Mr. Speaker, I would like to follow up on the question the parliamentary secretary posed in terms of choice. We see in this world of privatized culture often the choice of do we want a Coke with our fries or do we want a Sprite with our fries.
The question being put forward with the example of the cars is that we have now mandated in Canada a notion of choice where of 100 stations that the CRTC gave licences to, how many were set aside for Canadian programming? Perhaps eight or ten. How many of those were francophone? Perhaps four. There was no obligation to provide aboriginal radio programming. There was no obligation to provide any kind of real consumer choice.
At the end of the day, when the consumer buys a Chevy car, turns on the radio and there are 92 stations playing all America all the time, for the parliamentary secretary to suggest that is choice is a complete abdication of the fundamental rule that we have maintained in Canada, that our airwaves belong to the people of Canada and the people of Canada have a right to hear their voices on their airwaves.
I suggest to the member if he is being accused of being pie in the sky, what is pie in the sky when we have five or six stations in French across the entire country? I am being very generous with my examples of how many stations are being set aside for Canadian francophone content, because there is no real choice on the stations that are being offered right now.