TV types worried that the Heritage Minister’s considerable energy could be diverted from the renewal of the ctcpf by demands from other sectors of the entertainment industry, appear to have little cause for concern.

Granted, Sheila Copps has other irons in the fire. On the agenda over the next three weeks, for example, are a closed session with feature film industry reps to talk policy, and an excursion to France to drum up support for Canada’s position that culture is off the table in negotiations on the Multilateral Agreement on Investment. But it takes considerable effort to steer over to those topics. What she really wants to talk about is the ctcpf.

It’s going to be a long four months. While government surplus has everybody excited and many within the f&t sector convinced the renewal of the fund is a given, others say the battle is far from over for several reasons.

First, the process is different this year. The last $100 million was thought retribution for taking the fall for the gst. This time, Copps needs support within cabinet and word is some government reps are prepared to say no just because it’s Sheila.

Also working against her are other industrial sectors questing after the new money, many yielding higher returns on investment than the production industry.

But you’ll get no qualms from Copps. Even on the topic of how much, she’s not prepared to entertain the notion that this year’s parliamentary appropriation could drop to $75 million or even $50 million. She’d like to see ‘$100 million and climbing.’

‘I think it’s a good investment. I wouldn’t dampen expectations at this point. But I think that what’s needed along the whole process of the budget is the involvement of all the players: the public sector, the privates, and the independents.’

It helps that the independents have actually reached out to meet with other ministers and members of Parliament, she says. It also helps that the ctcpf board, spawned from ‘disparate and diffuse’ players, ‘made the partnership work.’ It follows then that a low profile on the changes to ctcpf policy in process is also of assistance.

Details like funding allotments for shared private broadcaster/cbc projects, regional allocations, discussing inserting the words ‘up to’ into the eip’s 50% to cbc clause, and the specialty channels gunning for their own envelope are best left to the bod and kept off the screen through to February.

‘General consensus is that there could and should be certain refinements,’ says Copps.

‘But what I don’t want to do is get into the debate around those refinements because we lose the momentum we have around unanimity.’

Given the number of files lining themselves up for priority, Copps says there are incentives for Finance to greenlight the television fund.

Primarily, jobs, jobs, jobs, more than 19,000 created last fiscal according to the ctcpf annual report. Television employs a lot of young people and hits all the Liberal’s key targets in terms of getting the economy back on track with tangible jobs.

As for return on investment, Copps ‘suspects’ it might be less than in some other business sectors.

‘But you could invest in a mine in Northern Ontario which costs $100 million to get going and creates 100 jobs. So as a politician, I’m saying it’s a value-added job-rich sector that gives us a chance to tell our own stories. It’s much more attractive than investing in some other field which might yield some jobs but not at the same ratio.’

Feature film

Anticipated Liberal spending also has the feature film sector salivating.

Numbers floating around the Toronto International Film Festival ran from a new $50 million to $100 million to support features as the ctcpf does tv.

Copps is noncommittal, saying there are several ideas in play to get more money into the sector but that ‘it may not be parliamentary appropriation’ and that the timeline for policy initiatives is ‘certainly not this session,’ again in order to keep the focus on the ctcpf.

‘I want to see the renewal of the fund first, which gets us technically critical mass for television and positioned in the longer term for rebuilding the film industry.’

The specifics on policy initiatives are few. The Houle report is circulating a first draft, commissioned by Heritage. Telefilm is preparing its own paper which may be incorporated into Houle. This month’s ‘informal meeting’ may breed some ‘deliverables’ to help the problems which span funding, distribution, screen time and eyeballs. The merger proposal from Cineplex Odeon and Sony Corp’s Loews Theatres is due within the next few months, and Copps says the whole film continuum is under the microscope when it comes to sourcing the private sector.

‘Theater distribution is a problem. But you also have television broadcasters who have a lot of requirements and licence fees and content fees pitted against video sales which have no current contribution to Canadian content.’

Although she won’t go into detail on how to rein in the established private businesses, Copps points out that copyright might not be a bad model.

‘We were able to find an innovative way of legalizing the illegal pirating of other people’s music by the creation of a fund through a levy on blank tapes. There are a number of different avenues to explore, but I’m not putting any ideas out in public until they’re totally refined or else risk having them torpedoed.’

American-Canadian push-pull

With much discussion of the need to see Canadian stories on big and small screens, the question begs on where Heritage stands on the Eligible Services Lists extension, arguably importing yet more American stories.

Given no appeals are in process (‘Why has nobody appealed?’), the minister hasn’t been apprised of the file, but makes the point that the crtc is working without a model.

‘The whole technology explosion is a kind of gray area for them. I think they’re trying to handle it. I think they’ve made some mistakes. I think the jury is still out on how much of the multichannel universe we can actually absorb.’

But at a dinner meeting with the private broadcasters a month ago, Copps heard Canadians are becoming more interested in watching Canadian programming, ‘so they’re getting more interested in developing Canadian content. For every argument [that points to u.s. programming], there’s a counter argument [supporting Canadian programming].’

Case in point is the cbc, which has slightly increased its primetime ratings despite projections that all-Canadian would be disastrous.

As for the notion that government surplus could equal absolution from the cbc’s final cut in 1998, Copps says she hasn’t heard that. ‘So unless somebody has more insight than I do.É

‘But if you look at what they’ve been guaranteed over the next five years, they’ve got direct and indirect funds which equal a minimum of about $912 million a year, which is not a bad starting point. One of the reasons why the fund is being supported and why we’re working so hard on it is that it gives the cbc some programming flexibility for new dollars that aren’t included in their core funding.’

Finally, although feature film may be out of the loop for federal appropriation in the short term, the multimedia sector is on tap via the Liberal Red Book.

Word on the street is that a government and private sector partnership is in the works, with two major software companies adding to the kitty and creating a fund one source says will ‘make the $12 million from Bell look like pocket change.’

Copps will say only that Heritage is working on a multimedia fund with Telefilm.

‘They’re doing background work because I don’t really want to have Heritage running multimedia. What we want to do is try and create synergies like we have with the ctcpf where people who are in the business are actually running things versus people who are in the government.’

Seeking culture exempt support

Culture seemed a barterable asset in the summer when news of the mai agreement (which some called a bill of rights for the multinationals corps) first broke.

The parties carving out the deal are the 29 nations of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, which includes the u.s., most of Europe and Japan. The agreement would prohibit limits on foreign ownership and any preferential treatment for Canadian-owned businesses, amongst other clauses with ominous implications for the regulated culture industry.

Copps says cabinet has since moved on the culture agenda. International Trade Minister Sergio Marchi took a tough stand within cabinet two weeks ago and will proceed with the mai, says Copps. Ideally, Canada won’t stand alone.

‘We’ve dealt with it in cabinet. Sergio has taken a strong position with Trade and the decision was that it’s not just one of our elements; it’s a deal-breaker. We’re expressing that up front and early. I don’t think it should be a listed exemption. I think it should be an overall exemption.

‘What I’m going to be doing in Paris is looking to get bilaterals of like-minded countries that want to enter into a common front on an mai cultural exemption. We have allies already and I want to build on that.’