Mr. Speaker, the member talks about job creation. The CBC has been a training ground for thousands of Canadian men and women who have gone on to work in the private sector, whether it is radio or television or the motion picture industry. I happen to think there is a lot of the quality in CBC productions, for example, in a production like "The Journal". I am not talking about "Prime Time" but "The Journal".
The man behind "The Journal", Mark Starowicz, is probably respected as one of the geniuses in television public affairs programming right now in the world. This is a man who came through the system and that format is being copied by various units all over the world.
I guess my point is that we should not just measure the contribution of the CBC in terms of its ratings. We have to look at the CBC's macroeconomic contribution, the contribution of its training, the contribution of it holding the country together as an agent. I am not saying it is the only thing.
I have to speak about my riding for just a second. I have 5,700 people in my riding that are employed in the motion picture industry. We are exporting motion pictures right now. We are manufacturing American written productions. We are producing these major motion pictures because our cameramen, our set designers, our sound men and women are outstanding. All of these people are Canadians who have worked with the CBC film production operation.
This has expanded into the Toronto film festival which is respected now as one of the best in the world. I am appealing to the members of the Reform Party to not look at the CBC in narrow terms but to look at the contribution the motion picture industry makes in the macroeconomic sense.