Canadian Heritage committee  Oh, yes. I mean, what we proposed was what I said, that you take out the people who are already subsidized, like the CBC. You can subsidize them however you want through direct subsidy, but take them out of that fund. You apply it so that only companies that are primarily engaged

Canadian Heritage committee  I think that our proposal in the paper was to see a phase-out period for that funding. Having built the dependence, it would be rash to suddenly whip the carpet out from beneath them. I think it's unfortunate that the dependence has been created. The original journalism labour

Canadian Heritage committee  No, that's not what I said.

Canadian Heritage committee  Well, there are a number of things that I think people should consider. I think expanding the tax deduction for subscribing to a newspaper or making a donation to a newspaper under a not-for-profit model should be examined. If any government considers news to be a public good, I

Canadian Heritage committee  I'm not quite sure I understand that.

Canadian Heritage committee  Yes, as long as we don't get too bogged down in the present. I think if we throw some energy in and people from all points of the spectrum get together and bank some ideas together, then I have great faith that people will be able to get through this. There are a lot of smart and

Canadian Heritage committee  No.

Canadian Heritage committee  Are you talking about the Google fund? That's a different thing.

Canadian Heritage committee  The Google fund is a different fund. The way I conceive of a web giant-supported fund is that it would be administered only by the industry itself. You would keep politicians, for their own good and the good of people, at distance—

Canadian Heritage committee  Actually, that's with the CRTC's oversight. I'm not having a big problem with the Google fund as it is. It's ended up as a fund and not as a commercial negotiation between two companies. That's okay if that's where it ends up. It actually looks a lot like the fund that Konrad an

Canadian Heritage committee  I never said I was opposed to it.

Canadian Heritage committee  I am supportive of a fund funded by web companies. I'm not supportive of, as your initial question indicated, direct government funding to newspapers.

Canadian Heritage committee  I'm supportive of that kind of fund, yes. We proposed it ourselves.

Canadian Heritage committee  It would be too bad if they were unfairly treated. I think the idea behind it is that everybody would be fairly treated. The idea of the fund that Konrad and I put forward is that it would be distributed, notwithstanding the exclusions I mentioned, on a per capita basis, per jour

Canadian Heritage committee  They wouldn't necessarily be included. I think the main purpose was that it would be businesses that were primarily in the business of news. For instance, in broadcasting, you have a lot of radio stations that do news only because the CRTC licence demands that they do news. In