Madam Speaker, I listened to the member's remarks and I share a different view of the CBC. The Liberal Party founded the CBC in 1934. I have always believed that it was one of the great instruments that held the country together.
I believe also that in remote regions of our country where the private sector would not necessarily make the investment and take the risk, that the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation is there to make sure that every part of the country is interconnected and we can all feel as one.
A lot of things have been developed in Canada that have defied economic logic or to use business terms, earnings per share per quarter. We are not running a business here. We are building a nation. The criteria that one uses when building a nation and developing a set of values and a character for a nation are totally different from the value system used when running or building a business.
I would like to think that the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation is something that should be looked at in terms of building a nation and not just as a stand alone profit centre.
I regret that the Minister of Finance and the government have had to make the cuts in the budget to the CBC. Many people at the CBC are constituents of mine. I spent many a long hour having a glass of cranberry juice with Larry Zolf on the Danforth where he would reminisce about the contributions various artists have made and how some have grown through their exposure on the CBC. Right now all of these things are being jeopardized because the international bond markets, the people who control the real flow of capital, are holding the gun to our brain. I regret that and I know most members do.
Can the member not see that perhaps when we get our fiscal house in a little better order over the next few years that as a galvanizing agent we would go a long way to find something better? Would he not then, once our fiscal house is in better order, see that the CBC is something we should reinvigorate and make sure that it continues to build on that long history of pulling the country together?