Mr. Speaker, the CBC is very important. The reason for the CBC in the first place, many years ago, was to provide a linkage from coast to coast via a public broadcaster by which Canadians could get to know their country better.
Part of its mandate was to provide regional broadcasting so that one region could hear about another region of the country. That was a very important part of the mandate of the CBC originally. We could hear more about the Newfoundland fishery, or the prairies, what was happening to aboriginal people, the north, the province of Quebec and so on. Those were all very important parts of the CBC mandate.
Much of that is disappearing. The federal government over the last number of years has made numerous cutbacks, which have put pressure on the CBC to make cutbacks and lay off people. That is very unfortunate in terms of national unity.