Canadian Heritage committee  We're speaking about the ISPs being taxed. Reynolds has been involved in our court case and with the other partners in our appeal to the Supreme Court. Perhaps he could give you a little more detail.

Canadian Heritage committee  I would jump in on that, if you would be prepared to hear my answer.

Canadian Heritage committee  Amen. It's hard for them to make policy suggestions.

Canadian Heritage committee  I think that in the independent production sector and in a large part of the creative community, there's a strong belief that the Internet service providers should be paying a levy that would go into production funds. You need to put money into the content and finance the content

Canadian Heritage committee  The CRTC has taken the view that they want to see an agreement on terms of trade, and they're encouraging the parties to come to the table. They're requiring the broadcasters to have an agreement in place when they come for the group licence hearings in the spring. So that's very

Canadian Heritage committee  The support of the commission for the idea of a deal on terms of trade is significant. We have had great difficulty reaching terms to date. We've been talking about this with broadcasters for many years. We've had analyst discussions. We're going to try it one more time. We've si

Canadian Heritage committee  Thank you for the question. I want Reynolds to give you specifics, but I would say that we too want an industry-based solution. Currently we're in negotiations with the broadcasters, but those negotiations wouldn't be happening if the commission hadn't insisted on some kind of f

Canadian Heritage committee  That's a good question. I think the whole industry has to look at this. As I said, we need to evolve, and we need to calibrate that evolution very carefully. The truth is the vast majority of the revenue from consuming content is currently still in the television industry. The d

Canadian Heritage committee  The American system is a completely different system. It's dominated by large studios, largely, and major broadcasters who are producing the content themselves, in some cases, or financing the content 100%. They have what's called a “service production industry”. So, basically, a

Canadian Heritage committee  Those platforms are not generating massive amounts of revenue, certainly not as much as the traditional platforms. I would refer you to the British system. In the U.K., the government, several years ago, saw the same imbalance in their country, and they directed their version o

Canadian Heritage committee  The real problem, if you're an independent producer, is you're basically in a take it or leave it situation when you're dealing with broadcasters. There are fewer broadcasters in the marketplace than there were five or ten years ago, so you have fewer customers. That's one thing.

Canadian Heritage committee  There are short-term and long-term sets of potential solutions that we need to consider. In the short term, terms of trade is our best opportunity. The commission has encouraged--and I could use a stronger word, has insisted, really--that the broadcasters and the independent pro

Canadian Heritage committee  Before we wrap up, I would like to make a short comment about the Canada Media Fund. As you may know, the Department of Canadian Heritage's contribution to the fund expires at the end of this fiscal year. This program is crucial for underrepresented Canadian programming and the

Canadian Heritage committee  Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman and committee members. We appreciate the opportunity to appear before you today and will keep our remarks short so that we have more time for questions and answers, but first we offer our congratulations specifically to you, Mr. Chong, on your recen