Bev Oda
Minister of Canadian Heritage and Status of Women

‘Since 1996, the CTF public-private partnership has supported production of 20,895 hours of Canadian television in English, French, and aboriginal languages with more than $1.9 billion.
The fund’s new governance structure and increased focus on audience appeal means that it will continue to contribute significantly to Canadian programming.
As minister of Canadian Heritage, I offer best wishes to all Canadian broadcasters.’

Robin Mirsky-Daniels
Executive director, Rogers Communications’ Group of Funds and member of the CTF board of directors

‘I think the CTF is serving the Canadian industry extremely well. The quality of Canadian content has increased. And if you look at the growth in the industry, it’s incredible – the number of hours on television, the number of production companies that are working and thriving. I think that’s largely because of the CTF and how we react to the needs and demands of the industry.’

Laszlo Barna
President and CEO, Barna-Alper Productions

‘When the CTF landed, [it] actually brought real money to the table. It really increased the available budgets. You have an organization that has real dough and responded to programming that was not only on the conventional channels. It was ‘Welcome, welcome, welcome’ in our universe.’

Michael Hirsh
CEO, Cookie Jar Entertainment

‘The CTF supercharged the production of distinctly Canadian television programs in a way that the tax incentive system wasn’t able. It was a great initiative on the part of [CTF founding chairman] Phil Lind, who fathered the CTF. Without the CTF, we would never have been able to support the programming demand that Canadian specialty television required.’

Stephen Stohn
President, Epitome Pictures

‘Canada, like every country in the world outside the U.S., requires strong measures to redress the extraordinary imbalance created by huge American TV shows and films being dumped into our territory at a tiny fraction of their original production costs. The CTF programs are – and have been for many years – vital elements of Canada’s toolkit of measures to redress the imbalance. As a result, series such as our Degrassi: The Next Generation, which could not have existed without CTF support, have been able to find strong and engaged audiences – not just in Canada, but throughout the world – and, ironically, particularly in the U.S.’

Richard Hardacre
National president, ACTRA

‘Indigenous television production is an essential stepping stone to a strong Canadian culture. Permanent and stable funding to the CTF is essential to the health of our Canadian television industry. Performers hold a stake in the development of our cultural sovereignty, and ACTRA has not hesitated in continuing to ask our government to make a permanent and growing commitment to the CTF in all future budgets.’