Canadian Heritage committee  The more financial pressure Radio-Canada is under, the more it transmits that pressure onto us. It's the principle of the bigger versus smaller. It's a little like fishing: the big fish eat the small fish. Earlier I told you that we were renewing the agreements every five years.

Canadian Heritage committee  Because we play an extremely important and somewhat unknown role. We are located in regions that do not have a high profile: northern Quebec, the Lower St. Lawrence and so on. These are not regions that make the headlines every day, and people don't talk about them regularly. There's a kind of cleavage between the major centres and the regions.

Canadian Heritage committee  A local television station is, first of all, the information centre: it broadcasts the news. With increasing media concentration—and that won't stop—Canada's Francophone market has witnessed a certain standardization of content. Information is manufactured in Montreal and redistributed in the regions.

Canadian Heritage committee  That's a good question. That system is important. The problem stems from its funding arrangement. If I have to compete with organizations that receive grants, I'm not fighting on equal terms or with the same weapons. By giving those organizations economic advantages and the same opportunities to earn advertising revenue, you create an imbalance that will ultimately affect us.

Canadian Heritage committee  That's not entirely what I said. Pardon me if I expressed myself poorly. I said that, as an affiliate, we are able to carry out the local programming mandate, better than Radio-Canada has done in the past. That's our business, that is our purpose. We serve the regions exclusively.

Canadian Heritage committee  As to the question whether CBC/Radio-Canada is able to fulfil its legislative mandate with the parliamentary appropriations and revenues it currently has, we feel that CBC/Radio-Canada will no longer be able to count on an increase in its advertising revenues in order to maintain its current level of service.

Canadian Heritage committee  The development of television in small markets in Quebec was facilitated by flexible regulations and the desire of the CRTC to bring the maximum number of television services to the regions. Subsequently, because of the great fragility of the small markets, the CRTC encouraged the owners of the television stations to obtain licences to operate television stations affiliated to the other two French-language television networks in Quebec in order to provide local populations with additional television signals and local services.