Canadian Heritage committee  I would like to make a couple of points to answer your question. Obviously making the CBC an Internet destination is really important if it is the first choice for all Canadians for news. Canadians have a huge subscribership, for example, to The New York Times online. I think they do use CBC as an online destination, but anything that can help....

Canadian Heritage committee  In terms of funding, if we're talking about making.... The CBC is mainly becoming commercial-free; obviously, then, there needs to be a new financing model. I don't imagine this government is particularly sympathetic currently to increasing the funding to the CBC, so I think there needs to be a hard look at other revenue models and at how the CBC is spending its money and at how much it spends on sports.

Canadian Heritage committee  The BBC still does have that. Anyone who has a TV set in the U.K. pays a fee that goes directly to the BBC.

Canadian Heritage committee  I think Mr. Shaw engaged in a smear campaign against Canadian television to suit his own purposes, and to be frank, I think he's full of it. I think you were not in the room at the beginning of my presentation when I cited a number of examples of quality Canadian television that regularly get over two or three million viewers.

Canadian Heritage committee  Could I add to that? Further to what Mr. Jones so eloquently said, I think you need people at the helm with vision. You need a visionary. Someone needs to re-vision what the full potential of the CBC could possibly be, completely blue sky, not let's shove some American programming on or let's try to compete with private broadcasters.

Canadian Heritage committee  I'll just briefly answer your question. No, it does not represent the racial and cultural diversity of the country.

Canadian Heritage committee  If I can just inject something to back that up or to wrap up....

Canadian Heritage committee  If you look at Brian's concept that if you attract an audience when they're young, you retain them, if you look at George Stroumboulopoulos and The Hour--and I'm just bringing this up to say that I think CBC is doing some things that are right--that brought a lot of viewers back to the CBC who knew George from when he was a VJ on MuchMusic.

Canadian Heritage committee  When CTV and Global both have representatives on the ground who can make decisions, as an example.

Canadian Heritage committee  Yes. Brian and I just talked before about specifically which genres we feel the CBC should be addressing. We wanted to bring them up based on both our own personal business experiences and how we've worked with the CBC. I know you heard Carl Bessai speak very passionately about feature films, so I'm only going to speak very briefly and make a point.

Canadian Heritage committee  Thanks for having us. I hope we'll be entertaining. I know you guys have listened to a lot of people. My name is Trish Dolman. I'm on the national board of the Canadian Film and Television Production Association, which represents producers across the country in film, television, and new media.

Canadian Heritage committee  I come to you as both a representative of the CFTPA and an independent producer. I'm president and founder of a local company called Screen Siren Pictures. This is our tenth year in business. I have produced drama, feature films, documentary, and performing arts programming with the CBC in my 10 years in business.