In response to the latest round of Canadian Television Fund commitments, producers associations and film commissions in Western Canada plan to launch a concerted lobby effort to create a funding envelope dedicated to the Prairie region.

‘On the whole we have been shafted by the last round of funding announcements,’ says Manitoba Motion Picture Industries Association president Richard Horne. ‘We were very close to being shut out of everything.’

Although regional breakdowns are not yet available from the Canadian Television Fund, Western producers have been voicing concerns on the latest round of funding. Minds Eye Pictures of Saskatchewan, for example, had all four of its eip applications turned down, downgrading the ranking of these projects at the lfp.

Without the close ties to national broadcasters, Western producers have more difficulty persuading broadcasters to ante up the increased broadcast licences required in the new guidelines to access the fund, says Horne.

The Western provinces were particularly hurt by the ctf this year because most of the production companies in these provinces are small to midsized. Garnering the at-risk points is particularly hard to achieve for smaller companies, which lack the resources, lines of credit and distribution arms of the larger, capitalized companies. The producers were unable to invest in their own projects to the extent required to shore up additional points through dollars at risk.

Josh Miller, president of the Alberta Motion Pictures Industry Association, argues that since the ctf involves public money and has a mandate to spread its funding across all regions of Canada, a regional envelope is the only way to ensure this is enforced. Whereas before the funding agencies and broadcasters could argue that some regions of Canada could not pull off high-quality, one-hour primetime television, that is no longer the case, says Miller. ‘In lieu of voluntary dispersing of money, I think we have to try out regional envelopes,’ he says.

With the far-reaching oversubscription of the fund, Western producers will also push to restrict public companies from accessing ctf dollars, says Miller. ‘The rules,’ he says, ‘are set up in favor of the large public companies.’

Carole Vivier at Manitoba Film and Sound points out that it is important to look at the problem as a pan-Prairie issue. Western producers associations and film commissions plan to meet at Banff to develop a strategy.

‘Right now there just are not any incentives for broadcasters to work in the regions,’ says Vivier. ‘The reality is the broadcasters have a comfort level with the big companies in the major centres.’