Mr. Speaker, at the outset I thought that the member from the Reform Party was going to be talking about the CBC. He started talking about the CBC in his initial comments and started quoting on the program that we could watch with great anticipation and delight this evening.
I do not know whether he had the occasion to watch Venture last night. It was talking about the BBC and the types of programming that the British Broadcasting Corporation has.
When watching the breadth, the depth and the scope of what is allowed to be broadcast in the UK as opposed to what our CBC is allowed to broadcast here in this country I felt slightly ashamed. Here we have a Canadian Broadcasting Corporation that we are literally starving to death and not allowing it to use any amount of intellect as to the type of broadcasting that it can show us.
I had to stop and think that it probably had to do with money. It had to do with the amount of money that we were giving it. If we are going to starve it to death then we might as well put it out of existence. We might as well not have a CBC as to allow it to slowly starve as to what it is allowed to show us.
I think we are being very shortsighted and I would like to hear the comments of the member opposite on this. I think that the CBC was created the same way as our railway system was created in this country because we are such a vast country. We need to know what is happening in Northwest Territories and in Yukon or even in Alberta for the information of the Reform member.
There is nothing more enjoyable to me than driving home at night, I live in the nation's capital, listening to that program broadcast from coast to coast and I can hear what is happening in Newfoundland or I can hear what is happening in British Columbia. I can find out what is happening in this wonderful country.
My question to this member is does he really believe that the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation has a role in this country in broadcasting? If he does, how does he expect it to accommodate what we as Canadians would like to see on its programming with the type of money that we are allowing?