Mr. Speaker, I appreciate some of what the hon. member said. However, I would really like to challenge his thinking and the thinking of other members on the other side of the House with respect to the necessity of having to pluck money from the pockets of supporters of these programs in the form of taxation. If a program is really good, if it is really quality, it will win. If it is not, then it should not be subsidized.
I believe that too for businesses and other industries, some of which he mentioned. If we were to have a level playing field tax wise, we could compete very easily right around the world and that is the missing link.
Specifically with respect to the CBC, I have on numerous occasions had people ask me why we support it. They then use words which I am sure are unparliamentary-they are not in my personal vocabulary in any case-about the things they have heard.
I was tremendously offended one Sunday evening when, as we were finishing our day, I switched on my radio as I often do and chose the CBC. Sometimes it has some nice classical music which I enjoy at the end of the day. I cannot relate to you in the House what I heard because it was so offensive. It was tremendously offensive to women and to men, and the explicitness of what was being broadcast at midnight on a Sunday got me so upset that I immediately ran downstairs, turned on my tape recorder in order to have it on record even though I could hardly stand to hear it.
My response was why should I as a taxpayer be forced to fund this without any choice at all. If it were another station I can turn away, it's ratings go down and, as happened to one of the radio stations in Edmonton, it would go out of business.
The CBC should be subject to that same kind of continual scrutiny on a personal basis by all taxpayers, by all the people who are listening. I really think we ought to very quickly phase out the funding of the CBC and many of these other cultural organizations which, very frankly, appeal to a very narrow group of people and are far away from and, in many cases, opposed to what the majority of Canadians want to hear and want to see.