Thanks very much. I really appreciate that.
Minister Guilbeault, I have some questions, and maybe you could correct me, because my information might be mistaken. It really doesn't make sense to me.
I have in front of me an article related to the $50-million local journalism initiative. Now, civic journalism is unquestionably a public good, and a good that I would like us to support, especially as we see a struggle with local journalism. However, the vast majority of this local journalism initiative is distributed by News Media Canada and Christian Dognon, who is helping to coordinate these efforts for News Media Canada, was recently quoted saying, “LJI is a support program for the news industry, so we do not want to introduce new competition into already struggling markets”.
I guess what I'm struggling to understand is this. Why wouldn't we be encouraging innovation and new entrants to create more of this local journalism? Why would we be excluding new entrants and the competition that we sorely need?