Et vous aurez vécu... (FICTION) (French Edition)

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Nous nous dirigeons vers un film en 3D avec la technique d 'Avatar. Ou Le Fugitif avec Harrison Ford Dans Source Code , on prend progressivement conscience, comme dans les romans d e Philip K. Comme dans Un jour sans fin, Code Quantum, Source code revisite les boucles temporelles. Sans oublier une pirouette quantique finale qui n'est pas sans rappeler la toupie sans fin d' Inception. Le film sortira le 27 avril dans nos salles Il y a deux ans et demi, cette envie est revenue.

Mai elle me manquait. Malheureusement l'histoire se termine tragiquement. C'est avant tout un exercice de style. La BD, c'est ma famille. Je ne renierai jamais mes origines. On est debout, on se bat. Le temps se ralentit, c'est extraordinaire A la FIAC ou ailleurs, on voit des choses bizarres. Tant mieux que l'on me reconnaisse. Et finalement, il est naturel que nous arrivions dans les salles de vente, dans les galeries, ou chez les collectionneurs. On se rend compte que ce sont non seulement de grands humoristes, de grands dessinateurs, mais aussi de grands artistes.

La BD est un art vivant. Moi, je n'y ai jamais cru, et je suis content d'avoir eu raison. J'ai grandi aussi avec Gaudi. Ce qui me surprend toujours, ce sont ces architectes de ans qui me disent: C'est une immense flatterie. Moi, mes architectures ne tiennent pas debout: Sauf que je suis autodidacte et mes perspectives ne tiennent pas debout: Jacques est mort en Parce que cet album a eu des fractures, des cassures. Alors, comme dirait Tintin: Either they didn't know about it or they just didn't feel and they just didn't express any views on it, so it is a little agnostic.

So I hope next time you come you will put a little bit more energy on that because complaints are really important for consumers in general and for the general public. So I hope you will keep this in mind As we in government at all levels do public policy, it will be an interesting case study of how one does engage differently through digital media.

So thank you very much. Please come to the presentation table. Please identify yourself for the transcript and make your presentation. It means program cancellations and increased repeats on radio and television. In addition, our members talk to us about seriously reduced program budgets and, in most cases, increased demands for output from our members. That often means the same number or even fewer people trying to do more.

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Our folks are stretched to their limits and are doing their very best to deliver quality programs to their audiences. The Commission has noted in two previous proceedings that it will consider CBC's specific needs during this proceeding. This includes the only TV newscast north of the 60th parallel. We believe it can be created using a small percentage of BDU gross revenues. Our suggestion is 0. Those years, between and , were an interesting and, I have to say, quite scary time in the media. I spent a lot of time learning, thinking and speaking about what was going on in our industry.

Television alone is very different from when I left eight years ago and there are features that make it more engaging and instantaneous for viewers, all the various platforms. There's excellent training about them, online and in person, and whether you are in news, current affairs, TV, radio or online, people are taught to take those standards very seriously. Our collective reputation relies on every one of us upholding those standards and those are standards that the CBC sets for the whole industry.

I use those words very carefully -- breaking point is what it is. We are in every major centre in the country to be sure, but we are also in many mid-size communities and rural areas where news breaks. We are in the North. We have reporters serving all platforms, live if necessary. We were in Iqaluit for example with regular updates when food protests erupted this summer.

La grande mascarade macronienne n’est plus très loin du…

This was an important factor in our coverage of the student protest in Quebec this year, where the CBC services were able to benefit from the depth of coverage from our Radio-Canada colleagues. The same is true with the ongoing Charbonneau Inquiry. If you work at the CBC, chances are good you have worked in more than one region. Our members at CBC gain broad views of Canada and a rich perspective that informs our daily work.

Just before we take your questions, I will speak quickly to the final recommendation in our brief, that CBC be required to report publicly on efforts to improve the representation of people of colour and indigenous people, both in front of the camera and in decision-making roles behind the scenes.

It is a question of the public broadcaster's relevance, and therefore survival, to ensure its programming is made by and for the rich diversity of the people living in Canada. Although there is no public data available on this, experience tells us that behind-the-scenes decision-making is even less representative. We know that the Corporation has initiatives related to diversity and inclusion. We are urging for a public reporting to open up the conversation with Canadians about how to achieve this important goal and to make sure it remains on the public agenda.

