Thank you, Mr. Chong.
I'm happy to hear you are an avid user of our services and listener to our programs. Thank you for that. I hope that doesn't change.
Thank you for bringing up this aspect of our lives, which is an important one. This report you referred to speaks about $33 per capita, and the report of the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage even suggests we increase it to $40. There is the funding part, but there's also the MOU part, the memorandum of understanding part, which for me is the key part and the key recommendation coming out of this report. It's not only about dollars. It's about what CBC/Radio-Canada can provide as services and how we can link our services to the priorities of the government and Parliament, as it sees its national broadcaster grow into the 21st century.
On resources, we haven't seen an increase to our base budget since 1973. In constant dollars, if you look at the portion from 1995 to 2004, that means about $150 million less every year. Some of our funds, allocations coming from government, are not indexed to inflation. Every year that is a $25-million hole we have to fill before we start at base zero.
In terms of comparing us to the public broadcasters of the world, we are one of the lowest-funded national public broadcasters in the industrialized world. I don't have the statistics offhand, but I can give you these statistics.
All that is to say that we have a whole bunch of services in an environment that is changing. A lot of people enjoy comparing us to the BBC, for example. The BBC has four times our budget, an $8-billion budget. That gives you an idea. It broadcasts in one language, not two, and in one time zone. We broadcast in five time zones.
When you take all that into consideration, this is a very important challenge.