Mr. Speaker, last week's bid by BCE to take over CTV is just the latest corporate merger focusing on the Internet as a broadcast medium. Why is our government abandoning us to the private broadcasters in the new media?
The CRTC has said it is stepping back from any kind of regulation of the Internet. What about Canadian content? The CBC continues to bleed from a thousand cuts.
It is time to get with it. Britain has been proactive by allowing the BBC to become an Internet service provider and creator of high quality national content for both the Internet and their own public network.
It is time our government called an inquiry into how to take back our public broadcasting system in the face of national and international corporate concentration. It is time to keep Canadian spaces on the net, make access to the net affordable to Canadians, enforce our copyright laws on the Internet to protect creators, use the new media to promote culture and act to ensure future control over our broadcasting content on the new media or we will all be losers.
Who wants to be multi-billionaires? BCE and CTV. Who will pay down the road? Canadians.