Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Good afternoon, Ms. Rancourt.
You recommended that the minister's power to issue orders should be abolished. This comes under section 8 of the Broadcasting Act. Do you think that the existence of that provision means that the minister has to use it inappropriately, or should that power be maintained if it can be useful? I am referring here to what happened recently in the case of the Canadian Television Fund, with respect to broadcasting. In that case, the minister has the power under section 7 to intervene to issue a general policy direction to the CRTC. The minister was asked to intervene because the situation was getting serious.
In the case we are dealing with here, I consider that the minister's intervention regarding deregulation is problematic, but if the act had a provision that was used appropriately, would that not be a good thing? If we had a change in government tomorrow, for example—and this is hypothetical—we might have a new policy on this issue. If the new minister wanted to change the policy direction to the CRTC, would such a provision not be useful?
I would like to hear your comments on that.