Runaway productions are back on the political agenda in the U.S., following renewed efforts by activists and lawmakers to keep Hollywood movies out of Canada. Washington is, for the third time in two years, again considering a tax credit for low-budget movies while, in L.A., activists are arguing that Canadian film subsidies are illegal under NAFTA.

U.S. Senator Blanche Lincoln, an Arkansas Democrat, has tabled a tax-credit bill that seeks to keep low-budget, indie projects south of the 49th. Under the proposed legislation, productions budgeted at under US$10 million would be eligible for a 25% tax credit against their first US$25,000 of wages. Projects shot in ‘low-income communities’ stand to regain 35%.

Arkansas is seeking to boost its production business, and recently hosted shoots for the Billy Bob Thornton pic Chrystal and the John Grisham adaptation A Painted House. Among the bill’s 17 cosponsors are California representatives Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein.

‘This legislation will encourage producers to bring feature film and television production back to cities and towns across the United States,’ says Lincoln, arguing that the loss of MOW and miniseries shoots, in particular, have taken a US$10-billion bite out of the American economy.

According to the CFTPA, the total budgets for foreign location shooting in Canada last year was $1.76 billion.

According to the U.S. Department of Commerce, of the 308 MOWs developed in the States in 1998, 139 were shot outside its borders, up from 30 in 1990.

A nearly identical bill was put forward earlier this year by two California senators, but was lost amid that state’s recent political turmoil. Another bill also failed in 2001.

And yet Michael Apted, president of the Directors Guild of America, calls this one ‘the right bill at the right time,’ and says the tax incentive would help level the playing field between the U.S. and other countries.

But B.C. film commissioner Susan Croome doubts the modest tax break would do much, good or bad, on either side of the border. ‘It’s not that significant,’ she says. ‘It won’t be a huge incentive or disincentive.’

Meanwhile, the L.A.-based Film and Television Action Committee is seeking to have Canada’s tax subsidies ruled illegal by the World Trade Organization. FTAC, which led a vigorous anti-runaway charge in 2001, has been lying low for most of the past year as it prepares to petition the U.S. Trade Representative for an investigation into Canuck film and TV subsidies, which FTAC claims are in violation of NAFTA. If the USTR agrees, the matter goes before the WTO.

In a recent editorial, the national president of the International Cinematographers Guild, George Spiro Dibie, also sounded off, blaming NAFTA and U.S. politicians for industry-wide job losses. Although he did not name Canada, he remarked that America can’t compete with ‘countries where the exploitation of the working class is an acceptable way of life.’

Donna Zuchlinski, consultant for the Ontario Media Development Corporation, dismisses the FTAC move as a repeat of earlier failed efforts. FTAC’s campaigns, she says, have not had any real impact on Ontario production. ‘I don’t see runaways being a major issue. That’s not what our clients are telling us,’ she says.

FTAC claims some 150,000 supporters, mostly below-the-line workers and some locals of the Teamsters and IATSE, but has few fans at the decision-maker level.

John Lewis, director of Canadian affairs at IATSE, explains that the stagehand union, as a whole, does not support FTAC, but three U.S. locals have gone their own way and signed on. He doubts the campaign will go anywhere.

‘This is just another chapter in a long, running story,’ he says.