Mr. Speaker, I believe my colleague from the Conservative Party is suffering from selective memory. He has forgotten that, when the Liberals took over in 1993, they inherited a disastrous financial situation left behind by the previous, Conservative, government.
Clearly, the Conservatives are using the present crisis to muzzle the CBC something they have wanted to do for a long time. The Conservatives say that funding the CBC is a waste of taxpayers' money and that it should broadcast only in those regions where it does not compete with private broadcasters.
The government has said on a number of occasions that it has increased the CBC budget every year, but this is false. The corporation's annual reports and the main estimates clearly demonstrate that the government has been cutting the CBC budget ever since it has been in power.
CBC's annual expenditures reveal that, during the Conservative government's first year in power, that is 2006-07, it cut funding by $32 million. That year, there were—