Canadian Heritage committee  I don't have the...but my understanding is that, yes, I know they participated in several major broadcast proceedings, and it is that independent organization that awards funding. I have not seen anything to disagree with those numbers.

Canadian Heritage committee  I don't mean to be picky, but we don't fund organizations and we haven't funded that organization. These are cost awards after the fact. When parties participate in our proceeding, they can seek some costs if they represent a broader public interest—not a private interest—and i

Canadian Heritage committee  Again—and I absolutely share your view, and this is a new situation for us—I have instructed staff. They were already looking at it since we first saw public reports about Mr. Marouf's comments, recognizing that he and the organization had been a party to commission proceedings.

Canadian Heritage committee  I really hope the answer is no. As I was trying to describe earlier, I see our role in this as facilitating a framework for parties to reach a commercial agreement. It's not very different from what I described to the member a moment ago about the type of mediation and arbitrati

Canadian Heritage committee  I don't really think there is. The CRTC has experience in this kind of situation and is well positioned to do the job, but my colleagues may have something to add on the subject.

Canadian Heritage committee  As I said in my opening remarks, we are doing as much preliminary work as we can until, obviously, Parliament has done its work and we know the outcome, assuming Parliament passes the act into law. How long it will take is hard to answer, because not everything is within our con

Canadian Heritage committee  You're asking a lot of questions. To go to the question of journalistic standards, obviously that's not what we are going to be engaged in. With respect to the quality of journalism, I would say that obviously financial support will be of great assistance, but there are other c

Canadian Heritage committee  I have. Obviously, we've been trying to prepare. We have a working group that involves several regulatory agencies, but I specifically have met with the Australian authority and the French authority, both of whom have different models that address this issue. I've also discussed

Canadian Heritage committee  “Best practices” would be the short answer. Obviously, the legislation proposed in Canada is modelled predominantly after the Australian model. That is what I've been most focused on. From a very self-interested perspective, many of my discussions with them have been on what th

Canadian Heritage committee  No, we can't be involved in any way. We certainly follow their public announcements and we follow media statements as to descriptions of how the regime has worked. We have no privileged knowledge of their processes.

Canadian Heritage committee  On a very general level, we're used to dealing with both small and large parties in our processes, so we can always accommodate small groups. I'd also note that similar to the environment in which copyright tariffs are established, smaller players can group together. I think it'

Canadian Heritage committee  No. As I said to Ms. Harder, it's not our role to design the legislation or establish the objectives. I understand you'll have the minister before you and I'm sure he could answer that question.

Canadian Heritage committee  Madam Chair, pardon me for interrupting. Could I ask for your indulgence just to be able to respond to the last part of the question? I think it's important that I provide the information requested on the record.

Canadian Heritage committee  I will. I want to be very specific and, hopefully, be helpful.

Canadian Heritage committee  The CRTC made two cost awards with respect to accessibility proceedings under the Telecommunications Act—