to the web giants is subsidized and written off on income tax.
How do we need to change things, fundamentally, going far beyond the issue of just paying for the news they use, so that the web giants, foreign companies that often pay absolutely nothing to Canada, will stop this devastation of our local news sources across the country?