Finance committee  As I said in my comments, it's clear that there's an energy transition under way, and it's clear that energy transitions have historically taken many years to occur. It's going in a single direction, and I think government probably needs to accelerate that direction. I refer to the low sales of electric cars in Canada, for instance.

Finance committee  I would like to thank you for that question, but it puts me in a very difficult position here. I will tell you what I can in terms of the comparisons. Certainly, the debt-to-GDP ratio by 1995 was higher than what we're seeing now. It was approaching 70%: 67% or 68%. On a federal level, interest rates were much higher, so the debt was pushing out.

Finance committee  Thank you for the question. To start, we've just done a report on health and science disinformation, which we have not published yet but will publish, and we will have a webinar on June 11 on that question. I don't think there's anything unique to these forms of disinformation.

Finance committee  Thank you. On behalf of the Public Policy Forum, I thank the finance committee for the opportunity to address the critical issue of how COVID-19 has impacted the economy, and what can be done. I'll be speaking about the general public interest and not the state of the think tank sector.

Canadian Heritage committee  That was June 2015.

Canadian Heritage committee  I understand that the act is up for review in 2017. Our recommendation was that we need to look at this seriously in a particular way, and the particular way would be in terms of the rights of creators—I'm sorry, because I'm going to use that verb “monetize”—to monetize their content and to have a level of control over their content.

Canadian Heritage committee  I think we are moving towards a culture of greater opinion and perhaps partisanship, as has been described. It's not a culture I feel terribly comfortable in, because I was brought up in a kind of...not what Mr. Van Loan learned in grade 2 about objectivity, but in fairness and balance.

Canadian Heritage committee  Yes, let me come back to the $300-million decision. Madam Joly, and I'm sure the committee, is looking at the broader questions of the entire system and the digital impacts on film and television and other aspects. Ours was news. News isn't a major part of television advertising, and I don't think it's distorting to news in the way that I think it is actually distorting to digital.

Canadian Heritage committee  I agree with you. I don't think $25 million.... I was a little bit surprised at the number when I saw it. I thought it would be a bit higher, but there you go.

Canadian Heritage committee  Yes. Let me come back to that in a second. I would say a couple of things. I don't think anybody would want to recommend that CBC not be in the digital business. Digital is the future. If you're saying CBC shouldn't be digital, you're saying CBC shouldn't be. You're not saying that today, but in five or 10 years, that's the inevitable conclusion.

Canadian Heritage committee  I feel tempted to go down that road, but I don't think I should.

Canadian Heritage committee  I could go down that road with you privately, Mr. Waugh—

Canadian Heritage committee  —but I don't think it's my place here.

Canadian Heritage committee  Okay, so I'm happy.

Canadian Heritage committee  I don't think there's any solution to a trustworthy flow of civic news in the country that CBC would not be part of. I also don't think it would be good to have too much CBC and too little anything else, because part of a democratic solution is diversity of voices and perspectives in assigning the news.