Thank you very much. And what they, what gets measured gets done, so I guess that's your message. You have in the full package that the CBC reported on last year a small section on on-air representation, and what we are saying is that's not enough. We believe that CBC has more information at its disposal. They may have to change a few things in the reporting they already do internally in their equity and inclusion work, but we think the data is there or close to being there. We have a group of members who are involved in this discussion with CBC on a fairly regular -- probably not regular enough -- basis.

It's also questions that should be asked of other broadcasters. You can put all kinds of people on-air but until you have the wide range of people making decisions about programming, you won't get there. That's our sort of modest opinion. My next question was going to be, setting aside the reporting requirements, how are they doing, but I gather you are telling us the data isn't there that would allow you to make a knowledgeable or educated statement on that issue? And, you know, we are probably the wrong people to even make that assessment.

I mean we represent the members we have and they are fantastic and they are -- we don't want to mislead you, we are already quite representative of the country. We think there is more to be done on that score.

I don't want to miscount people, I don't want to suggest that there weren't racialized people involved in that discussion, but I think that that will be the challenge going forward, is really represent -- CBC needs to represent the full population of Canada. That is a public discussion, it doesn't rest with us, it doesn't even really rest with you, it rests with the public. I haven't had a chance to look at your appendices and the Ryerson piece that you spoke of, but what came to mind and it was about a year ago we had some commissioners from the CSA, the French regulator, and I also had occasion to see them thereafter and they -- it's a model that you maybe should take a look at.

It is readily available. But we spent a lot of time speaking to them on that issue with my colleague Madame Poirier. But that's a model that maybe we can look at -- or you can look at and we will take it from there. You kind of did a redo of the LPIF debate and you threw in a. I gather that would be available to all and not exclusively CBC. It's -- c'est un autre fonds. We realize that for a lot of reasons Let's not redo the hearing, let's go to your.

So for a lot of reasons you didn't keep the fund and we kind of agreed with some of those reasons. No, but this is where we came up. So we said, fine, cut it in half,.

If we want to rebuild local media in this country, it is not going to be done by the private sector in multiplatforms. What about independent broadcasters that have sort of three or four sticks in a region? And, you know, does it make sense for them to get -- to tap additional money for local programming.

You guys be the judge. We would not jump up and down and say no to that obviously. We are trying to be generous here. But on your ask here,. I mean they are not getting much compared to how much money is in the pot for Well, that would be up to -- I mean we are saying if you do it somewhat the way you did the LPIF funding, you know, we would say base it on incremental programming over and above the pre-LPIF days for sure and then you could figure out -- I mean what this would be really intended to do is increase the amount of quality local programming being done.

I would be to differ that they are not exclusively or mostly concentrated in Montreal but How would you break that down? I mean would you want things to be exclusively meant for nonlinear services? Well, it could -- I mean I think TV is the expensive, is the big ticket item, but we know the CBC has digital services, local digital services as well. If there was an element to help support the plan in improving both local digital and local television and local radio at the same time, why not, probably in content that work together.

Increasingly community media organizations are online, so if there can be partnerships between, you know, various -- let's say Hamilton CBC and the local community radio station to do something together, why not? So, like, multiplatform partnerships or just multiplatform work among those broadcasters could be very interesting. So those monies would go wherever the recipients of those monies would like them to go, in other words? Or wherever the rules you would establish tells them to put it.

I think that we would be open to Would you have a thought on that, on the establishment of those rules or would you allow them maximum flexibility? I think we would have to look at -- you know, we would have to sit down and be part of that conversation and have a chat about how they would -- we would love to be part of that conversation is what I mean to say and at which point in time we could have that discussion. I can't really -- I don't think we prepared anything in that respect today for you. Because what I would like to say is that this is the time to have that conversation, be part of that conversation, but if you haven't put more sort of detail into that plan, that's fine.

My assumption is you probably would not be able to establish such a fund immediately if you chose to do so given that it affects other participants in the system who haven't had the opportunity to weigh in, so the Pattison Group, Shaw. You know, our brief was out there, but I don't believe you asked that many questions of Shaw yesterday on this, not that I heard. But for the time being your ask is for the public broadcaster and community television, that. Well, without getting back into the LPIF debate, I think the response when you had last discussions were overwhelmingly that Canadians did not complain about the LPIF costs, from our understanding, our recollection, our read of the data.

