Mr. Speaker, since 1992 the Cable Public Affairs Channel, or CPAC, has made it possible for the public to follow the debates of the House of Commons.
Since it has a public mandate, CPAC's licence includes a requirement to reflect the linguistic duality of Canada, to present a balance between the various points of view and to represent the variety of regional opinions.
Even though 8.6 million homes can receive this channel, many communities in which there are sizeable French language minorities do not yet have access to CPAC programming in French.
As well, CPAC recently stopped the simultaneous interpretation of its prime time programming. Hence, production and distribution of its programming is therefore essentially in English.
The Bloc Quebecois demands that distribution of the CPAC service be regulated by the CRTC in order to ensure equality of access in both official languages.