Official Languages committee  That group will meet more often. As I was saying earlier, I have been an official languages champion in the past. So that is very important in my mind. The group was supposed to meet in November. It meets every six months on average. The November meeting could not be held because we were in the middle of hearings on CBC licence renewals, and that was the key topic of the meeting.

Official Languages committee  Yes.

Official Languages committee  The original work plan is no longer in effect. We are now drafting a new work plan with the group to reflect the new reality.

Official Languages committee  ...on putting one in place.

Official Languages committee  The issue is a delicate one. My answer may be related to another question that has been asked already. It is a matter of knowing how to address those matters. Once we launched the process with several notices of public hearings, we highlighted the issue for the French communities and services—all of Radio-Canada's services in French are part of it, as well as services in English—and we invited people to attend the hearings.

Official Languages committee  The conditions are as legally stringent as they can be. At the hearing, the nature of the commitment makes it difficult to characterize it as a licensing condition. In fact, that can sometimes be a bit vague, or the situation may be a bit uncertain owing to its nature. A licence holder applying for renewal makes certain commitments during the hearing.

Official Languages committee  Yes, absolutely. I often have to speak to all employees at the same time. Obviously, I go back and forth between the two languages. Although people do not necessarily want to speak French, I am always surprised to see how well people can understand the other language—even anglophones whose first language is not French.

Official Languages committee  Yes, of all the federal organizations, we have the best employees.

Official Languages committee  The act provides that we can grant licences for a maximum term of seven years. That is generally what we've been doing on the radio side, unless there's been some non-compliance issue, at which point we give a shorter licence term. That's the general rule; there will be exceptions to this.

Official Languages committee  I understand.

Official Languages committee  Yes. It is sometimes very difficult to keep up with the rapidly advancing technology. Occasionally, we hold public hearings over three, four or five months, and the reality can change very quickly over the course of the hearing. As I mentioned, we produce an annual monitoring report that covers the whole industry.

Official Languages committee  Your question mainly has to do with television, I believe.

Official Languages committee  As I said earlier, most television services available in Canada come from Quebec. In a way, listeners outside Quebec are somewhat secondary, from the business plan perspective. We have no difficulty in providing Canadian content to those groups. That's what works when it comes to getting audiences.

Official Languages committee  No, you should not assume that. I know because we sometimes have to send in request for people whose first language is French to attend training sessions in order to improve their English.

Official Languages committee  I will try to obtain those figures. I am not sure if we have that kind of a breakdown. I can tell you, since I often have to speak to all employees....