Although a labor tax credit for the Alberta film and television industry is down and out, regional producers are optimistic they’ll find a way into the proposed ‘knowledge-based industries’ funding program still in play.

‘The doors are not closed on the film industry,’ says Alberta Motion Picture Industries president Dale Phillips.

But the timeline for the new proposal is discouraging. According to Lorne Taylor, minister responsible for science, research and information technology, if the knowledge-based initiative is blessed by the provincial government, it will not be in place before the 1999 budget year.

Meanwhile, some Alberta producers have built their 1998 production schedules with the anticipation of a tax credit retroactive to January 1998.

Mentors, a $1.8-million, five half-hour series coproduced by Minds Eye Pictures (Alberta) and Anaid Productions, has begun principal photography in Edmonton, although coproducer Margaret Mardirossian says they had considered moving the shoot to Saskatchewan.

Anticipating a film incentive was around the corner, she says the decision was made to tough it out in Alberta. However, if the funding scenario in the province is not addressed soon, Mardirossian will be forced to take future orders of the series out of province.

‘Producers are currently putting together the financing structures for next year’s projects,’ she says, ‘and the longer the government delays, the more difficult it will be for the province to capture production.’

Taylor has been directed by the Alberta government to devise a program, budgeted at $81 million to $91 million (the estimated annual cost of the 15% tax credit), aimed at stimulating all knowledge-based industries in the province.

He expects to submit the latest proposal by the end of the summer. Possible options being considered are:

– incentives encouraging the development of patient investment capital;

– a limited tax credit program targeted at small companies that spend 13% to 15% of gross sales on research and development;

– development of small knowledge-based businesses via funding and partnerships with the Alberta Research Council; and

– more government funding directed at university-based research and development programs.

Phillips says he will be meeting with Taylor to contour these proposals to meet the needs of the film and tv community.

Once the potential funding package is submitted in August, it will have to go back to the standing committee and Treasury Board for approval, then go before cabinet and the caucus for final assent, says Taylor.