Our view is this is a public broadcaster and it has to be available to every Canadian across the country. I think RDI and News Network play a major role in disseminating information and we just -- I have to tell you, we just don't see how that would serve the Canadian interest in making -- in taking the News Network and RDI out of 9 1 h. I haven't got anything specific to add to that, but what we are saying is why not give people the freedom of choice of language. If you are providing a service you should be providing it in the language of their choice from coast to coast to coast.

It just doesn't make sense otherwise. But you can provide it and give them the liberty to decide to pay for it as opposed to imposing that on Canadians. Except that RDI is hard to access. If it's up in the stratosphere you have to pay a lot for it. It becomes not a real public choice, it becomes a market choice. BDUs would have -- you know, it depends, I guess there is -- I may be the regulatory whiz of the union, but even I don't know all your terminology and I know there is Category A, there is Category B, there is must carry.

But people would have to pick it I think is wrong. I think it should be part of the basic package because otherwise it will be hard -- you know, it just should be available in every house. And everybody should pay something for it. And the reason everybody should pay something for it, I think -- and CBC tried to make that clear -- is that, especially in the case of RDI, there's nobody else across the country going to be gathering news.

Where do you think those cuts will be? I don't know, but they will probably be in some of those regional bureaus that are harder to pay for out of commercial revenues, right. That's just the reality. Is there an argument to be made that it should be imposed because we are a bilingual country and you should have access to French services outside of Quebec and English services within Quebec? Is that a valid argument? I think we would agree with that. It is part of the role of the public broadcaster in our view and it should be available across the country, east, west, north, south, ocean to ocean to every Canadian.

I get different perspectives from different news broadcasters. Diversity of voices is what we are all about and what we very strongly support. Especially voices in one of the two official languages, or both. Monsieur Malo, vous voulez rajouter quelque chose? Quand vous parlez des moyens des gens, il y a des gens qui n'ont pas les moyens, et s'il faut qu'ils paient pour, il y a des bonnes chances qu'ils ne paieront pas pour I have just a quick question with respect to your LPIF-like fund, the recommendation, and I'm just wondering about the public's reaction because the cost will obviously be passed on, the BDUs are not rate-regulated and we had that discussion before.

It would be great if the government would fund this kind of programming adequately. We're not in a situation right now -- that's our argument, we're not in a situation where the CBC can do much more to support local programming without cutting in other areas. In fact, I believe this year they are paying 1 percent. I think what Marc said earlier is they know what they are getting at least. They involved our members in that reporting, what are you guys doing locally?

I know a lot of our members told us that they had contributed to those reports and people were very proud to do so and the public knew what it was getting. The public seems uncomfortable with the idea of introducing ads on radio for revenue. They are paying less in their taxes this year because of the cuts.

This is a way to make up some of that difference to pay for something that the public thinks is very important. Where there's not a solution for the government this is a way for the CRTC to fund this proposal. And it's also a targeted way. You are not just handing over the keys and saying have fun, you're saying this is local programming, set up a mechanism, maybe work to share platforms, maybe not, if you decide that is a bad idea, we think it would be a good idea given the way the industry is moving to do multiplatform stuff, but you are not giving them a free cheque, a blank cheque, you are saying cable subscribers are paying, satellite subscribers are paying for quality local programming, make it so.

It's interesting, we had the option to modify the LPIF fund at the time of that review and that isn't what happened but that is exactly what you are recommending. It impacted on programming and on staff, and so on. Arnish said -- and I'm reading the verbatim:. Are you really efficient and are really the cuts affecting you and affecting the Canadians outside Quebec?

Because you represent journalists outside Quebec. There is no meat on the bones anymore. Actually you are cutting into the bones. Our folks are working really, really, really hard, long hours to put out the best programming. Some modifications, mild changes, but in the last cuts the CBC is now actually -- you know, you look at the afternoon radio schedule, repeats.

I mean I have been there 37 years, I didn't see that for 34 years, right. TV is going through the same thing. Voyez-vous ce que je veux dire? But what's behind that is the people on the floor at the CBC would tell you that they are not doing the job that they could if the Corporation was properly resourced. And because you are bringing me back to efficiencies, I wonder if some efficiencies could be found in at the corporate level more than at the regional level?

I don't think we want to go down that road. I'll let Mark answer that because that's somethng that I want to just point at our Chart number 2 in your package. I just want to respond directly to the CAB, Chart number 2, Number of communities served with daily local programming versus revenue. It's minuscule compared to what some of the other big broadcasters have at their disposal, right, compared to the job they do.

