Mr. Speaker, I welcome the comments of the member for Elk Island on the excellence of CBC programming. I share his views in that respect.
The difficulty with this motion by the member for Elk Island is that the proposal to reduce the CBC board of directors from twelve to two plus the president and the chairperson to form the board would in effect render the CBC's programming excellence that we just heard complimented operationally dysfunctional.
Secondly, there is a more technical reason why this amendment cannot be supported by the government. The statutory committee structure of the CBC board of directors would be rendered redundant. Under the Broadcasting Act the corporation has to have two permanent committees on English and French programming, plus an audit committee of at least three directors. With a board of two directors of course these committees would again be operationally dysfunctional. Therefore a subsequent amendment to the Broadcasting Act would be required. Naturally that is a separate exercise from this bill and one we did not intend in the presentation of this bill.
Finally, the regional representation would be dramatically affected. With only two directors it would be impossible to recognize all of Canada's regions and diverse interests and therefore it would completely undermine regional representation.
It is therefore impossible for the government to support this amendment.