Canadian Heritage committee  For example, if a viewer would lodge a complaint, normal practice is to send in a complaint, and ask for a reply from management. If the complainant is dissatisfied, the complaint is generally sent to the ombudsman for either the French-speaking section or English-speaking section.

Canadian Heritage committee  No, you're absolutely right. Everybody has a different way of defining “regions”. That's why the word “region”, in a sense, has been defined almost as “local” in radio for the CBC. When they have a local television station and the mandate is regional, obviously that means one thing.

Canadian Heritage committee  When I mentioned earlier that we had five strategic objectives in the cultural affairs sector, one of them is reflecting our diversity, which includes regional diversity. So the vast majority.... I don't want to say all, because I'm not sure of every single one, but all of them have a regional component.

Canadian Heritage committee  As a manager in the public service, what gets measured is what gets done, so I'm always focusing on the results story. Some of that is occurring now in different venues. The CBC assesses itself in its annual reports on how they think Canadians view them themselves. That's a self-awareness, a self-assessment of that.

Canadian Heritage committee  That's a value judgment I'm trying to avoid. Certainly all broadcasters have a duty to reflect the diversity of Canada. By “diversity”, I include ethnocultural diversity, linguistic diversity, aboriginal diversity, and regional diversity, because they're all part of the picture.

Canadian Heritage committee  However, this is a quantitative and not qualitative analysis.

Canadian Heritage committee  Yes, we have. On the appointment of the chair, obviously in Japan, with NHK, which is the largest public broadcaster, they have a different way of doing it, so we've looked a bit at that. The one we've concentrated the most on has been the BBC model, for a number of reasons. First, the Canadian model is largely based on the BBC model of the mid-twentieth century, so there are some similarities there.

Canadian Heritage committee  No to the specific question you've asked, but certainly not no to the general trend. We're tackling this across magazines, books, and audio-visual, in terms of the challenge of emerging technologies and how we get there. Our objectives in the department and across the culture portfolio are to support the creation of culture, which we have good mechanisms for, and also the access.

Canadian Heritage committee  Thank you. With respect to your first point, we will certainly try to find that information. Once again, we will see with our colleagues at Radio-Canada if they have the documents that we can then pass on to this committee. To my knowledge, there has been no comparative study that shows that the CBC is in greater difficulty.

Canadian Heritage committee  I won't repeat what was in the presentation specifically. I think they've had some great successes at the corporation. I can tell you that there was the same reaction in my programs with cultural affairs, but for my team it's very important that we stop seeing the Internet as a threat and that we also see certain opportunities.

Canadian Heritage committee  Younger Canadians are there. In a sense it's oversimplifying, but it's almost as if you have two markets to deal with. If we want to keep building our cultural sovereignty and our support to culture, both from a creation and access perspective, it's key that we're where the younger and newer generations are.

Canadian Heritage committee  Absolutely. I don't know if you're familiar with the whole economic notion of the long tail, but the idea is that the Internet allows you to have catalogues available. Normally when you get out a movie or TV program all the hits are at the beginning and then it dwindles off. But the idea of the long tail is that because you can keep inventory available at low cost, you can keep doing sales over time.

Canadian Heritage committee  There are some questions there that are beyond my area of responsibility, certainly in terms of demographics. We'll do what we can to find that information for you, perhaps working with our colleagues at CBC-Radio Canada to break that down for you. They would be in the best position to explain how they have reached those new audiences.

Canadian Heritage committee  Yes, the entire century. On page 4 there is an important pillar of the current system that is worth reminding ourselves of. The Broadcasting Act quite clearly sets out the importance of all broadcasters exercising freedom of expression and journalistic independence. Of course that definition includes all broadcasters, but it's actually repeated for good measure elsewhere in the act to give you more independence.

Canadian Heritage committee  Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you and good morning ladies and gentlemen. I will be making my presentation from the deck that you have before you. We've interpreted your request here as that of setting the stage for further study of the public broadcaster and helping you embark on that review.