Canadian Heritage committee  There are two elements. One is certainly a level playing field. As we noted in the opening remarks, three-quarters of the data traffic on wireline networks is essentially programming. We've we've heard that more and more Canadians are consuming programming on that front, and that will certainly become the dominant programming distribution vehicle in the future.

Canadian Heritage committee  I will have an answer. I won't tell you, you know—

Canadian Heritage committee  —whether it's the CRTC that should be doing this or not. Going back to the original question, certainly all countries, legislatures and regulators are struggling with the same issues. We certainly have interacted and done research, and we have a team that scours the world to find out what is happening on this front.

Canadian Heritage committee  I can't say that any one has got that complete suite of services just yet. I think if you're looking at areas where you can ensure that you treat both local companies and international companies on a similar level, but again, also adapt to each way forward, those are certainly areas we're looking at.

Canadian Heritage committee  —with lots of plans on that front. What I think the CRTC is looking for is that, you know...we don't have all the answers to the exact “hows”, but it's essentially to make sure that we make the public policy decision to intervene or not. Then if we do decide to intervene, we give a body or a mandate to some entity to be able to implement those and enforce them.

Canadian Heritage committee  In our opening presentation, we mentioned the measures that are in place at the moment. Naturally, we are focusing on the issue of music on the radio, because that is clearly under threat these days, especially on the francophone side. So we are looking at our mechanisms to see how the radio industry, which supports music in a way, could support it better, so that the music industry can adapt in the future.

Canadian Heritage committee  We are looking to establish measurement mechanisms, be they for music or television, in order to clearly define Canadian content and, basically, to be ready for the future and the possible changes. Even if there are no changes, we have to be able to properly measure and understand what is happening.

Canadian Heritage committee  Our suggestion is that we need legislative changes and new tools to be able to help the regulatory system adapt to those particular environments. YouTube can contribute to Canadian content. We can all post there. It is contributing right now. It's one of the more open systems. Canadians can post and receive revenue from YouTube.

Canadian Heritage committee  Well, for us at the CRTC, being a regulator, being a creature of statute, the values we must implement are those prescribed in Canada's broadcasting policy found in section 3 of the Broadcasting Act. That's where we take our marching orders, and those values have been set by government and by parliamentarians such as yourselves for us to implement.

Canadian Heritage committee  Certainly if they develop, there's no apparent vehicle to currently replace the contributions that the existing broadcasters make to the system. Local news, for example, is certainly under threat. Clearly we're concerned about that.

Canadian Heritage committee  The CRTC has put in place a number of measures to ensure that television services remain affordable. Prior to looking at the Harnessing Change report, we ran what we called the Let's Talk TV proceeding, in which we looked at a number of measures, including producing programming and what's under threat, and we made changes to support local news in that case.

Canadian Heritage committee  I could give him one, but he's....

Canadian Heritage committee  You are parliamentarians. You set the broadcast policy for Canada. I am a regulator and I'm to implement it, and my objectives require me to be concerned about news and ensuring that a variety of sources are available; that is part of my job. That's my answer: we have that objective, and that's what we're required to do.

Canadian Heritage committee  Yes.

Canadian Heritage committee  I think the trends are pretty much in line with what we had evaluated about a year ago, and they certainly are, as we've explained in the report, consistently downward trends in consumption. As Sheehan has indicated, I don't think we're anywhere near a cliff, per se. There may be additional changes coming forward.