The Big Week, Or, It's Interesting When They Try to Kill You

"MAY WE LIVE IN INTERESTING TIMES." You've probably heard that before. It's a Chinese saying, I think. What most people miss when they trundle out that quote, though, is that the Chinese meant it as a curse.

Well, we have plenty of interesting coming up this week in the Canadian TV racket. First, as previously mentioned in this space, on Wednesday the Senate banking committee takes up the cause of Bill C10. There's an article in the Hill Times that has an interesting take, if for no reason than it finally quotes someone who can speak to what the real effects of this hasty and ill advised change will be, Maureen Parker, Exec Director of the Writers Guild. It also hints at just how much the Government really wishes it didn't have to deal with this:

Canadian Heritage officials recently met with film and television lobby groups to "allay fears" surrounding the so-called "censorship" provision in the Conservative government's bill affecting tax credits on offensive TV and film productions, but the groups weren't so impressed with the meeting, says Maureen Parker, executive director of the Writers Guild of Canada.

"They were trying, I think, to calm us down and perhaps get us off the topic and out of the media, but of course we're not going to do that. This is very much a pressing concern. It is a censorship issue," Ms. Parker said of the March 6 meeting, when she and representatives from ACTRA and the Directors Guild of Canada met senior Heritage officials.

"They weren't successful in what they were setting out to do because, as we all told them, ACTRA, DGC, and WGC, that they were missing the point. The point was that guidelines will not work," she said. "I expect as employees that they're taking a lot of heat right now."

The Heritage Department requested the consultation with the groups to discuss a controversial provision on film and TV tax credits in the Conservative government's Bill C-10, an act to amend the Income Tax Act, which has passed in the House of Commons and is now before the Senate Standing Committee on Banking, Trade, and Commerce.

The bill would give the government the flexibility to deny tax credits to television and film productions with graphic sex, violence, or other offensive content. It's said the provision was not caught earlier because it is buried in a large bill primarily intended to implement the taxation of non-resident trusts and foreign investment entities and implement amendments to the Income Tax Act.

Film and television lobby groups have been getting in line to appear before the Senate Standing Committee on Banking, Trade, and Commerce, which will open its study on the bill this week with an appearance from Heritage Minister Josée Verner (Louis-Saint-Laurent, Que.). The government has said it will publish guidelines to help determine tax credit eligibility for productions, and Minister Verner has said that the new provision has "nothing to do with censorship and everything to do with the integrity of the tax system."

The Heritage Department's request for the meeting is seen as quite unusual, however, because such a consultation would normally be held before the bill is tabled, when the legislation is in development. Indeed, the issue is said to be a sensitive one for the government, particularly because if the Senate amends the bill, it would be sent back to the House of Commons for a debate and vote—and further politicking.

Conservative Quebec Senator David Angus, chair of the Senate Banking Committee, did not respond to a request for a comment on the issue, and the Heritage Department's communications office last week said next to nothing about its meeting with the lobby groups. The Heritage Department took 24 hours to respond to questions about the meeting, after which time the department only said that it "has been consulting with stakeholders to collect their views. This will continue."

Ms. Parker, who said she has not had any meetings with Parliamentarians to discuss the bill, said she expects to appear before the Banking Committee with screenwriters, and one of her central arguments will be that the guidelines will result in a kind of self-censorship for television and film writers who will write to ensure that they receive financing.

Film and television productions have high costs, she said, and no one will spend time developing a show or film that has the potential to come short on financing.

"I can tell you, my writers will write for guidelines. If you think you're not going to get a show financed, you'll completely change the type of program you deliver," Ms. Parker said.

The tax change, she said, will also discourage banks from providing loans to risky productions because they may not be eligible for the tax credit. For instance, she said that a 13-part series would borrow about $1.7-million.

"That's a lot of money. If the bank thinks they may not get that money back after the fact because the tax credit is denied, after the production has been made, they're not going to invest. It's not like a $40,000 investment. It's $1.7-million," Ms. Parker said.

At the meeting with the Heritage officials, attended by Robert Soucy, director of the Canadian Audio-Visual Certification Office, and Annette Gibbons, deputy director general of cultural industries, Ms. Parker said she asked to see the proposed guidelines but was told that they were not finished. She also asked whether the guidelines will be similar to book and magazine guidelines for tax credits, but did not get a straight answer, she said.

