Hon. Leo Housakos: Thank you, Senator Downe, for this important amendment that you’re putting forward. We’ve been asked, with Bill C-11, on countless occasions by the government and others to trust the CRTC going forward in order to set reasonable standards and a framework for Bill C-11. We see now a very blatant example of how the CRTC neglects to enforce licensing obligations on a particular broadcaster.

The question I have for you is the following: Can we have faith, when they do not impose the obligations already — for example, they’ve never fined the CBC when it’s well within their right to do so when they don’t respect licensing; the CBC has never had public hearings in order to justify the reduction of services — can we trust the CRTC to ultimately do the job they’ve been given to do?