So, I mean we really would take issue with the fact that there is fat in those operations. Well, I don't want to bring the discussion where you don't feel comfortable. Chair, I have another subject. Do I have enough time to ask another question? Est-ce que cela vous Absolument et c'est un C'est "a work in progress is all I can tell you. Alors, vous dites un article dans la convention collective? Il y a une convention C'est notre convention collective, c'est sur Est-ce que c'est un document qui est disponible sur votre site Web?

Il y a toujours des Ce n'est pas une destination de vacances. On est un peu Je veux juste t'avertir d'avance. Je lui ai dit: Il faut que les gens s'entendent constamment. Well, your participation enriches the public record and our deliberations. So, thank you very much. It is an independent watchdog for Canadian programming, on the air and online. It works in the anglophone sector of the country. In poll after poll, a significant majority of Canadians say they support maintaining or increasing public funding for the CBC.

From to , total program spending will have increased by 15 percent, while spending on the CBC will have declined by 22 percent. That is a 37 percent gap, based on budget and Treasury Board data. This is a bad business strategy, and also bad public policy. It has not prevented deep cuts to CBC's programs, services and staff. It has not resulted in increased audiences or profit. It has alienated core supporters, and it has skewed programming and scheduling decisions.

We understand the value of flexibility. However, we cannot support the CBC when it asks you to trust it to do the right thing. Recent past experience shows that such trust would be misplaced. This must not be allowed to happen. They simply cannot afford to do these things any more. We think it is a matter of choice. They have tried to backpedal on that this week, but their words speak for themselves. Chair and Commissioners, the CBC is not any other broadcaster. The CBC is Canada's national public broadcaster, with pride of place in the Broadcasting Act, and it should, and it must, be treated accordingly.

Failing that, we invite you to examine, and recommend, a system along the lines of the BBC Trust, which, while not without its flaws, does provide an independent means to ensure that key strategic decisions of the public broadcaster are scrutinized to determine whether or not they make a positive contribution to public value.

The CBC is called on the carpet every decade, or more, and in between apparently gets to do pretty much whatever it likes. However, there is an important difference between simple reporting and real accountability. That would be a tragedy, as it would capitulate to those forces that are opposed to a robust and independent public broadcaster. We need to help the CBC learn how to earn and deserve renewed public support, and then mobilize that support to advocate for resources to do its job.

That is the end of your presentation? I am wondering, because you have made a number of suggestions throughout your document on the various issues, as to what would be a COL or an expectation, if we took all of those recommendations, would that comprise what you mean by a distinct regulatory regime, or could you tell me more about what you would expect there? Well, seeking not to repeat, first off, probably we have common ground that the CBC is not a broadcaster like any other, and all of those comments about "We should be treated like any other broadcaster", are worth absolutely nothing.

They should never have been put on the record, and shame on them for saying that. Your Chair's predecessor -- it's a blot on his record that those administrative decisions were made to delay the CBC coming back here.

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I particularly commend to your attention, and would offer to provide you more detail, if you wish, the application of the BBC Trust model as a mechanism. That would require a statutory change, but it is something that you could recommend. So, then, I do understand when you say to create a distinct regulatory regime, if that was as far as we could go, incorporating your recommendations would address that line, but then, beyond that, you offer the BBC Trust as a model. I don't know if Staff would already have that document, but I think it would be useful to submit it, if you would.

So I am just wondering, following along on that point -- I did raise the point -- with respect to the terms of licence, I raised the recommendation that you had made, that we make a provision to meet with the CBC if they fail to negotiate that agreement again, renegotiate it, or under substantially the same terms, and they were not receptive to that idea. I would say that we are completely dissatisfied with the CBC's response. So I am fully familiar with the comments you made. It's stuff that's out there.

None of this is new. I knew all that. So you will have a way of evaluating the broad strokes, but what we are trying to do is scope for you the importance. But if you take the eight months of the year -- a typical year, not a year with a lockout -- if you take the eight months of the year when hours of programming, in prime time, are related to professional sports, something percent of it hockey, it is 40 percent a sports channel. There are about 1, hours of prime time in eight months of the year.

We do not have a mandate from the , families to be against hockey. But if it were to happen -- and it could, because their competitors have deep pockets and can afford to take a long view -- then it's appropriate to discuss these things, not to sweep them under the rug. I appreciate your comments and bringing them to our concern. You can learn a fair bit about the current lockout impact by looking at the financials. It is quite serious. It will get much more serious if it continues longer, and I don't think that the CBC has any influence over that.

