Official Languages committee  And cabinet decided, as you will see from the order, that under Part VII of the Official Languages Act, it was not necessary to grant that frequency to—

Official Languages committee  I know we're short on time. Actually, there's a good chance that the service is already available. You may need to use a tuner for your cable service or television. We could discuss it later.

Official Languages committee  Do you mean the commissioners?

Official Languages committee  I mention it because, in French, it's a council, so they are called councillors. In English, we're the commission and we're commissioners.

Official Languages committee  What matters is what we're doing. A systematic part of all decision making by the commission is what we call the official languages lens. When staff make a recommendation to the commissioners, we always look at it through a Part VII lens, if you will. As you know, we are a group of decision makers.

Official Languages committee  When radio came about, newspapers were supposed to disappear. When television came about, radio was supposed to disappear, and so on. What we are seeing is that radio operators have improved the place of radio stations as local services. They broadcast the local news, traffic updates, the weather, and so on.

Official Languages committee  I know that people are disappointed when they don't get the results they want...

Official Languages committee  Those files are always very difficult. Although there has been talk about the last frequency in Toronto on a number of occasions, engineers always find a new one, but the quality of each new frequency keeps getting worse. Yes, Choq-FM wanted to get 88.1 in Toronto. When we do the evaluation, we analyze market needs and people's needs.

Official Languages committee  Radio is often the most efficient tool because it does not cost as much as television. That is what I have always said. For instance, in New Brunswick, I have recently met with people from Radio Beauséjour. They clearly told me that, without their radio, the use of French would have experienced a drastic decline in their community.

Official Languages committee  I wouldn't say that it is common, although there is nothing preventing it. It is a bit more difficult to approve the activities of bilingual stations in the Montreal market, since the opposite is often true. However, in francophone minority communities, there is nothing preventing it.

Official Languages committee  The document deals with the July decision.

Official Languages committee  All our processes are fully public. We have hearings in which all Canadians have a right to participate and our decisions are published. The decision is in our report and it is significant.

Official Languages committee  The study came from our public hearing. Given the comments of Canadians, our interpretation of the obligations under the act, our knowledge—we are a specialized tribunal after all—and the considerable and ever-increasing costs for cable and satellite services, subscribers were faced with additional costs.

Official Languages committee  Mr. Dion, the LPIF decision is 29 pages long, single spaced, in just the one language. That's the study, the report. It does not even include the days of public hearing and the whole transcript. We are all about making everything public. The decision was not made by cabinet, for instance, and submitted in secret.

Official Languages committee  The document deals with that decision in particular.