Mr. Speaker, Canadians do in fact support public broadcasting.
In my riding alone, when there was talk of possible cuts to CBC, I was receiving close to 1,000 letters constantly. Some of my colleagues were telling me that they were getting mountains of communications, for instance, around that same time with respect to the gun registry. I was getting letters regarding the CBC. To me, it says something about its importance.
I was on the picket line a couple of times during the lockout because I felt strongly that there needed to be proper negotiations. I felt strongly that the CBC had to get back to work because Canadians relied on it for their information and for their cultural input.
We need to have radio and television programming that is able to reflect back to us what our nation is about, whether it is in the small regions of Ontario that private entities do not go to. That is why I support the regional programming that is being put forward by the CBC.
There are fantastic regions within this country with a tremendous amount of capability to produce a tremendous amount of music, arts, dance, song, theatre and authors. It is absolutely phenomenal, but they need to be nurtured. If we do not nurture our own artists and our own cultural entities, and then expose them to Canadians across the country so that we can share and support them, then we have lost. We actually have no way of giving ourselves some identity and really express who we are to each other and to the world around us. Quite frankly, without that, we do not really have a face to our nation.
I thank the hon. member for the question because I believe that Canadians do support public broadcasting and, in particular, the CBC, and this is why I continue to fight for it and continue to support it.