If you’ve got a Canadian passport, you might as well fit yourself for an eyepatch and tricorn hat. The Americans have lately been crowing that we’re a band of content pirates, but Hollywood can help itself by doing business with iTunes Canada and providing a library of legal content to download. That, and some stronger legislation from Ottawa, would go a long way to keeping us honest.

Back in November, Cineplex Entertainment president and CEO Ellis Jacob got a missive from an old friend, Fox head of distribution Bruce Snyder, threatening to pull product if camcordering in Montreal theaters wasn’t dealt with. Then, on March 2, another letter went to Stephen Harper (cc’ing Heritage Minister Bev Oda and Justice Minister Robert Nicholson), this time courtesy of a couple of U.S. senators from California and Texas, calling the P.M.’s attention to the dramatic increase of movie piracy that has occurred in Canada since the United States enacted tougher laws and penalties.

Wait until Tinseltown gets its eyeballs on a recent study from Toronto market research firm Advanis. Based on a survey polling wired Canadians in February, we not only bootleg directly from the screen, but we also like to download pirated booty – a lot. A whopping 93% of those downloading movies in this country are doing so illegally. And it’s not just tech-savvy teenagers. Nearly 50% are over age 46.

This runs contrary to the image of the polite Canuck who apologizes to the bank machine for charging him to take out his own money. Various theories have been put forward claiming to debunk the Canadian pirate allegations, but what’s the truth?

There is evidence that Snyder was misquoted when he said 50% of all bootleg copies originate in Canada. The more accurate number is 20% to 30%, according to Jacob, who notes the higher figure references a distinct period of time in 2006, not the average.

Nonetheless, Jacob has tried everything from night goggles to full-scale wanding of theater patrons to satisfy the American studios. ‘It’s an entertainment experience,’ he says. ‘You’re not flying on an airplane, for crying out loud. We don’t want to turn [theaters] into armed camps.’

And then there’s the argument that most people don’t want to watch crummy videos shot by a guy hiding a camera in a popcorn box, anyway. ‘Police did a raid recently at the Pacific Mall [near Toronto] and found 200,000 Harry Potter DVDs,’ says Jacob. ‘There are lots of people who will buy [bootleg DVDs] for five dollars.’

Are there? This raises the question: How much money are these poor quality videos really costing the Canadian movie industry? Advantis pegs the cost of piracy at an estimated $173 million per year, but we don’t know how much is linked to camcordering. And pinning it on in-theater theft seems to fly in the face of a 2003 study done by AT&T, which concluded that Hollywood was prone to insider attacks, which resulted in leaked screener copies of 77% of 312 movies studied.

Jacob insists this data is out-of-date.

Deluxe Postproduction’s VP of technology in Toronto agrees. ‘That may have been the case in 2003, but I can honestly tell you it is .0001 percent now,’ says Jeff Dewolde, whose Web Watch division scans for pirated content 24/7. ‘We don’t see it, and at any given time we monitor up to 40 titles. Studios have totally locked down on that. These movies are tight.’

The last high-profile case of an inside job was when Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith hit the net a day before its theatrical release in May 2005. That was just after George W. Bush signed the Family Entertainment Copyright Act into law, which has stiff penalties for copyright infringement and specifically targets camcordering.

Ironically, camcordered versions have become more valuable since the studios cleaned house, because they’re the only ones available at the beginning of the cycle. A few cams appear on the first weekend of a release, and a few months later a screener pops up. Just before the DVD streets, a full version appears with all the bonus materials.

So maybe those American senators have a point. Jacob believes they do, but that tougher U.S. laws drove bootleggers north. After all, Montreal isn’t far from New York.

‘It’s commonly known that Montreal is a hot spot,’ says Dewolde. ‘In Canada there’s no law against camcordering, so it’s hard to stop these guys. The worst they can get charged with is trespassing. It’s a huge issue.’

The Canadian movie industry as a collective has written to Nicholson and Oda, but the Tories have yet to table a digital copyright bill since introducing Bill C-60 back in 2005.

‘We’re starting to look at – together with the Department of Justice – strengthening the criminal code to make new legislation within the criminal code,’ Oda told Playback recently. ‘I’ve talked to the minister of justice and we’re gathering information and having preliminary meetings.’

Of course, a timeline has yet to be determined and she admits it’s a ‘complex piece of legislation.’

‘It’s always difficult to predict where in the priority list this falls,’ says a hopeful Jacob. ‘We’re working with them to give them the information they require. And we’re getting the support of all the associations in the industry – so it’s just a matter of time.’

By the way, the Americans were polled in that Advanis survey, as well. They clocked in at 79% on the pirate meter, so they shouldn’t be throwing hard drives from their glass houses. But I tend to agree with the conclusion made by Advanis’ eVp of sales and marketing based on the study.

‘At first blush, it looks as if Canadians are more liable to piracy than their counterparts in the U.S.,’ says Phil Dwyer in a release. ‘In reality, many of these illegal downloads are taking place because of the lack of legal alternatives. The market is more mature in the U.S., and the experience there shows that if you give consumers a legal, convenient and fairly priced alternative to piracy, the majority will use it.’

We’re pretty polite pirates. Give us a legal way to download movies and you’ll see a sea change. No doubt many people have looked longingly at the growth of content on iTunes before downloading that torrent.