Bill C-10 and its prospect of a bureaucratic star chamber to censor Canadian films and TV shows could become law as early as Wednesday.

The likely passage of the proposed legislation, as is, follows industry advocates making little apparent headway with Heritage Minister Josée Verner during a Monday meeting in Ottawa.

Verner, who was a no-show at the Genie Awards Monday night, earlier in the day issued a public statement that insists the Conservative government aims at a little tax-credit ‘house-keeping’, and not to stifle creative expression.

‘Bill C-10 has nothing to do with censorship and everything to do with the integrity of the tax system,’ she said.

Another delegation, led by Senator Jerry Grafstein, was to make an eleventh-hour pitch on Tuesday morning to Senator David Angus, the head of the Senate banking committee that delayed a third and final reading of Bill C-10 last Friday, after the proposed legislation first came into the public eye.

But despite an industry mobilization that has employed letter-writing, Facebook and on-air denounciations at the Genie Awards, opposition to Bill C-10 on Tuesday began to collapse.

The industry now appears resigned to the passage of Bill C-10 into law after a third and final reading in the Senate. That will be followed by another statement from Verner, who will gain ministerial authority to deny tax credits to films and TV shows deemed offensive. She is expected to promise industry consultation over guidelines as to what what type of content would come into question.

In other words, bargaining over the ministerial guidelines will begin after Bill C-10 passes into law, and not before.

‘If the bill does go through un-amended, then clearly we will want to be very involved…to determine what the guidelines will look like,’ said Brian Anthony, national executive director and CEO of the Directors Guild of Canada, on Tuesday.

Other industry representatives will similarly look to public consultation over the guidelines to mitigate against any threat to creative expression and production financing.

‘Creators cannot be writing to guidelines,’ said Maureen Parker, executive director of the Writers Guild of Canada.

The WGC boss echoed others when she urged that the eventual ministerial guidelines should follow closely to the existing Canadian criminal code, and not give Heritage and Justice officials undue discretion to assess and rule on film and TV content on taste and morality.

On the commercial side, film and TV producers will look to the public consultation to ensure the tax-credit guidelines do not threaten current access to production financing from key sources such as bankers, presales, the Canadian Television Fund and distributors.

‘If the financing is scared off because of uncertainty and unpredictability, then the entire sector is in trouble,’ argued John Barrack, national executive VP and general counsel at the CFTPA.

Sources that have seen the guidelines indicate they aim to curb excessive portrayals of sex, violence and hateful content.

Opposition to Bill C-10 has apparently been thwarted by the limited powers of the Senate.

Senator Roméo Dallaire, attending the Genies Monday night to tout the Rwandan biopic Shake Hands with the Devil, said he and his fellow senators cannot scrap Bill C-10. The 11-member committee can only send a bill back to the House of Commons with amendments for review.

The Senate banking committee pulled Bill C-10 back for review last Friday. But the consensus is the unelected body cannot challenge a tax policy measure that was conceived and considered by the previous Liberal government, has been reintroduced by the Conservatives, and has already passed through the elected House of Commons.

Dallaire sidestepped the question of what amendments to Bill C-10 he would support to remove the threat of censorship.

‘I would prefer not seeing it [Bill C-10] at all. I’m concerned it’s right-wing conservatism with an evangelical basis,’ Dallaire said, in reference to Charles McVety, president of the Canada Family Action Coalition, who last week claimed that his efforts to lobby Conservative ministers to revamp funding rules for films and TV shows led to the controversial tax-credit amendment.

It remains uncertain what concessions the industry can wrest from the federal government and its ministerial advisors.

During Monday’s session with the heritage minister and her officials, industry representatives were told the federal government did not aim to censor or constrain cultural content in Canada.

They heard that the upcoming guidelines will not greatly diverge from current regulations against excessive sex, violence and hateful content in film and TV productions, and that the government only sought accountability for taxpayer support.

That line was echoed in a public statement Monday by Verner, in which she insisted mainstream movies that Canadians already see in theaters will be unaffected by the proposed legislation.

‘The goal is to ensure public trust in how tax dollars are spent,’ Verner said.

The Heritage officials also indicated they surveyed Canadian film and TV shows produced over the last four years, and found the proposed guidelines would have raised flags on only three projects.

To the frustration of industry officials at the meeting, the Heritage officials did not specify what those guidelines were and which three projects were judged offensive.