As provinces move out of film classification in the streaming era, why is B.C. doubling down? | Canada Voices

Earlier this year, Rachel Fox of Vancouver’s Rio Theatre received an e-mail from Consumer Protection BC, the agency responsible for regulating various sectors, including classifying film ratings in British Columbia. Once Upon a Time in the West, the Sergio Leone classic, was set to screen at the Rio.

“They told me I couldn’t play the version we had booked – the one provided by the studio,” Fox recalls. The Rio’s website listed the film as running three minutes longer than the version rated in 1969. That alone, the regulating agency argued, meant it had to be resubmitted for classification.

Fox was puzzled. “Why are they looking at our website and comparing runtimes?”

Provincial film classification boards once acted as moral arbiters, moderating the so-called corrupting influence of motion pictures – shielding the public from hegemonic American influence or words deemed sacrilegious. Many of these boards were set up in the early 1910s, when cinema was barely old enough to vote, and theatres were popping up in metropolitan areas and small mining towns alike.

Today, film classification is fading in Canada. Ontario scrapped its system in 2020, letting cinemas provide their own advisories instead, citing dwindling revenues and the ascendance of streaming, which isn’t subject to the same oversight. The Maritime Film Classification Board announced its dissolution in March, and Saskatchewan is weighing a similar shift.

But in B.C., film classification is alive and well, much to the dismay of exhibitors, distributors and industry advocates who spoke to The Globe and Mail, calling the current system parochial, archaic and out of step with modern film exhibition.

Canada and Venezuela are the only two jurisdictions in the Western Hemisphere that still require regional, state-based film classification. Nuria Bronfman, executive director of the Movie Theatre Association of Canada, calls it “a burdensome regulation that is outdated, costly and unfairly punishes movie theatres.”

Kyle Fostner, executive director of the Vancouver International Film Festival, says the Motion Picture Act, which regulates film distribution and exhibition and was first legislated in 1986, reflects a bygone era. “I understand that [the Act] came through in an era when there was reason to be suspicious of large corporate interests in terms of the kinds of films that were being shown to people of all different ages,” he says, wishing that organizations such as VIFF had more autonomy.

“Our community trusts us to curate top-tier films with intelligence, patience and consideration. But we’re only trusted to do that for you if you’re over 18,” he says, citing non-profit and charitable organization exemptions, which allows films to be shown without prior classification as long as they are for restricted audiences. He adds that young audiences are missing out on French-language, Indigenous and environmental films – all sidelined by antiquated restrictions.

This “barrier to entry” is echoed by other exhibitors.

The Towne Theatre in Vernon, B.C., has collided with the system’s inflexibility. The theatre hosts youth clubs who produce short films – about sports such as snowboarding or skiing – for family fundraisers. But Consumer Protection BC requires all content be submitted 30 days in advance of their showing, meaning films need to be completed months before the event can be marketed. For winter sports, that means filming by late summer – long before the first snow falls. “It isn’t really workable,” says Scott John, board member of the Towne, who says the process deprives cinemas of crucial, community-based revenue.

The Kamloops Film Society faced similar barriers when planning French-language school screenings. Earlier this year, when organizers submitted films with the required notice, Consumer Protection said it was too backlogged to review them in time. Because the screenings were for students, the festival couldn’t use the non-profit exemption that allows unrated films for 18-plus audiences. They pivoted to previously rated titles – a compromise that undercuts the festival’s curatorial ambitions.

“It feels like there’s always an extra obstacle when we’re already stretched thin and running a lean team,” says the society’s executive director Colette Abbott.

Even well-known films face bureaucratic hurdles. In 2023, the Towne Theatre cancelled a screening of Star Trek: The Motion Picture after Consumer Protection reached out the day before and ruled that the 4K restoration required a fresh classification, despite the original film’s G rating from 1979.

In a move that Fox deemed disturbing, the Rio Theatre faced direct censorship in 2024 – uncommon for decades – when Consumer Protection demanded the removal of a three-minute segment from Dan Savage’s HUMP! Film Festival, a touring program of erotic, amateur short films, citing the Act’s prohibition on “bondage in a sexual context.”

