Marking the first anniversary since Sandra Macdonald took over as its president and CEO, the Canadian Television Fund is in the midst of yet another firestorm. This even before the release of new funding guidelines later this fall.

The CTF board had hoped new guidelines would quell all the acrimony and finger-pointing that marked most of 2003.

At the heart of the matter is word that the CTF is considering doing away with regional bonuses, a system that many producers, including those in Vancouver, consider essential to their well-being. The regional bonus essentially gives a boost equivalent to 5% of the budget to productions shooting anywhere outside of Montreal or Toronto. Not surprisingly it is Ontario and Quebec producers who are lobbying for the removal.

Certainly the regional bonus introduced in 1996 has helped spread the wealth and has nurtured a truly national production industry. CTF-funded production hours in B.C. increased from 151 in 1998/99 to 206 in 2001/02. Manitoba saw hours increase from 19 to 39 over the same period, while Ontario fell from 654 to 591.

A quick look at the lineup of nominees vying for a Gemini Oct. 18 and 19 underlines this. Two Halifax-based companies, Salter Street Films (Made In Canada, This Hour has 22 Minutes) and Topsail Entertainment (Trailer Park Boys), have a virtual lock on the various comedy categories. On the drama side, Cold Squad and Da Vinci’s Inquest, both Vancouver-based, are up against The Atwood Stories, shot in Winnipeg, and a pair of Toronto productions, The Eleventh Hour and Blue Murder. The same is true in the MOW/mini category, where 100 Days in the Jungle was based out of Edmonton and The Many Trials of One Jane Doe, a Toronto story, was shot in Winnipeg.

The regional bonus was originally initiated to help stimulate overall production with the hope that volumes would increase nationally. More recently, however, central Canadian production, particularly in Ontario, has been struggling. The bonus has combined with Ontario’s lackluster production tax credits to help push production out of the province. The Ontario production tax credit is pegged at 20% off certain labor costs, as opposed to 40% in New Brunswick and 35% in both Manitoba and Saskatchewan.

Now, after years of trying to get the governing Tories to increase the tax credit, Ontario producers – further hurt by a SARS outbreak – have turned to the CTF board to re-level the playing field. It looks as if they may get their wish.

Ironically, these changes are on the table at a time when polls indicate that the Ontario Progressive Conservatives are heading for defeat. A more receptive government in Queen’s Park that sees the benefit in stimulating an industry that generates over $2 billion in production annually for the province, could very soon introduce a tax credit more in line with competing provinces.

Should the CTF go forward with removing the regional bonus while Ontario ups the production tax credit, the pendulum could swing hard in the other direction, stimulating growth in Canada’s largest production center to the detriment of many inter-provincial copros.

No wonder producers outside of central Canada are trying to stop the clock.