Official Languages committee  The cuts we announced on April 10 stemmed from a number of market-related factors. Those factors included the loss of broadcasting rights for hockey, given the importance hockey had not only at CBC, but across our corporation. That affected CBC's programming and the way it sells advertising.

Official Languages committee  Out of all of this fuss around the comments made by Ron during the first game of the series, I have retained the fact that his comments were immediately corrected during the second game. He explained what he meant and mentioned that he had used the wrong words to express his thoughts.

Official Languages committee  In a few weeks, Mr. Cherry will no longer be working at CBC. Rogers, which bought the broadcasting rights, has built its own crew and has invited Don Cherry and a few other members of the team to join. So the environment will be different.

Official Languages committee  I think it was supposed to be a bridge. I think the CRTC saw a hole in the way that local programming was done in the country. I think the people who actually had access to the fund, because it was not only us, it was anybody.... The criteria were there and if you met the criteria you were actually able to trigger some funding.

Official Languages committee  The funding models to which CBC could have access involve changing the model for everybody who is in there, because if you decide that we have access or a different access to the Canadian media fund, you're immediately impacting everybody else who has access to that fund. If you decide that we are going ad-free, and let's say that the public broadcaster should be going ad-free, that's $250 million to $300 million a year.

Official Languages committee  The answer is yes.

Official Languages committee  Mr. Williamson, that is the most important question that our programmers ask themselves every day: Heather Conway, who leads our English services and Louis Lalonde, who leads the French services, and their teams. When they look at their television schedule, they have to contend with trying to balance a television schedule that is clearly differentiated or trying to differentiate itself from the commercial broadcasters, which means Canadian programs in prime time, which means Marketplace in prime time, which means public affairs.

Official Languages committee  Mr. Nantel, I'm not going to interpret the minister's words; rather I will go back to the questions asked by Mr. Godin a few minutes ago, as well as the other questions of committee members about our level of service. There is a direct relationship between the public broadcaster's funding level and the quality of the service it provides.

Official Languages committee  Mr. Nantel, it is not fatalism, but simply an observation. The message I want to leave with you is the following one. On the one hand there are expectations from the public broadcaster; on the other hand, it has a mandate entrusted to it under the law. In the current economic environment, all of the actors who are players in the Canadian media ecosystem have access every year to a certain number of millions of dollars.

Official Languages committee  Shelagh, I think the member would appreciate understanding what you do out of Montreal, what the Montreal CBC delivers, its services, what we do in Quebec City, and what the Quebec City station does for the rest of the country. We don't have as many stations in the province of Quebec as Radio-Canada does.

Official Languages committee  Actually, we had such a show. It was called 18 to Life. It was based in Montreal on our prime time television schedule a couple of years ago. It wasn't renewed. That's something that we're always looking at. It's a question of resources and how we can best impact Canadians through the prime time television schedule.

Official Languages committee  Shelagh will tell you how we are structured in Quebec and how we deliver our services out of Quebec City and out of Montreal to English-speaking Quebeckers.

Official Languages committee  Mr. Chairman, if you would allow me one second, I'd like Shelagh to tell you what we do at Concordia also. That will give you an idea of what CBC does, just as an example, in Quebec.

Official Languages committee  We'll do whatever the committee wants to do.

Official Languages committee  I have a couple of things to say first. The mandate comes from the Broadcasting Act. The CRTC also enforces the mandate on CBC/Radio-Canada. When I sat in front of the chairman and the CRTC in November 2012, the first thing that the CRTC chairman said when he looked at us was, “We expect you to deliver a wide range of programming to Canadians that basically informs, enlightens, and entertains them.