"It's not necessary. This is something from the omnibus bill that should just be deleted," Ms. Parker said. "It creates uncertainty for the financing of projects."

Right on, Mo. Deleting the language from this bill and sending it back for debate is the only appropriate course of action, first because it's a bad precedent, and a bad change, and secondly, because any thinking person can look at the way in which this was done and know it stinks. They tried to get one past. It didn't work. Send it home.

Keeping the pressure on is essential. In this post you'll find the email addresses of the Senate banking committee. Blanket them. Tell them that these provisions in C10 amount to pre-censorship. Tell them to toss it back. Tell them to do the right thing.

Meanwhile, across the river and down a bit in Hull, you're gonna find the latest hearings from the CRTC. On the agenda today, and for the next three weeks: "Should the CRTC lift genre protection and rules that prevent American cable channels like ESPN and HBO from being seen in Canada?"

The cable co's say yes...but of course they would. They'll make tons of money selling new premium packages if they can offer Canadians the crack that they always loooove -- U.S. Channels! But then again, the broadcasters say, much like Amy Winehouse re: Rehab, "Noo, noo, noo."

This article in the Globe and Mail today is typical in laying out the positions -- as far as it goes. I'm not gonna quote from it. You can go read the whole thing and come back if you want. The interesting thing in it for me, though, is how it ignores the elephant in the room.

See, neither the Report on Business writer who wrote the article, nor those broadcasters really want to go headlong into the argument that could save them: don't let the channels in because it will kill our homegrown programming.

That's the argument they could make; except for the fact that they haven't really done much homegrown programming. Especially on the cable side. There's the rub.

This is part of an ongoing thing in the Globe, too, by the way. Yes, John Doyle writes about Canadian culture -- he does it again today -- but that's in the Arts section. The business writers in the paper act as if the whole domestic industry does not exist. So a few weeks ago, an article about the economic impact of the WGA strike makes it seem like nothing new has been on Canadian TV for two months -- when the reality is that we had more new programming on than in the USA, because, um, you know, there were shows we made, too...and now this. The very thing that could have made this a no-brainer argument: protect us because we make things that are different and we use the U.S. program rights we have to support that -- isn't a strong argument. Whoops.

There's no question that Canadians would like to have ESPN and HBO. But, here's a case where I think Astral could stand up there and argue TMN. TMN may sell by making money on Showtime and HBO shows (and Canadians get a better deal than Americans -- You only have to subscribe to one channel here to get the best of both of those American networks) but they also have moved into aggressively making Canadian series -- Durham County only being the first example.

The fact that MTV was kept out in the 1980's means that Canada is one of the only countries in the world that has a youth branded Music channel (Much) that is homegrown, and not a copy of that MTV brand. That's significant.

But for many of these specialty channels, it's a law of diminishing returns. They've been treated a bit like cash machines for the last few years. Safe in their protected areas, they recycle the same programming seen on their over-the-air corporate brothers. This strategy reaches its height of lunacy with the rerunning of CSI: NY, or JAG, on History, as Alliance Atlantis (Now Canwest) burns off runs from other contracts.

There are the good, and the bad. Slice and Food Network Canada make a lot of shows. Space, not so much.

I happen to think that bringing in HBO and ESPN and channels like it would be a disaster. I think that Off The Record is Canadian Culture. I think sports headlines with a Canadian twist is something to be fought for. And I think TMN trying to be the Canadian HBO won't work if the US version is right there sucking all its oxygen.

But at the same time, I'm sure when it finally comes down to it, and when those broadcasters stand up and say, "how can you think of ending this practice" and they trot out a few Canadian Domestic TV supporters to support them, I hope somebody on the ball would say, "well, why don't you make more programming, then? To me, it doesn't look like there's much here we should be protecting?"

Maybe then the discussion can shift a bit. For too long, the industry has hoarded their protections, and traded away ours. Maybe some meaningful, real committments to CanCon can be pulled out of this.

Or maybe we'll all get HBO next year.

Who knows?

Have an interesting week!