Mr. Speaker, I would like to congratulate my colleague for his speech defending the CBC, our public broadcaster, which the Conservatives are criticizing because it is an independent crown corporation. In fact, it is quite clear that the CBC is a federal public institution that exists by virtue of the Broadcasting Act and that has cultural, linguistic, social and identity objectives.
A number of francophone journalists from Radio-Canada, including Céline Galipeau, Patrice Roy, Alain Gravel and Pierre Craig, recently appeared on the program Tout le monde en parle to speak out against all the cuts to CBC/Radio-Canada and the lack of public consultation and debate regarding those cuts. The corporation can bring in money. I would like to quote the following:
A program like Enquête, without which the Charbonneau Commission would not have seen the light of day, is one of the most compelling examples of Radio-Canada's contribution to our country's democratic health. The revelations that saved Canadian taxpayers tens of millions of dollars would not have come to light without the resources we have at our disposal.
There is a return for us. Programs like Enquête are made only by public broadcasters such as Radio-Canada and CBC. They are extremely useful for Canadians and they will disappear because the Conservatives are just sitting back.
Actually they are not sitting back. They are slashing budgets and reducing the effectiveness of our journalists. That is truly unfortunate.
I would like to hear my colleague's thoughts on that.