budget

pleases

industry

Montreal: Producers here have responded positively to the budget tabled in the National Assembly by Finance Minister Jean Campeau earlier this month.

‘Clearly, the finance minister sees our industry as dynamic, a creator of employment, and one with a bright future,’ says apftq co-chairman Claude Heroux.

Highlights in the budget include positive provisions for the integration of the provincial tax credit with the new federal tax credit, an undertaking to make cultural magazine and variety programs as well as multimedia production admissible for Quebec’s refundable tax credit, probably by fall, and a commitment to return savings by the province stemming from the canceled federal tax shelter back to the industry.

Total credits issued for certified production in 1994/95 were over $40 million.

‘In the cultural funding area, the Quebec government has been the most astute of the provincial governments and it’s good to see this tradition continue,’ says Tom Berry, president of Allegro Films and chairman of the Canadian Film and Television Production Association.

Berry says the provincial government is to be applauded for its prompt response to the federal tax credit. ‘They are the first to properly adjust to the new situation, even before the federal credit program is operational,’ he says.

Just prior to tabling the 1995/96 budget, Quebec Premier Jacques Parizeau, also minister of culture and communications, announced an $8.5 million grant for the building of a new film and tv documentation center in Montreal. The center will house both the Cinematheque quebecoise archives and Institut national de l’image et du son (inis), the advanced film studies school.

The project is expected to cost $15.5 million, with $6 million in additional funding coming from Municipal Affairs and another $1 million from the Cinematheque.

Earlier, the government announced a $4.5 million grant for inis.

Campeau’s budget maintains that the level of benefits derived by producers from the refundable Quebec production tax credit is unchanged by the new federal investment tax credit, and adds that $5 million in 1996/97 and $9 million in 1997/98 will be reinvested in the industry as a result of savings from the canceled federal tax shelter.

A spokesman for the apftq says the producers association estimates the savings to Quebec are in the order of $9 million to $10 million annually.

The May 9 budget also provides for an annual $15,000 exemption on copyright payments to artists whose total copyright earnings are under $30,000.