A  potential trade war between Canada and the U.S. has domestic screen sector stakeholders of all levels evaluating what the impact might be, for better or worse.

U.S. President Donald Trump was set to implement 25% tariffs on Canadian goods and 10% on energy imports on Feb. 4, with Canada primed to retaliate via countermeasures on an initial $30 billion worth of U.S. goods. The tariffs were paused for 30 days after two phone conversations between Trump and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Feb. 3.

Toronto-Danforth city councillor Paula Fletcher tells Playback Daily the 30-day pause on the tariffs will allow governments on every level to assess the economic impact.

As chair of the City of Toronto’s Film, Television and Digital Media Advisory Board, she says the board hasn’t had conversations with stakeholders yet about the potential impact to the screen sector, since “forecasting really quickly wouldn’t be a wise thing to do.”

The temporary reprieve now opens opportunities for dialogue, according to Fletcher, with the City of Toronto intending to work with Ontario Creates and Telefilm Canada to understand the possible effects.

A spokesperson for Telefilm told Playback it is closely following the situation and its potential impact on the Canadian audiovisual sector. “As always, we remain engaged in ongoing conversations with industry stakeholders — whether through meetings or at key events such as Prime Time and Ciné Québec, recent examples among many others — where Telefilm representatives are present to listen, collaborate and support our partners and creators,” they said.

B.C. film commissioner Marnie Gee said Creative BC is “in constant communication and collaboration with our partners, including studios in Los Angeles and government.” She added that their priority is to attract business to create jobs for B.C. crews and maintain the sustainability of the local screen industry.

Fletcher says the screen sector won’t feel the same impact as Canada’s manufacturing industry, since the tariffs are targeted at Canadian goods, not services.

The councillor spoke with reporters at an Amazon MGM Studios vendor celebration event on Feb. 4 to mark its one-year anniversary since signing a multi-year lease agreement with Pinewood Toronto Studios.

“Tariffs were announced and [today] Amazon is thanking its vendors for doing a great job here in the City of Toronto, so that says it all to me that everybody’s confident we’re in a good place to go forward,” she says. “We’re in a brand new ball game, but we’re strong.”

Canada’s strong existing ties to the U.S. screen sector is an advantage, says Toronto and L.A.-based Blink49 Studios CEO John Morayniss. He suggests the largely left-leaning Hollywood’s unhappiness with the current U.S. administration presents a chance to bring business back into Canada from the rest of the U.S. in a case of “reverse patriotism.”

“Right now there’s so much going on in Hollywood, it feels like they’re being punched in the face every other day,” he says. “So Canada is looking pretty good … But there’s an opportunity, which Canadians aren’t great at, right? We’re very humble, but we have an opportunity now to really wave the flag.”

The uncertainty around the tariffs’ implementation is itself not ideal for the Canadian screen industry, given long gestation periods for creative projects. Vancouver-based Thunderbird Entertainment CEO and chair Jennifer Twiner McCarron (pictured left) says she is seeing a general slowdown in greenlights, given the L.A. wildfires and general market unrest. And the likelihood of an even weaker Canadian dollar during a trade war presents another variable, despite the fact that a lower dollar is traditionally seen as a positive for the screen sector in attracting businesses to Canada.

“You can never plan around a weak Canadian dollar,” says Twiner McCarron.

The key, she says, is to focus on what your company can control. For Thunderbird, that means plenty of repeat business via original IP and service work, anchored by what’s selling in the marketplace. She also highlighted B.C.’s film and television tax credit increase, which took effect on Jan. 1, as an incentive for U.S. productions in the result of a lower Canadian dollar.

Should the trade threats from the U.S. continue, Morayniss says the rest of the world may begin to rely on Canada as a more stable alternative for productions, which could involve furthering relationships via treaty coproductions. For Twiner McCarron, there’s a chance for producers to be “nimble and opportunistic” in how they put deals together.

At the same time, there is concern over a potential “domino effect” for the screen industry, as Morayniss puts it. The sector is in the midst of a transformation of Canada’s broadcast and streaming regulatory environment and the federal Conservative Party has maintained its threats to defund CBC if elected. Morayniss says Canada needs to “have enough of an infrastructure” to ride out the storm of political and economic volatility.

“It’s not thought that the Trump administration is overly motivated to dig into defining digital services in Hollywood, but he’s got that Hollywood task force together,” says Twiner McCarron. “Now, who knows? It’s just all very unpredictable.”

With files from Kelly Townsend

Images courtesy of Thunderbird Entertainment; Blink49 Studios