Mr. Lacroix, I've been listening to you from the outset, and I must congratulate you for doing a good job of managing this crisis for your vice-president. However, I find it sad that, in 2008, the president of CBC/Radio-Canada has come to tell us that you're more sensitive now and that you're going to act differently in future. That's like a bus driver who tells people to move back. We need a guarantee, not for you to tell us that you'll be more sensitive from now on. Ordinary people expect to get that respect and dignity. I would like you to make a greater commitment. You acknowledged that there was a problem and that it would not reoccur.
You said that independent producers had edited those 44 minutes. When he appeared before the committee, Mr. Stursberg said that it was an editorial. He said he had dealt with the programming and had viewed the 44 minutes. He is the vice-president, and responsibility moves up the line to the boss, that is to say you. You may have missed it this time. Mr. Stursberg said that programming has an editorial side, that is to say that it includes an element of subjectivity. Mr. Stursberg stretched the facts a little, or he wasn't the one who did it, but he assumed it. I assume that, if he assumed it as vice-president, he has a role to play and that can go as far as the president's office.
Can you ensure that, from this moment on, without interfering in programming, we won't be required, in 2008, to make people aware of the importance of respecting linguistic duality?
I can understand why my colleagues say that the regions must be represented. Roch Voisine isn't a Quebecker; he comes from New Brunswick. We hear him and we see him. There's also 1755, Hart Rouge and the others. Even if you have a one-time mandate for a one-time program...
I'm a friend of CBC/Radio-Canada. I agree that we should fund public television, but, if every time we doubt that linguistic duality is being respected, we have to summon... I'd like us to obtain firmer commitments in that direction. I'm fed up with being told that people don't know Claude Dubois and they'll change channels. He's someone who has left his mark on his era and is still leaving his mark on the singing world. A gala like this one makes it so that, even if it's true on the radio, that's fine; I see no difficulty in that. It would be interesting to know the ratings for that gala.
You're saying almost in a veiled way that this won't be on television next year. As a friend of CBC/Radio-Canada, I need a firmer commitment. It's more a question of commitment to linguistic duality than an issue of sensitivity or lack of sensitivity. That's the minimum we should expect.