Guy Mayson is the new president and CEO of the Canadian Film and Television Production Association.

This could be considered the worst of times for the Canadian production industry, but it isn’t.

The facts are certainly not in our favor. Alliance Atlantis has seriously cut back on production. The industry has been hit hard by cuts to the Canadian Television Fund and fewer orders for English dramas. Then there are those unforeseeable elements such as SARS, a higher dollar and a muscle-bound California governor with a desire for job growth. This scenario would seem to have crisis written all over it. But the only reason producers are not running away and switching careers is because we believe there are solutions.

Although growth has leveled off, the Canadian production industry is ultimately a success story – our production volume has more than doubled since 1994; it now totals just over $4.93 billion a year. We’ve made an economic case to sit beside our cultural case – we tell stories no one else in the world can tell: Canadian stories.

Unfortunately, our success is being challenged by a number of negative trends. The production environment is challenging worldwide. We are seeing declines in coproduction, and international sources of financing have been drying up as other countries have turned to producing homegrown shows.

Ironically, here at home, Canadian-content production is slipping – CAVCO-certified TV production increased by only 1% in 2002/03 and non-CAVCO-certified production experienced no growth. It seems that despite the limitation of CTF funds, the big downturn is in producing outside the fund. The changes in the international market have made it harder to finance non-CTF projects.

But let there be no questioning the importance of the CTF. The CTF is the only way 10-point Canadian production can get made. That’s why the cuts were so devastating. The decline in the number of English TV dramas can be directly linked to funding cuts and poor scheduling and promotion. U.S. programming will always win at this game – it has the money and the marketplace.

While Quebec’s homegrown box office has grown, English features appear to languish; they suffer from many of the same problems that English TV drama does.

The service side is also under threat, especially as California goes on the warpath to either keep production in Hollywood or look for shooting locales with either a lower dollar or more competitive tax policies.

All of these factors have placed producers on edge. It has never been harder to develop a viable small to medium-sized company in this country. So how can we make Canadian production companies viable?

Here are the solutions.

On the domestic front, we need to continue improving the country’s various tax credits to increase non-CTF production. It’s important to encourage this type of production to take advantage of foreign sales. Improved tax credits will also boost foreign location shooting. At the same time, the federal government must not give up on the CTF and should restore its original $100-million a year commitment for 2004/05. New dollars are also needed, specifically for English-language drama. Higher licence fees will help, but we need additional dollars to help build a critical mass of quality dramatic programs to compete with high-budget imports.

Not only a government problem

Understand that this isn’t just a problem to be solved by the government. We need to build audiences. But producers can’t do that alone. Broadcasters and distributors need to place more emphasis on promotion and scheduling. And producers need to make shows people will want to watch. We need to work with broadcasters, not against them. After all, our ultimate goal is the same – to get Canadians watching.

Unfortunately there has been little recognition of the sector’s corporate needs. Proper capitalization, private investment and bank financing are the keys to long-term corporate viability. Producers need to be able to retain their tax credits and use them for development, not automatically turn them over to government agencies as part of the financing. And tax-based incentives could encourage private investment and venture capital investment in the sector.

We ultimately need the government and broadcasters to recognize that the well-being of the production sector is critical to the achievement of their Canadian-content objectives.

Producers are entrepreneurs, but that image becomes tainted as the system forces us to constantly fight for adequate project financing instead of focusing on building our companies. We need to work with broadcasters, distributors and the government to make this industry sustainable and continue to thrive.

-www.cftpa.ca