Crews work on a film set for a Titans Netflix TV series in Toronto on April 17, 2019.Doug Ives/The Canadian Press
On Wednesday, particularly passionate cinephiles will celebrate National Canadian Film Day, an annual extravaganza of free nationwide screenings that was cooked up by the non-profit organization Reel Canada back in 2014. But in the background of NCFD, the real fight to secure the fate of Canadian film is being waged in a quieter, more bureaucratic fashion, inside the offices of distributors, producers and, especially, members of the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission.
Next month, the CRTC will hold a public hearing that could very well set the future for homegrown cinema. Originally scheduled for March 31, but postponed after Prime Minister Mark Carney’s call for a federal election, the “Path Forward” hearing will attempt to untangle just what “Canadian content” means today, as part of the federal regulatory agency’s plan to implement Bill C-11, the Online Streaming Act.
What may or may not be defined as Canadian content is crucial since one of the main goals of C-11: to compel any foreign-owned streaming service with revenues of more than $25-million inside this country – such as Netflix, Disney+ and Prime Video – to contribute 5 per cent of their annual domestic earnings to support local productions.
As it stands, though, one major group has been left out of any potential funding: filmmakers. The money from foreign streamers is set to be funnelled to the Canada Media Fund (which mostly supports television and digital media), plus the production of local news and such equity-seeking organizations as the Indigenous Screen Office. There are no C-11 funds set aside for Telefilm, nor are there obligations for streamers to work with Canadian film producers and distributors to generate domestic content.
The entire issue has taken on renewed urgency over the past few months, given the U.S.-Canada trade war. Suddenly, Canadians are waking up to the realization that homegrown culture is worth fighting for. In a poll released Monday by the Canadian Media Producers Association, 91 per cent of Canadians believe it’s “important to protect Canada’s culture and identity, especially in contrast to the influence of the United States,” while 83 per cent want “greater investment in Canadian-made TV, film and digital content.”
“In a world of tariffs, here’s a great opportunity to create a made-in-Canada business that can hold its own,” says Noah Segal, co-president of Elevation Pictures, Canada’s leading independent film distributor. “The intent and idea of C-11 is good, but we now have to buckle down and really state our case that this is about building an economy. We need to take more control over our destiny.”
As such, the Canadian Association of Film Distributors and Exporters has submitted a notice of consultation to the CRTC urging the federal agency to pay attention to the “ambassadorial role” that theatrical feature films play in meeting the various objectives of the Broadcasting Act.
CAFDE also stressed that there should be “flexibility” in whatever new definition of Canadian content the CRTC arrives at – such as increasing the traditional but outdated points system that tallies how many creative elements of a production are “Canadian” in order for a project to qualify as subsidized content – so feature films can be made more market-friendly throughout the world.
Another crucial point for CAFDE is ownership: Content should only be considered Canadian if its underlying intellectual property is at least partially owned by Canadians and not, say, the Netflixes or Amazons of the world.
“Ownership enables Canadian producers who have a meaningful share in their own success to then reinvest those revenues in developing the next great Canadian film,” says Reynolds Mastin, president and chief executive of the producers’ association. “That’s the virtuous cycle.”
There is also a political case to be made that can appeal to both sides of the aisle.
“If foreign streamers join the ecosystem, they’ll be compelled to work with Canadian producers, which will force them to make more commercial fare, which will then create a gold rush of economic activity,” Segal says. “Whether you’re Liberal-leaning, in that you like to see more money sent toward the arts, or Conservative-leaning, in that you want to let the market drive production, this ruling is essential.”
At the moment, any contributions from streamers are tied up in court. Last summer, the Motion Picture Association – Canada, which represents the interests of major Hollywood studios such as Netflix, launched an appeal on the C-11 measures. The CRTC is going to court June 9 to defend its decisions, and insiders expect a ruling to be released before Sept. 1, the traditional start of the broadcast year.
“I think there’s a lot of goodwill for this to happen – look toward France,” says Mark Slone, president of Photon Films, referencing that country’s recent victories in which Disney+ and Apple TV+ agreed to invest upward of 25 per cent of their annual French revenues to finance local series and films. “It was a big fat ‘no’ in France until it was a ‘yes.’ I’m in the Canadian film business – you have to be an optimist.”