That is something that is almost, if not completely, beyond its control. So we are already going to experience the impact of hockey on their plans, even before the renewal. Except that rational interests might align. That is to say, the CBC interest, some American broadcaster's interest, the interest of the owners and the interest of the players, might cause them to do the right thing.

Well, certainly there is increasing pressure on the parties to settle. Toronto is also a region, like all the others. The problem is that Toronto just doesn't get it. So talking about the regions, they are moving in the right direction, certainly in radio. Some of the news services are good. It's not inherently more expensive to make a program in one place rather than another. There are the problems with provincial tax incentives and all of that, but you could be pushing the English television network to do a minimum -- and we suggest 40 percent -- beyond They say there that they don't feel they can make a specific commitment to non-news local programming due to financial constraints.

I think this is the same condition that we are talking about, that they should be held to have a certain percentage from the regions. If you have a chance when they come back -- and you are still in a position to pose questions to them -- try to find out why national programming coming from other places than the network headquarters is inherently more expensive.

I was actually hoping to have my lunch hour to get more organized with my questions, so if you don't mind Well, you'll probably have a better lunch, Commissioner, as a result. Yes, every cloud has a silver lining or some such thing as that. You note in your study of that Toronto station the higher percentage of -- a lower percentage of repeat and primetime but much higher outside of primetime, but you're recommending a general 50 percent across the board. But we are just drawing to you attention something that was -- these are your data, by the way.

I mean, you own the logs. All we did was run them through a machine, you know. We don't come up with pretty pictures like that one you came up with. But it's going in the -- it's going in the wrong direction. It's the velocity as an economist would say, of the repeats that is wrong. But you know ultimately, if you think about repeats, once you get to percent repeats you have no programming. Well, actually my next question was what impact you thought that would have on their costs?

But, actually, you sort of average it out. It's like in accounting failing to amortize a capital cost and living off it until something bad happens. There is an analogy to be made. CBC did address some of your comments in their response on October the 19th. You spoke in terms of the Hamilton experience but I was actually thinking more than that. I'm concerned that not everybody is interested in using computers. Not everybody can and not everybody can afford it and not everybody is interested. I just don't know that this is the proper solution for regional programming. You raised that earlier and I took you away from it.

You know, the phrase "digital citizen" you know that some of the people that we just showed you on video have coined, you should not have to be digital to be a citizen and the Broadcasting Act does not say that. There are a number of people for a number of reasons who do not wish or have the capacity or cannot afford that.

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I think it's the role of your Commission, at least implied if not explicitly stated in the various statutes, to look out for those people. I mean they need you to look out for them. It's interesting because, not only in fairness to the people living in the regions which is where I come from, but these digital citizens that you talk about, not everybody in Toronto I expect is a digital citizen either.

I think there is more limited local content in the regions. So I think it's not Because it's a digital service you and I and friends in Whitehorse can watch it. I urge you to surprise them by just watching it at random some hour and see what you think about it. Did you in But CBC in their presentation -- this is one of the instances where they talk about they want to be treated like the commercial broadcasters.

They want the 14 hours and the seven hours. I know that they are saying they will continue to offer They'll do it on their own and trust us those features. I think, at the risk of repeating myself, it's completely unacceptable. I mean, if you were a CBC manager it would make your life easy, wouldn't it? I mean, it would be a rationale for doing less. It's your task in our view to hold them to a higher standard. That involves a whole range of things. The COL, conditions of licence are part of that. But the governance structure, all of the accountability things also come into play.

I did have the opportunity since I've been on the Commission to visit CBC in Yellowknife and they have a great operation there, very enthusiastic people and we enjoyed visiting with them. So I know they're committed I find -- I mentioned it in French at the beginning that we're doing -- nothing in our submission is designed to criticize the dedicated people who make programming -- the people who are you know sitting before me at this table. It's something to celebrate. They need more resources. They are really pressed. Thank you for that. I think we're in agreement on that.

I just want to -- you're opposed to the commercialization of Radio One and Radio 2. But then I think you say that -- just bear with me a second here -- that you want the minimum hours. You want an expectation -- first of all, just the bigger picture, let me step back a bit. And CBC seems to be wanting, as we know and we have talked about, more flexibility. But they seem to maybe want to move away from expectations and just deal with a couple of COLs. You would hope so, wouldn't you? I mean it's a difference between a legal and a moral obligation.

