Canadian Heritage committee  Thank you very much for that welcome, Madam Chair. And thank you to the members of the committee for inviting us to meet with you today. We have been looking forward to this conversation. It is an important time to speak about public broadcasting in the context of Canadian cult

Canadian Heritage committee  Thank you for the references to New Brunswick. We're also very proud of our people across the country, and you absolutely nailed it when referring to our importance in local communities. It really is the case, and we hope that in our new strategy, we've underlined that very stron

Canadian Heritage committee  As you well know, the Canadian public broadcaster was founded on a pretty profound principle of independence. It's enshrined in the Broadcasting Act, and pretty well the history of this organization has been about maintaining that independence. It's fundamental to the difference

Canadian Heritage committee  As you're well aware, we've made a number of recommendations on the revision of the Broadcasting Act to strengthen the legislation to ensure there is that protection of the independence of the broadcaster, specifically on how our board is comprised and how the CEO could be appoin

Canadian Heritage committee  Yes, it is essential to the functioning of CBC. It represents the majority of our funding, as you well know. We depend on public support for the organization, and ongoing public support allows us to do more of the good work that we do. I mentioned 60 local communities. Is every

Canadian Heritage committee  That's a multi-faceted question. Let me take a moment to reflect upon it. I will say on your point about Fort McMurray—because that one touched my heart—that our teams from Edmonton spent a lot of time at Fort McMurray, and we were sharing news with our colleagues. It was an inc

Canadian Heritage committee  Oh, I beg your pardon. That was a very special event. To the point about representation in Alberta, we talked a little earlier about the importance of local and government funding, and if there were additional funds supporting CBC/Radio-Canada, I assure you.... We have a map of

Canadian Heritage committee  I must say that it is a major challenge. I would add that we are managing two different services.

Canadian Heritage committee  We are managing linear television and radio services at the same time as digital services. We always try to reach out to Canadians, especially young people, for example through Snapchat or YouTube. That is a tremendous amount of work. Mr. Bissonnette, do you want to add anything

Canadian Heritage committee  Please do.

Canadian Heritage committee  May I add something?

Canadian Heritage committee  I just want to say one thing for the English side of the table. There is no doubt that Radio-Canada has a very, very special place, but I want to also say that Anne with an E, a CBC show, is among the top 10 most binge-watched shows on Netflix in the world. Therefore, it's not to

Canadian Heritage committee  I'm not sure what the connection is with the fake news part of your question. We can go back to the independence question, but....

Canadian Heritage committee  I see. I beg your pardon. I immediately went to altered news, but what you're talking about is disinformation. It's a complicated world we're living in now. We live in an overabundance of information and content, and an overabundance of disinformation. Then you have deep fake n

Canadian Heritage committee  I think they're Friends of Canadian Broadcasting, just to be accurate.