Quebec’s plea to be seen as a distinct society – whether politically, culturally or linguistically – need only use the voice of the province’s indigenous production industry to prove the point that all can be well in a paradise that is largely self-sufficient (with, ahem, some crucial federal support). Take stock: a well-oiled tax credit provincially that sits at about $51 million, a pending federal no-service credit that will serve the province’s producers better than most of their neighbors to the east or west, an actual increase this year in local cultural subsidies and an excellent marketplace that views its own makers’ materials – with zeal.

Then we have the rest of this land. On the national level, budget cuts to Telefilm, the nfb and cbc/Radio-Canada amount to more than $400 million through to 1998/99, rendering culture as dispensable as defence and transportation.

It’s been Canada’s incentives that have driven production where it counts most – in high Canadian content, original and exportable programs. And it is arguably the combined, long-term effects of these incentives – with some national ingenuity – that has made Canada the world’s number two exporter of audiovisual programs. Apparently, a source of great pride. Yet look at the feds’ history on any of the three crucial agencies in this sector. Cheer up and listen to the pronouncements of our new Heritage minister, perhaps our only hope for sustained government interest in the future of Canadian film and tv. Then again, remember her absolute devotion to opposing the gst.

To take a quick, cross-country tour (it could, with some incentives, be a high-speed rail excursion), b.c. has virtually no Canadian film incentives but boasts one helluva service industry and manages to scare up about $4 million annually in production and development assistance. Alberta was just getting to the point where it actually had an infrastructure when it was chopped at the knees by Premier Klein this winter. Ontario continues to host the likes of Geena Davis and Hugh Grant, in part through its government-funded on-locations department, while the ofdc and ofip remain as frozen as the tundra that lays the path for the provincial May budget. The Maritimes – with what is a veritable boom in Newfoundland’s production industry and a solid footing in Nova Scotia from both private and public sources alike – is about as promising as Quebec, the nation’s shining light in government-supported, indigenous production. It’s no one-sided coin, there’s a healthy service and coventure industry too that keeps things ticking.

So, what does the future hold? In what some might call a hysterical scenario, cadfe head Dan Johnson recently espoused a future (via a public address) that looks mighty bleak.

Seems when Kantor threatened no beach for those skin-cancer devotees – Snowbirds – unless they gave up their Cancon, they traded in a snug experience in the dark for a day in the sun. Canadian culture got burned and, according to Johnson’s Back to the Future, there was nada a Canadian production ever again. How far from right is he?