Serge Losique is president and ceo of the Montreal World Film Festival.

Montreal: Heritage Minister Sheila Copps has commissioned a report from KPMG on Telefilm Canada and the Canadian Television Fund. We came upon the recommendations entirely by chance, on the Internet.

This low-key procedure is somewhat surprising coming from the minister. In our view, the report should have been made public and the minister should have invited Canadians to take part in a national debate. After all, it was the Parliament of Canada which passed the bill that created Telefilm.

One does not govern a country by wanting to make concessions to a private-sector lobby (the ctf) in a manner detrimental to culture and the Canadian taxpayer.

A second report, this one from Silcox-Colbert, was commissioned by the ctf. It ended up on the minister’s desk at the same time as the kpmg report.

Both reports should be discarded because their only goal is to render Telefilm ineffective and entrust money from Quebecois and Canadian taxpayers to the ctf, a private-sector corporation.

Indeed, from a ctf budget of $200 million, $150 million comes directly from public funds and a further $50 million from the cable and direct-to-satellite industries (in the form of a mandatory tax imposed by the federal government).

If Telefilm’s participation in the ctf’s administration is terminated, it’ll be a first for a western nation. And what a coincidence – everything would then be done out of Toronto, where the ctf is headquartered.

The kpmg report certainly doesn’t hide its true colors. For instance, we’re told, given its geographical location, Telefilm has excellent business relations with Quebec. This is a biased and essentially ‘anti-Montreal’ hypothesis and it should not be taken seriously. Even though Telefilm’s headquarters are located in Montreal, over many years most of its grants have gone to Toronto producers.

It is due to the efforts of private-sector producers in Montreal (they didn’t exist anywhere else at the time, even in Toronto) that Parliament created Telefilm (then called the Canadian Film Development Corporation). This wish to eliminate Montreal makes no sense in a country that claims to be federalist in nature.

kpmg’s main recommendation: take all administrative responsibility for the Equity Investment Program away from Telefilm and place it entirely in the hands of the ctf.

In other words, the report’s authors think the ctf, a private-sector corporation entirely subsidized by the government, should be in charge of the country’s entire television production. They also recommend Telefilm be placed in charge of feature films, despite the fact nobody even knows if there will be any budget allocation for this task.

On both these issues, kpmg’s logic is faulty and the positions are little more than a pretext to get rid of Telefilm and move the whole works to Toronto. The ctf’s board of directors is accountable to no one but itself, whereas Telefilm’s board of directors has to account for its actions to Parliament (bilingualism, financial responsibility, access to information, its grant policies, etc.).

Conflict of interests

The conflict of interest inherent in the composition of the ctf’s board is something to worry about. Of the 16 current members, only two do not receive fund subsidies, Telefilm and Canadian Heritage.

Hiding behind Canadian ‘nationalism’ in order to sell this fund’s virtues is unworthy. The ctf’s mission includes:

* improving our understanding of Canada;

* increasing awareness of events, people and social issues as they relate to Canadians;

* reflecting the diversity and scope of social and cultural life in Canada; and

* supporting Canadian talent.

Great culture is universal. The McLarens, Molieres, Chaplins, Shakespeares and Hitchocks of this world are part of a world heritage.

Everywhere else in the world, audiovisual arts are taken as a whole. Trying to separate the film industry from television is utter nonsense. It is, in fact, the very best way to kill the film industry.

The moving image is indivisible. Hollywood’s most powerful studios are all tied to television companies: abc-Walt Disney, Fox tv-20th Century Fox, cnn-Warner, etc. In France, Canal+ controls almost all of the film industry, not to mention TF1, arte and M6. Without Channel 4 and the bbc, quality independent British cinema simply wouldn’t exist. In Italy, rai’s essential involvement in the film industry is common knowledge.

If we were to follow this absurd logic of separation, tv producers should not be allowed to produce feature films, and film producers should stay far away from tv.

We won’t even comment on the Silcox report because there isn’t much there worth commenting on.

And this is why Telefilm’s position should be reinforced, instead of weakened.

All public monies destined to support the audiovisual production industries should be administered by the public funding agency. In fact, in 1996 Mrs. Copps never should have created a ctf board of directors independent of Telefilm. We know the ctf’s record of mistakes, and we also know it doesn’t particularly grasp the cultural importance of television drama in Quebec and its rather strong preference for programs which are little more than pale imitations of American shows.

This crusade against Telefilm and the city of Montreal deserves to be examined closely by a parliamentary commission.

A handful of ‘parrots’ who reflect only the views of their sponsors should not be given responsibility for the cultural fate of a country.

If we are to accept the aberrations whereby political and financial interests play such a determining role, then we should also allow all the other corporate interests to have their way as well with taxpayers’ money.

An urgent and open debate is needed immediately.