Ethical people treat those moral things as important. We trust you as commissioners and with your staff, to look at the big picture and find a reasonable balance that you think will work. That's not something that anybody on the outside can see because you are in a position to see the big picture. You got up that cliff in , your predecessors.

You just forced the CBC out of commercial activity on radio which it had been in since They are completely at odds. Goldstein was on the CAB panel yesterday. He said that he thought CBC was low balling potential revenue. We think that this is turning particularly the English side, Radio 2, into a kind of a profit centre for the rest of the network. We think it's a shame. We see a bit of a pattern here and we think it's going in the wrong direction and we urge you to stop it. It's who is going to be hurt by this in an economic sense. It's going to be the radio broadcasters in small markets and the small broadcasters in the big markets.

Now, I read your section on that, of course, in here. Do you have any more detailed forecasts than what were included in here? Yeah, and if you like, I'd be happy to -- I think CBC said in the reply document, which we found on the Web -- the first time I've ever dealt with a broadcaster, by the way, that did not copy intervenors to give them information on what they were doing.

They wanted to be treated like other broadcasters. If you're interested we can pull that report together and put it into a form that could be part of your record. It would take me a few days to do so, I would think. How long could you -- how long would it take you for you to propose that?

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Can I do a best efforts here that we would do our best efforts to get it to you by, say, Tuesday? I'm not saying that it's necessarily on the record, yet. We'll have to look at it. But anything that is useful to you officially or unofficially. I mean we don't care if it's on the record. It's just we're trying to contribute to the process.

Yeah, but we always copy the broadcasters when we do that. We know the rules. It's not that you didn't make your point clearly. It's just that I'm rushing trying to read my point, my own point. You're talking about the amount of regionally-originated production in general and of regional live music in particular. Steinman said that on Tuesday, I think, here did he not? If I understand from what's been reported to me, I may have seen a transcript. The CBC panel did say that it would be eliminated if they didn't get -- or reduced if they didn't get it.

But what was wrong with what they said, according to all my information, and I've got some good information, is the tense of the sentence. They have already done that. They have greatly reduced some of the services that used to be taken for granted on Radio 2. I'm not as familiar as Espace Musique. You know, as we see it, the world classical culture is down to 40 percent and in bad times of day on Radio 2.

But Espace Musique has 60 percent of that, so they're not the same thing at all. I noticed just along those lines that you make a point in your presentation about the cuts proposed or the -- well, I guess it would be cuts if it doesn't get approved. So if their plans happened, we think they would have more revenue. That's our reading of it. I don't know if you have a different view. Well, I think that's an interesting comment and perhaps speaks to the credibility of their projections, would you say?

That's where the real money is. You get up to much larger amounts and that will be included in what I will send you. And it seems that the further -- that the move to commercialization on the radio service would probably in the future -- you'd be concerned, I gather from your comments, would change the nature of those services like it did on the television. Well, sitting quietly in the -- I was here Monday morning and then I had to go out west because the Prime Minister very unkindly called by-elections and I was hosting public broadcasting all candidates meetings in Calgary and Victoria.

Starowicz was involved at the time when radio lost its commercials. Many people call that the renaissance of radio. You know it was just like a complete rebirth of the power of CBC radio as a distinctive service, something you'd expect from a public broadcaster. People -- you know, if you check do they tune in at least half-hour a week, radio is such a powerful thing you know people tend also to tune in to a favourite radio channel or service, whereas with television they are just -- they're shopping around.

I noticed that -- I believe that you make a comment in here that what was it, , people that responded to your survey? No, I think you might be confusing us with the Reimagine people. We did not compete with Reimagine on a survey. We have cooperated with them. And we took -- the one-year gap gave us a chance to do a very detailed content analysis of something like 2,, actually, submissions that had been put into your -- I guess -- no, they weren't all put in because you had cancelled it for the deadline date.

So we just analyzed them all and that gave us some background. So we estimate you can at least, you know, almost double that in terms of the people that communicate with us about these things. I mean, for example, I know about problems with CBC and complaints, as Louise Poirier raised earlier, because I hear from these people all the time. But I thought what I had read -- and maybe you could speak to that -- was the impact on that audience of commercializing those two radio stations.

Are you -- you seem to indicate that they'd lose the audience. I mean, there is a difference between our supporters in the Canadian public. Our supporters are people who believe intensely something. There are about 15 of them, including the one that asks about the CRTC. But I was struck by the -- I've forgotten the name -- but a woman who is an expert that was called by the CBC to support its position on the Radio 2 advertising question.

