Making his Playback debut with the following guest editorial, industry insider/displaced regional Bulgarian producer/resurrected satirist Dan Pierce will share his wit, savvy and front-line experiences dealing in the Canadian film and television community in a new column. On a semi-regular basis, Dan will highlight some of the more telling moments of his everyday life – moments, like the one below, that speak volumes about the industry at large, and at the same time, leave us all with some delicious food for thought.

The voice on the phone said: "We have a few questions about your characters – are they Canadian?"

I swallowed hard. It was the subsidy police"demanding that I take the character citizenship test. And they were talking tough. If I flunk, I thought, there goes the drama series. There’s no arguing with a cop, especially with one who holds the keys to the Copps’ treasury.

Everyone knows that – and if you lose your Canadian points, it’s game over.

"Your script doesn’t please us"the bible raises questions about your motives. All in all, you have too entertaining a project here. It appears foreign"something HBO would try to sneak past us."

Damn, I thought. My partner, the writer, is Canadian, but had he lost his way and inadvertently come up with – God forbid – American fictional characters? Why else would they have called?

I scanned the script quickly while the cultural cop went on about the need for purity of Canadian characters. My eyes flew over the pages. Everything was checking out. The script was in English and set in Vegreville, AB.

"The script’s in English" I offered.

"So is American in English, sir, that’s why we have to be thorough"the bloody languages are so similar."

I could see his point. But then I remembered. "I’m sure there are a couple of characters in the script from New Brunswick," I said confidently, trusting that he’d move on to The Associates or some other pure laine Canadian show.

But he wasn’t budging. He laughed. "That’s everyone’s story this year."

He said he would need hard proof. Birth certificates, passports.

Makes perfect sense, I thought after I hung up. Passports for fictional characters. What an ingenious way to protect against cultural fraud. Imagine a fictional Canadian TV character like Dominic DaVinci who wins our confidence just by speaking English and working in Vancouver. And all the while"he’s actually from Utah. Now that I think about it, has anyone ever seen Dominic’s passport.

I did what I had to do. Called Ottawa. In no time at all I found the listing for the Literary Character Citizenship Office, the LCCO.

The woman on the line was very helpful. For sure they could certify our characters, but they were a little backed up at the moment. The problem would be rectified as soon as the Senate Committee on Uncanadian Fictional Characters was operational. After their investigation was complete, citizenship papers for fictional Canadian characters would appear like lightning.

Just before I hung up, she asked me if I had heard about Lucy Maud Montgomery. "What about her?" I asked. Anne of Green Gables"wasn’t! The subsidy police had uncovered her real past – she was Anne of Las Vegas.

I wonder if the Sullivans knew.