Official Languages committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. On behalf of the 622,340 Franco-Ontarians, I want to thank the Standing Committee on Official Languages for welcoming us today and giving us the opportunity to discuss a topic of great importance, the survival and vitality of our minority language media. I

Official Languages committee  I had a chance to speak with Radio-Canada officers Yvan Cloutier and Pierre Ouellette and to discuss what that entailed. They said it was having an enormous impact because it was helping them retain programs and consider new ones. Remember that Radio-Canada wanted to sever its re

Official Languages committee  That was in fact an emergency measure that we requested for the next three months.

Official Languages committee  It has also reduced its purchases almost as significantly, in fact by about 75%. We make the same presentations to encourage the provincial government to place its advertising with francophone media organizations, since they rely on that revenue. A few months ago, I was amused t

Official Languages committee  He was very emotional at the first meeting. This evening, immediately following this meeting, I'm going to a wine and cheese event to mark the first anniversary of L'Orléanais, a weekly newspaper published in Orleans. Francophones no longer had a newspaper after L'Express shut

Official Languages committee  I'll let New Brunswick speak for itself.

Official Languages committee  That's one of the recommendations in our white paper. If a tax credit could be granted to the people, organizations, and businesses that advertise in French, that would be good. That's a recommendation on which we entirely agree. It would be one way to encourage organizations to

Official Languages committee  We recommend that the tax credit for organizations that do business on the Internet be abolished. Here's the excerpt from the recommendation in question: ...collectively present a request for funding to develop an information campaign aimed at all francophone media to promote t

Official Languages committee  When our consultant was working on the white paper, he looked at the conditions in which all the organizations operated, the television stations and community radio stations. With those people, he discussed funding and what they would need in order to provide their services, make

Official Languages committee  We want to reach young people because we want them to get involved, but I get the impression it will be hard to interest them without cellphone apps. There is a loyal clientele for paper versions and radio broadcasts, and there is a youth clientele for anything that involves a ce

Official Languages committee  We must adapt and have an idea about what's happening. Community radio stations, unlike others, cannot afford Numeris surveys. They are very expensive, and it is very hard to determine how well they work. It's quite easy for a print media business to show its circulation numbers

Official Languages committee  Canadian content is clearly included in communications.

Official Languages committee  It's regional news.

Official Languages committee  There is provincial and international news and so on, but I think the primary mandate is to focus on the community. The community radio station I know best here in Ottawa is Unique FM. The news it provides is varied, but it's mainly news about the Outaouais.

Official Languages committee  We would be headed straight for assimilation because we would lose the community connection. Every month, I tear the community activities page out of L'Orléanais and post it on the refrigerator. My sons consult it because they know that, if there is something that might interest