I thought she was going off message but she's an expert. She's telling the truth, you know. Well, thank you very much, Mr. I think you've answered my questions. I'll have some later if I come tomorrow, but I'll give my colleagues a chance. I had some questions but I think Ms Duncan sort of did the rounds of them. I also liked the subtle art that you have of sending messages out there.

It's really quite well done. And in terms of the accounting, two issues came up yesterday. Obviously, a lot of issues came up. One of them was that they were sort of low balling their estimates. I think the most meaningful thing, if you and I put ourselves in the mind-set of the senior management of the CBC and there is a shortage of money, what are we going to do? You look at the whole thing. So when we look at the size and scope of radio in that whole thing it comes out somewhere like 16 percent, you know -- let's say 15 just to rough it.

The ultimate view perhaps being to make a better case for allowing commercial revenue to come through the second stations. I am old enough to have learned not to imply motives to other people egregiously, so I just don't know why they do their bad things. In terms of programming and CanCon, you heard -- as you know, there were all kinds of numbers -- percent, it should be 75 percent, it should be 80 percent. We would insist that the numbers should be compatible between the English and the French services, and the number 80 seems like a good and reasonable number to us. I guess we can't under-stress the importance of original programming.

You mentioned that earlier. Yes, because the Broadcasting Act says so. You know, it's right there. At the risk of repetition, I think I responded to Commissioner Duncan at one point, saying: We think that there should be a commitment -- I am talking English television -- to put a certain proportion of entertainment programming outside We suggest that to you. I mean, you might, in your wisdom, decide that some other number is better, and we would be very happy if you just put that on your list of issues to be dealt with. I was taking notes, and I didn't get the actual number, so I am happy that we cleared that up.

So maybe you are Well, they don't want to speak -- they don't even want to discuss the hypothetical, if you followed the full presentation on Monday. It's amazing, when a deal is done by the NHL with an American broadcaster, a press release comes out from the American broadcaster: We've just done a deal. It's worth this much, over so many years. And, at the end of the day, there should be a contingency plan for filling those hours. That's the position of If you ignored this, you would be ignoring something on a scale larger than the three-year cut that the Minister of Finance imposed in March, at least according to us, and you would be I think you would be writing them a blank cheque, because something fundamental could change in the second year of a licence -- three-year, five-year, seven-year, it doesn't matter how long the licence is -- that would be on a scope and scale so severe to CBC's interest that, at the very least, they should be back here explaining what the hell they are going to do about it.

Good Canadian, as you said earlier, sorry, and no hell. That might possibly be a problem, but you folks are creative people. You should find a way to make sure -- not just leave it to them to volunteer to come back retrospectively, like the eloquent defence of the Radio 2 changes that came five years after the fact, a couple of days ago.

And that position is warranted given that they are not a sports channel, but 40 percent of their content is sports-based, if you will, according to what you told us today.

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Yes, and I was trying to be a bit ironic. I think that they are a sports channel dressed up as an all-purpose channel, I guess, right now. There is an excessive dependence, obviously. To be fair, the economics are different. It's a different issue. I want to bring you back to -- I am glad that we got into the details of the regulatory role that we have to play, because, after all, we are a statutory body, right? We only have the powers that the Act provides to us. You know, we live in a parliamentary democracy that finds its roots several hundred years ago, in fact, and we have a situation, and you may not like it personally, and others may not like it, but budgets are presented and voted on annually by our elected officials, and, as I say, it's an annual affair.

Except for a few statutory programs, parliamentary budgets are an annual thing, and that goes back to the very origins of our parliamentary democracy. Well, you would have a better perspective on that than most of us. I recall a press report early in your incumbency, where you were quoted as saying something like: We don't want to give the government too much advice, and we expect them not to give us too much advice -- or something like that.

I take your point on that. In fact, the accountability of the CBC -- I mentioned this right at the beginning -- is something that we will turn our minds to, as we do for every broadcaster. We are not treating them any differently. There are reports -- and probably even more so in this case Well, in the sense that our jurisdiction -- the scope of our jurisdiction is not any different for the CBC in terms of accountability and our ability to ask them for reports and so forth.

