Sure, we would like to extend our radio services in both French and English. We were asked, actually, to make a proposal as to how to do this by, I think, if memory serves, originally the heritage committee. And we did; we tabled a report with them two years ago proposing exactly some means of doing that. So we totally agree.
I totally agree with you as well--as I agree with every member of the committee, which is why I'm a little bit struck by it—that the CBC has a fundamental responsibility to reflect and interpret both great cultures to each other. I totally agree with that. I totally agree with the premise of every single question here. I totally agree. And that's why, as I mentioned, we put such a long effort into figuring out how to do these things together and how to make this interpretation, but in a way, as I was saying earlier on, that actually works, given our different audiences and our different cultures.
I say this personally; I wanted a show called Au Courant , and I wanted Mitsou to do the show, because I wanted a show that was going to actually provide a window into French culture every single week. It was my idea to redo Rumeurs and to do it as Rumours; and the same thing with Les hauts et les bas de Sophie Paquin.
When it comes to journalists, we also agree with you. Many, many of our international journalists actually now report in both languages. I have to tell you, though, that finding people who can work in both languages is a challenge because it presupposes a level of fluency that's rare. But we completely agree with that. As I mentioned in my opening remarks, we've done over 200 different pieces together in the last little while.
My colleague Sylvain Lafrance and I are jointly responsible for a fund within the organization that is dedicated to this very purpose, which is to make things that will work well in both French and English. So I completely agree.
My only point in all this, and I think it's an important point, is that we have to do this in a way that is congenial from the point of view of the audiences. If we do things that the audiences don't like or don't understand, we're not making any progress. They'll just say, “I don't know what that's about”, and they'll turn it off.
So how that actually helps the situation, I don't know. What I think helps the situation are programs that people find interesting, entertaining, and stimulating, that they want to watch, but explore these issues in a way that is--
