Hon. Frances Lankin: Thank you, Senator Housakos, for putting forward your views. I would like to, in my question, set aside the matter of the CBC because I think there are many other points of debate that come into it, and that polarized view held among some of us in this chamber won’t be resolved through this particular bill.

I spent a number of years as chair of the Ontario Press Council and then the inaugural chair of the National NewsMedia Council. It has been my experience that any newspaper that brings forward critical arguments, whether it is of one political party’s positions or another, is named “fake news.” I have heard it many times from across the floor as well.

Here is what I want to understand from you: The voices of those small community newspapers that many of us in rural Ontario and across Canada rely on have largely been cancelled out and have not been able to have the resources and the staffing to do local investigative journalism. They rely on The Canadian Press and other feeds.

Your proposal doesn’t address how this issue will get resolved. Surely some of the $81 million is better than nothing at all. Could you speak to what the solution is, please?

Hon. Frances Lankin: Why is it always me you warn? My reputation precedes me.

Thank you, Senator Anderson. I, along with a number of my colleagues in our group, had a chance this week to meet with a member of the Transitional Committee, Mike DeGagné, and also with representatives of the Métis National Council. We have further meetings coming up.

One of the things that Mike DeGagné, who is First Nations, talked about was the representation of the work going forward to the Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami, or ITK, the Métis National Council and First Nations, and the importance of them having a role in designing the consultation. He also talked about this as being a bill to enable the building of the house, but the view of the house, the structure of the house and the foundation of the house must be informed by meaningful, deep consultation with the community. That is the framework approach.

Sometimes, that’s really difficult for us — the framework approach — and we’re seeing it with other bills because the consultation is to come, and the commitment of the consultation is there —