Vancouver: The b.c. film community is bracing for another slap from the Canada Television and Cable Production Fund and is already mobilizing to deflect the blow.

B.C. Motion Picture Association executive director Carrie Hunter has filed a written complaint with crtc chair Francoise Bertrand about alleged high-level movement to siphon off funding promised to local producers to build up the financial reserves of the ctcpf.

At the center of the controversy are telephone company kitties like B.C. Tel’s $10 million Innovation Fund, offered as a sweetener to persuade the federal government to grant Stentor’s wish to allow members to eventually apply for a broadcast distribution licences. The Innovation money, which will be made available if B.C. Tel gets the nod on its broadcast bid, is earmarked for b.c. producers.

Or was, until the creation of the $200 million superfund created a money vacuum by joining Telefilm with the old Cable Production Fund, contends Hunter.

‘Of great concern to the independent production industry in b.c. is the possibility that the crtc may direct telephone companies, including B.C. Tel, to remit all or a portion of this proposed [production] assistance to the ctcpf or to Telefilm Canada for administration,’ writes Hunter in her letter.

The alleged threat to the Innovation Fund pivots on how the crtc decides a mandatory payment of 5% of gross revenue by broadcast licencees (as debated earlier this year at the broadcast distribution hearings) will shake out. A portion of the 5% will go to community channels, while the balance is dedicated to independent production. A decision is expected early in the new year.

Hunter believes the crtc will favor the ctcpf over autonomous regional funds, and she wants the regulator to make public any plans to shuffle funds away from their intended regional producers to the superfund.

‘I’m confident that you are aware by now that we don’t believe that b.c. is served in a fair and equitable manner by either Telefilm or the Cable Production Fund,’ she adds in her letter to Bertrand. ‘For more than 25 years, b.c. consumers and taxpayers have subsidized the development of the Ontario and Quebec film industries.’

Canadian Heritage agencies, Hunter explains, ‘continuously implement criteria barriers (such as national broadcast/distribution windows) which deny equitable enjoyment of federal initiatives by b.c. program makers.’

crtc spokesperson Lise Plouffe confirms that the letter has been received by the commission and says the bcmpa should get a response by the end of the month. ‘[Hunter] has made it very clear what she wants the crtc to address,’ explains Plouffe, adding that she can’t speculate whether or not the bcmpa’s concerns have merit.

Stentor representative Sarah Anson-Cartwright declined to comment on the letter or the alleged threat to the $50 million in Stentor money dedicated to regional producers. She says only that Stentor members are already ‘moving forward with making investments’ and that the options were to create local funds and contribute to an existing fund such as the ctcpf.

Doug Strachan, a B.C. Tel spokesperson, says: ‘At this point, that money will most definitely stay in b.c. The criteria of the fund are still being worked out.’