Canadian Heritage committee  Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciated the opportunity.

Canadian Heritage committee  I think the funding for the public broadcaster should be primarily from parliamentary appropriations. It's Parliament that created the CBC, and having created the CBC, it's Parliament's responsibility to ensure that it is properly funded. The rest is details. We've come up with a

Canadian Heritage committee  We have a lot more time.

Canadian Heritage committee  Mr. Chair, I would just add something very briefly. I think Bill has obviously hit the nail on the head. There's no advertising on CBC Radio, except in very rare circumstances, whereas on CBC Television, over half their budget comes from advertising. So that has a big impact on

Canadian Heritage committee  No, I plead guilty to being blunt. And Bill, having worked with me for about 10 years at the CBC, knows that I can be quite blunt, and stubborn at times. You've quoted me absolutely correctly. I haven't really departed fundamentally from the position that you have just quoted m

Canadian Heritage committee  Yes, Parliament can ask all kinds of questions. It has always recognized that—and I think that you can prove—

Canadian Heritage committee  There are some details that even Parliament has thought it best not to sort out because the philosophy underlying the creation of the CBC/Radio-Canada is its independence with regard to the government. We must find a balance, at the risk of having some kind of political interfere

Canadian Heritage committee  Yes, but only partially. As my colleague Bill Neville emphasized, the regional aspect must be improved. We have a very interesting culture in all the regions of Canada. There is a certain creativity that exists outside of the major urban centres. Many of our Canadian stars launch

Canadian Heritage committee  Ideally, there would be a very clear distinction made between the public and private sectors. But in practice, there is a grey zone. There will always be some overlap, because creativity cannot be demarcated so clearly. Broadly speaking, a public broadcaster definitely must play

Canadian Heritage committee  Yes, and I believe that Bill Neville has something to add. The CBC is subject to an annual audit by the Auditor General of Canada. The books are therefore audited, but it would be possible to improve transparency. In fact, the Auditor General recently pointed out in her report t

Canadian Heritage committee  Absolutely. I think the legislation needs to be amended to acknowledge the importance of new media. The CBC has to be a player. It is a player and is showing tremendous leadership. This should be acknowledged in the legislation so it can pursue this aggressively. There's a big

Canadian Heritage committee  No, those are the only two areas that we identified. There could be other areas, but those are the two that came to mind.

Canadian Heritage committee  Mr. Chair, I promised at the beginning that we would make some very specific recommendations. We don't want to beat around the bush with platitudes. We want to see action. So here's the very first one. It has to do with governance. Governance is not a very sexy subject, but it's

Canadian Heritage committee  Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and members of the committee. We would like to express our appreciation to the committee for giving us this opportunity to present our ideas concerning the important task that you have undertaken, a review of the mandate of the Canadian Broadcasting Corp