Canadian Heritage committee  It was after Le Soleil.

Canadian Heritage committee  That will be difficult.

Canadian Heritage committee  When we acquired the six daily newspapers in Quebec, at first it was a business model. At the time, the Gesca group chose a business model for La Presse+ that, as we know, has been a resounding success. Gesca remains a world leader in the field. I applaud those people because the

Canadian Heritage committee  When I acquired the newspapers, the difficulties were apparent. Did things happen faster than anticipated? I can speak on behalf of the coalition members and say that the collapse has been brutal. Again, we must look back. As I mentioned earlier, we decided to develop a numbe

Canadian Heritage committee  This has resulted in a fundamentally unfair situation. I'm in favour of competition, as long as it's fair.

Canadian Heritage committee  We're asking to receive assistance for a few years.

Canadian Heritage committee  First, you've been speaking about competition. Of course, I do support competition, but we all agree that we support fair competition. When every day we have 200 journalists in the province of Quebec getting into our newspapers to not only try to produce but to succeed in produci

Canadian Heritage committee  If I may, Mr. Vice-Chair, we've been speaking about democracy and about newspapers from across Canada making the difference to local communities. This is what the coalition is standing for, essentially. Of course, when you look at our businesses, we're talking about 2,500 employe

Canadian Heritage committee  We will be able to get those figures for you. We have tables that provide comparisons with what is being done elsewhere in the world. You will be able to see that, in terms of government assistance in other countries, we can't even talk about a comparison. We are in the Stone Age

Canadian Heritage committee  We can check. Just now, you said that we should not be embarrassed to come here asking for assistance. Essentially, what we are asking for is a partnership. We are asking for the government to intervene to settle issues that are basically unfair. It did it in the past, you know.

Canadian Heritage committee  Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Thank you for that question, sir. Let us go back to the first comment you made about the $20 million in government advertising that today stands at $495,000. It must be understood that we are not asking for an additional advertising budget. We un

Canadian Heritage committee  If there is some time left, I can keep going.

Canadian Heritage committee  Thank you very much. Mr. Chair, Mr. Parliamentary Secretary and members of the committee, it's a pleasure to be here today. It's also a pleasure because we consider the mandate entrusted to you as a lifeline. It's a mandate we welcome, obviously, and one we want to take part in.