“It was a short film made by two consenting adults, two women. It showed consensual bondage,” says Fox. The cinema complied or risked criminal charges – but Fox wonders why mainstream films such as Fifty Shades of Grey passed unchallenged.

Acquiring ratings information is also problematic. Once publicly accessible, ratings are now behind an industry paywall, and Fox says much of the information is missing or outdated. “I often have to e-mail [Consumer Protection] to get the information I need.”

Sonya William, executive director of the Network of Independent Canadian Exhibitors, says exhibitors face hurdles when a film does well. To extend a run, cinemas must renew the screening license with the province – often on short notice. Consumer Protection usually processes these in time, but there’s always the anxiety that approval could be denied.

Distributors navigating B.C.’s system also express frustration at their own set of obstacles. Consumer Protection requires all submitted films be free of watermarks, a non-starter for major studios. “When you’re dealing with major motion pictures, usually coming from U.S. studios, sending out unwatermarked copies of films to anybody is unheard of,” says Robin Smith, president of KinoSmith, a Toronto-based film distributor.

There’s also the matter of print copy fees, a relic of the pre-digital era. If a distributor has multiple “copies” of a film circulating in B.C. theatres, Consumer Protection charges a flat fee for each “copy” – even though in 2025, these are digital files, not physical reels. “There was a labour and logistical rationalization for that charge,” says Smith, “but it says something about how archaic the system is if they’re still charging you for additional prints when there is no cost of labour anymore.” In an industry operating on razor-thin margins, these extra costs can make distributors think twice about opening international films in B.C.

Media historian Paul Moore argues that film censorship bureaucracies have historically burdened experimental artists, subcultures and minority communities. In the 1940s, the Ontario Censor Board began targeting diasporic films, insisting that only subtitled prints would be considered.

This prompted criticism from Canadian Moving Picture Digest editor Ray Lewis, who accused the board of acting “in a principled way without considering the actual cost and the disproportionate impact” on immigrant communities who just wanted to see their culture on a screen. As Moore notes, “the people who can pay to follow the rules are always the Hollywood studios, not the local independents trying to do something on a community level.”

Cinemas have not recovered from the economic impact of the pandemic, says William, whose organization advocates on behalf of Canadian independent cinemas. But people are still going to the movies.

William believes there’s power in watching films communally. “When people experience these things together, they’re more likely to go on and make art themselves,” she says.

In May, the Movie Theatre Association of Canada released a report showing that 62 per cent of Canadians aged thirteen and over attended a film screening in 2024. While per-capita attendance is down, the report says “younger Canadians are a bastion of movie-going.” William hopes exhibitors can capitalize on that, creating “the next generation of cinephiles.” But in order to do that, the government needs to become a partner, not a roadblock.

In a statement, the Ministry of the Attorney-General says it “has had discussions with industry stakeholders about the current classification regime and we are open to feedback about B.C.’s system. We will continue to monitor the actions taken by other jurisdictions to determine if their approach might be appropriate in B.C.”

Quebec and Alberta are the other outliers in Canada’s classification regimes. In Quebec, the Ministère de la Culture et des communications mandates that all films must be distributed by a Quebec-based company. “As much as this creates hurdles for a non-Quebec distributor,” says Smith, “I admire that they recognize that it’s not just a cash grab but also a mechanism to enhance the local distribution and business community.” The Alberta Film Classification Office, by contrast, is more affordable and flexible than B.C., with a reputation for being “more approachable.”

Most Ontario moviegoers don’t realize the province eschewed film classification in 2020, putting content advisories in the hands of exhibitors. Mike Klassen, programmer at The Hyland Cinema in London, Ont., says they still assign age self-determined ratings based on the Ontario Film Authority’s old model. And he says no one’s had reason to complain. “Our job is to inform the public why they should come see a movie and we take that responsibility seriously.”

Fostner, with VIFF, remains optimistic that change is possible in B.C. “This is as simple as the public acknowledging that this protection was valuable then and is not valuable now,” he says. “We can change the way that we interact with each other in cinemas and in cultural spaces. It’s well within our grasp.”