Information & Ethics committee  I've just explained to you that we administer this fund. We make sure it is used for the purposes set out for it. I went through the criteria we used and I explained to you the reports they have to file each year, what they have to contain, etc. Now the company takes a position

Information & Ethics committee  I do not take any position on whether this is justified or not; I just take the information. Knowing that they furnished it to me in confidence, I respect that confidence. Effectively, the challenge is with the private broadcasters. I have no issue here; I just put it in court an

Information & Ethics committee  No, we ask for all sorts of information from anybody who's licensed. Whether it's a broadcaster or a distributor of cable content, they file it with us. Each year we publish a volume this thick called the Canadian communications report, or something like that.

Information & Ethics committee  It is considered more or less the bible by the industry, that is, as reliable data of what's happening in the industry, including how many people are watching, what they're watching, how much they're spending, the times, and how the audience shifts, etc. It's all aggregated so it

Information & Ethics committee  Absolutely.

Information & Ethics committee  I'd like to deal with the first point about competitors. They clearly are competitors in trying to attract eyeballs. And also, since the CBC lives off advertising for a large part of its money, they compete for advertisers. When we had the value for signal hearings, it was a ques

Information & Ethics committee  CBC, like everybody else, has given us the costs addressing these points. Everybody does it slightly differently, and we have to evaluate. This LPIF program, as I mentioned, was born in the middle of the financial crisis, when there was a danger of many stations going dark. It'

Information & Ethics committee  Thank you.

Information & Ethics committee  We're talking here about third-party information, that is, information that is not ours but which people have filed with us and they claim is commercially confidential. This is a very dicey thing. On the one hand, you want to disclose as much as possible; on the other hand, you

Information & Ethics committee  It is out right now: as I say, it is with a court. You asked me how it could be improved. I think procedural improvements could be made and the process could be sped up. But the basic principle that a third party decides is, I think, correct.

Information & Ethics committee  The fund has now been in operation for three years. As I've mentioned, Canadians really value local television for what it is: it is local and brings to the news what is happening in your local area. We've heard that over and over in our hearings. Yet when you run a television ne

Information & Ethics committee  These are the ones on which we ask them to report. Obviously, when we have a hearing, people can bring forward whatever evidence they have to show that local programming either does or doesn't work.

Information & Ethics committee  It's exactly as I said before. Some people may claim it's confidential, in which case I won't release it. If we get a request, and if it has been filed with us..... If it's not filed as confidential, obviously it's public, and it goes on our website. If they file it with me as co

Information & Ethics committee  I think the terms are basically synonymous. A public broadcaster is usually owned by the state. You could have a public broadcaster that is not owned by the state; that's why there is the slight distinction. But in this country we use the terms synonymously. I think “public broad

Information & Ethics committee  First of all, the Broadcasting Act has a specific section devoted to the CBC, and we obviously have nothing to do with the CBC's financing or CBC programming. But there are certain objectives that are set out for the CBC in the act, and there are all sorts of public interest grou