Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 36, I am pleased to table a petition signed by people from the Lower St. Lawrence and the Gaspé Peninsula concerning the closure of Radio-Canada's regional stations in Matane, Rimouski and Sept-Îles.
The people who took the time to sign this petition denounce the cuts made in the regions by Radio-Canada, the French network of the CBC. I want to point out that Radio-Canada cut almost 2,000 hours of regional programming, so that regionally-produced programs have all but disappeared.
When Radio-Canada acts as it did, communities such as ours that are located far from major centres lose not only jobs but mostly a communication tool allowing us in the east to communicate with one another and tell major centres and governments about ourselves.
I therefore table this petition.