After a five-year term as ceo of the Canadian Association of Film Distributors and Exporters, entertainment lawyer Dan Johnson is returning to providing consulting services to the film and television industry.

Sources say industry consultant Richard Paridis will soon be named Johnson’s successor after cafde and Johnson could not reach an agreement on full-time employment. Vacating the position Oct. 31, Johnson returns to his consulting company Humewood Communications, working in the areas of production finance and distribution, mergers and acquisitions, business affairs and government relations.

cafde is a lobby organization working for the interests of Canadian distributors, paid for and set up by its eight members, Alliance Communications, Malofilm, Motion International, cfp, Norstar, Cineplex Odeon Films, tsc and Film Tonic.

Among Johnson’s successes during his tenure at cafde was playing a role in persuading the crtc to impose nonproprietary rights conditions in all pay-per-view via dth licences. Johnson defended the measures following a u.s. studio-driven attack on them before both federal cabinet and the federal Court of Appeals, which require dth services to buy nonproprietary movies from Canadian film distributors and to third gross revenues among the ppv licensee, the domestic dth company and the film rights holder.

Most recently, the measures have resulted in what industry execs are calling a ‘blackball’ situation. In September, u.s. major studios including Twentieth Century Fox Film, Columbia Pictures and Buena Vista International (Disney) began denying Canadian dth ppv services access to their blockbuster movies in protest of the commission-directed revenue-split setup, claiming the rule falls outside the regulator’s jurisdiction.

Johnson led a very public fight last year against PolyGram Filmed Entertainment, which applied for Investment Canada approval for a start-up business that Johnson says ‘contravenes the nonproprietary rights condition in the current government policy.’

A little battle-weary, Johnson and cafde were successful in their bid to ensure that PolyGram distribute only proprietary product in Canada. PolyGram is currently challenging the measures at the European Commission seeking a World Trade Organization challenge.

Johnson was also key to getting cafde a seat on the board of the ctcpf and getting the board to allocate $15 million per year to Canadian feature film.

With the Canadian distribution industry in the midst of a shakeup, some have criticized cafde for being an exclusive club working only for those with the capital to join, namely the vertically integrated bigger firms. ‘But being a member of cafde is not like joining the Canadian Automobile Association,’ says Johnson.

‘If someone is a real distributor in this country the argument is that they would want to be around the table with other distributors to figure out what can be done in common to ensure that we have a Canadian distribution industry.’

As to the cafde initiation fee, Paragon ceo Jon Slan says, ‘We’ve been invited to join [cafde] along with the $30,000 fee that they’ve asked from us in order to show that we’re real, and we find it’s a bit of a closed club at the moment.’