Vancouver: B.C.’s NDP government – low in the polls and just weeks from an election call – has given local feature filmmakers another $5 million over three years.

While the extra funding has been the focus of lobbying by the local industry since the feature film advisory committee tabled recommendations to Heritage Minister Sheila Copps in January 1999, the timing of the announcement comes at the same time as other pre-election goodies around B.C.

‘The new funding will foster investment in B.C. feature film production, improve access to federal funding and provide new employment opportunities in this growing industry,’ says Gerard Janssen, minister of small business, tourism and culture.

A B.C. provincial election must take place before the end of June, and the specific guidelines about how to access the new $100-million Canadian Feature Film Program announced by Copps in October have yet to be published.

Also, British Columbia Film has been given the money without a clear plan of how to spend it.

‘The [financial] resources are available now,’ says ministry spokesperson Paige MacFarlane, explaining that the $5 million is being paid out from a government surplus. ‘It’s not a spur-of-the-moment thing. We need to look at how best to protect and enhance the B.C. industry and secure our fair share [of the $100-million CF3 fund]. The way it’s set up now, it looks like a disproportionate amount will go to central Canada.’

B.C. Film CEO Rob Egan says disbursement of the $5 million will be flexible: helping to address current funding demands, enhancing new programs such as the low-budget feature category, investing in development programs and skills development, topping up production budgets to get more on the screen, and energizing marketing campaigns to increase awareness and box office for the features produced.

‘In the immediate short term, we will be taking a proposal to our board about how we would like to proceed,’ says Egan. ‘We will be meeting with the industry to see how they would like it spent.’

In 2000, B.C. Film supported only two features – Mile Zero and Suddenly Naked – and with the new funding Egan expects to double the output. Its return on investment from past productions is about 18% per year, says Egan.

At present, only two or three B.C. producers have the commercial track record to access the ‘performance’ part of the $100-million fund. So the government’s focus is on the ‘selective’ envelope and strategies to attract box office receipts and increase the number of commercially successful B.C. producers.

The added bonus to B.C. filmmakers is that the opposition Liberal Party (and the government-in-waiting, according to election polls) thinks the $5-million cheque is a good idea.

‘We’re highly supportive of the film industry,’ says Ida Chong, MLA for Oak Bay-Gordon Head in Victoria and opposition critic for the small business ministry. ‘It’s clean. It creates jobs, especially for young people. B.C. is clearly a good place for film and we should build on that. We do not see doing anything that will slow or hinder growth and we’ve asked the industry to identify the barriers to growth. We don’t have any plans to revamp the industry.’

That means that despite the Liberal policy to do away with business subsidies, the domestic film tax credits will stay. However, even if a lack of funding is a clear barrier to growth, new money is unlikely.

Chong’s comments also mean that funding agency B.C. Film is safe, bucking the trend of other right-leaning provincial governments in Canada.

Under the Conservative Ralph Klein government, Alberta lost its Alberta Motion Picture Development Corporation in 1996, which crippled the local industry until a new film grant was introduced in 1999. Ontario Conservative Premier Mike Harris chopped equity financing programs from the Ontario Film Development Corporation in 1995. *