David Carter, long-time EVP at Entertainment Partners Canada (EP Canada), has retired from his role at the payroll and financial services company.

Throughout a career spanning almost three decades, Carter has been an influential figure in shaping how Canada’s various tax-credit incentives have been interpreted and how local and international producers have accessed them since they were implemented in the mid-90s.

During his career with EP Canada, Carter worked on almost 2,300 film and television projects, the equivalent of around $5 billion in tax incentives.

Carter exited his role at the end of 2020, in addition to stepping down from various roles, including as director of Film Ontario. He remains co-chair of the tax credit committee within Minister Lisa MacLeod’s film and TV industry advisory panel. He also spent eight years on the City of Toronto Film & TV Board and has been involved with initiatives for Computer Animation Studios of Ontario (CASO).

According to Carter, EP Canada, which was initially called Bulloch Entertainment and headed up by Mark Prior, saw its first golden opportunity in 1997 when the federal government introduced the federal film and TV production services tax credit. Prior and Carter collaborated with Alliance Communications to launch Canada’s first film and TV tax credit administration and financing business, which launched as Bulloch Equicap, then operated for 15 years as CFC (Canada Film Capital) and now as EP Canada. For 11 of those 15 years, Carter served as CFC’s president.

In the early 2000s, as VP of finance, Carter helped Bulloch Entertainment (then EP USA’s Eastern Canada affiliate) acquire TVD of Vancouver (EP USA’s Western Canada affiliate), leading to the creation of EP Canada.

The company has also been through several ownership changes over the last three decades. It was part of Paul Bronfman’s Comweb Group for many years before spinning out of Comweb in 2005 to join publicly traded Rainmaker. Two years later, in 2007, Carter and his fellow Canadian executives partnered with private equity backers Rod Senft, Bruce Hodge and Wade Flemons to buy back the company and take it private once again. What followed was a sustained boom period for the company, as new players entered the content space and Canada’s reputation grew as a go-to production destination.

Most recently, in 2017, EP Canada was acquired by its long-time American affiliate, EP USA with the combined EP enterprise then becoming a part of San Francisco-headquartered global investment firm TPG in 2019.

As with so many businesses across the film and TV business, 2020 was a whirlwind for EP Canada and Carter, who had initially planned 2020 would be a year of transition and winding down but instead it became a year of navigating pandemic-related obstacles, as well as focusing on his various advisory roles.

Of his role, Carter said: “It begins with the advocacy work I was proud to be part of with other industry leaders which involves keeping those in power aware of the truly impressive financial and economic contributions the industry makes, so that when decisions get made, elected officials realize what is at stake.”

Among the challenges faced by EP Canada during 2020 was a technicality that prevented production companies from claiming Canada Emergency Wage Subsidy (CEWS) in the early months of the pandemic. The team at EP Canada worked closely with the CMPA to get the problem rectified, resulting in a legislative change to Bill C-20 that paved the way for prodcos to claim CEWS.

Carter said that now was the right time to move on, and that he is taking some time before deciding what he will do next. “I’m very proud of what we accomplished over 25 incredible years, but for now I’ve decided that’s a wrap on my time with EP Canada.”

Pictured right: David Carter and Lisa MacLeod, Minister of Heritage, Sport, Tourism and Culture Industries