There is a lot of public money there, I'm not disputing that. It's just that some of these other suggestions -- and you are not the only one, I am not singling you out I am not taking issue with the fact that you may disagree with some choices that have been made in terms of the level of funding, but we have to execute our statutory authorities and obligations within a given set of facts, and I think the level of funding is something that we have to deal with.

I think that's -- isn't that paragraph 3 of my oral remarks this morning? We are not going to lose the rights to Hockey Night in Canada. The amount of commercial revenue is going to drop way, way down, and certain sunk costs for selling it -- it is an appropriate time to think about their whole business model. Right, and we will be guided, in large part -- not exclusively, in large part, by section 3 1 m , which actually defines what the Corporation's mandate is, and section 5, which talks about the regulatory obligations that we have, and 5 2 , about our regulatory obligations, and that gets all put in the mix.

Some people memorize Shakespeare's sonnets. I memorize section 3 1 m , but I don't want to have to prove it to you. Yes, I am sure you do. Unfortunately, it's somewhat less poetic than Shakespeare's sonnets, but let's count the paragraphs rather than the ways. Those are my questions. I believe that the Vice-Chair has a follow-up. Now that you are in the mood for taking responsibility for one and all, let's put something else on those broad shoulders. Would you speak to us on the feeling amongst the Friends of Canadian Broadcasting as to the role of the Ombudsman, and if there is room for improvement?

The worst "No" that you got from President Lacroix was "No" to the independence of the Ombudsman, and I think you shouldn't let go of that question. That was a very important question. If they had some type of quality assurance system, we don't think that CBC would be at the top. I will put it that way. It should somehow come back to the regulator, because it is an accountability matter. It's something that the Swedes introduced to this planet 50 years ago. It is widely understood. Even the city that I come from has an ombudsman. Would you have a formula to propose as to the nomination of said ombudsman?

You tend to hear about it after the person is appointed, and I stand by my clubbiness comment. That is not interference in some matter of scheduling or something like that, that's a fundamental accountability issue akin to what I said earlier about the difference between reporting and accountability.

It is very much appreciated. Representatives of some of the Access organizations are here with me today. CBC broadcasts the most captioned and described programming in the country. The quality of their captioning is excellent and CBC staff regularly meet with disability organizations to discuss challenges and listen to user priorities.

CBC goes well beyond any accessibility condition of licence mandated by the Commission and has demonstrated by example that the resources exist today to provide percent captioning and 50 percent described broadcast day. For these reasons, Access supports CBC's licence renewal unconditionally. The CBC at the beginning of a described program shows us either a logo which would interact with the vision, persons who are sighted, and a described -- that this program is described. This is very important because when I am trying to watch a program and I do not know it is described, I require the assistance of a family member.

If we all want to watch the program together, then that's pretty decent, but if it is one that is described and my children wish to be elsewhere, they can leave the room and I don't have to bug them for the answers. This is vital for a person who is vision-challenged or a person who is totally blind like myself. It is important that I know whether or not I am going to need the assistance of others to help me get through a program I either want to watch for enjoyment or for information. The Commission's disability policy, CRTC , requires broadcasters, commencing at licence renewal, to program a minimum of 4 hours per week of described programming, 2 hours of which are to be original to the programming service.

That's over 12 times more than what's required. CBC provides the most accessible programming in Canadian broadcasting and likely the world. This makes them distinctly Canadian. Commissioners, I would like to take a moment to speak about the quality of accessible content. CBC has played a leading role in ensuring captioning quality. CBC has always worked with captioning agencies employing certified real-time captioners. Today therefore, all broadcasters must provide CBC's level of captioning quality as a condition of their licence.

The fact that the current standard was based on CBC's quality is evidence of their outstanding performance. Unlike CBC, most broadcasters are not considering quality DV when they contract with agencies to do the work. And we thank the CBC for demonstrating you can have good quality descriptive video. I think we can all agree that online technical advancement and content distribution is outpacing traditional broadcasting. BDUs are seeing reduced revenues in cable and satellite and broadcasters face reduced revenues due to competition from YouTube or Netflix and they have created online media departments as a result to ensure access to their content via the Web.

However, we feel that something must be done to ensure accessibility in this expanded BDU and broadcasting business model. Otherwise, Canadians with disabilities will once again be excluded from the social, political and economic discourse of this country, the majority of which is beginning to occur online. Chairman, we would like to commend CBC for going well above and beyond the mandatory requirements currently required by the Commission and for demonstrating what is possible under section 3 1 of the Broadcasting Act today for accessible communications in Canadian broadcasting.

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