Mr. Speaker, last March the Minister of Canadian Heritage was approached in his constituency office by a constituent whom he had not met before and who he has not met since, to write a letter drawing the attention of the CRTC to his application for a radio licence.
The minister explained to this constituent that as the minister responsible, he could not interfere with the workings of the CRTC but he agreed as a member of Parliament to do his best to ensure that he was treated fairly.
On March 15 the minister wrote to the chairman of the CRTC in his capacity as the MP for this constituent, asking the commission to give the application a fair hearing. This was the letter of an MP seeking to ensure that a constituent received due process. The letter was not meant in any way to be an endorse-
ment of the licence application, nor was it intended to exert pressure on the CRTC.
On March 30 the CRTC acknowledged his letter, categorizing it as a letter in support of the licence applicant. That acknowledgement letter was never brought to his attention. If it had been he would have immediately rectified the matter.
As soon as he learned that one of the interested parties wrote to him in September regarding his "alleged support" for the licence application, he took immediate action. He wrote to the interested party clarifying his earlier letter and clearing up any misunderstanding. In this letter dated September 30 he wrote:
My letter of March 15, 1994 to the CRTC simply asked that due consideration be given to the application. It is not intended to convey support for or opposition to the application. The CRTC is the body mandated by law to make independent decisions on all such applications. It is, therefore, for the CRTC to weigh the merits of the arguments raised by the applicants and the interveners.
Members will note that he took these actions before the matter became public. He did his best to clear up the situation, not because of public or media pressure which did not exist at the time, but because it was the right thing to do.