The long-standing question of whether the Canadian Television Fund should allow Vancouver to benefit from regional status – making it distinct from Toronto and Montreal – continues to pit producer against producer. The topic is so touchy that, despite heated debates behind the scenes, few stakeholders are willing to address it on the record.

At issue is whether the CTF’s 2006/07 guidelines, set to be published this month, should continue to grant regional weighting – in other words, bonus points ­- to Vancouver-based TV productions competing for funding through the broadcaster envelope stream.

Heavyweight Toronto and Montreal producers insist Vancouver’s regional status discriminates against them, while representatives for provincial producers want British Columbia decertified as a region to level the playing field.

B.C.’s domestic production levels find it caught between two extremes. While it enjoys far and away the most foreign production spending of all the provinces – $1.2 billion in 2003/04, according to the CFTPA – it ranks a distant third in terms of CAVCO-certified film and TV production. CFTPA stats show Ontario and Quebec, respectively, seeing $732 million and $666 million in production spending in this area in 2003/04, with B.C. clocking in at $184 million. But that is still more than all the remaining provinces put together.

The controversy over Vancouver’s regional status is part of an ongoing debate over whether Ottawa should encourage equalization or excellence when funding film and TV production.

Last October, Susan Murdoch, cochair of the Toronto film board and a producer with Pebblehut Too, along with Toronto Mayor David Miller and ACTRA Toronto executive director Brian Topp, penned an open letter to CTF chair Douglas Barrett calling for the CTF to stop offering producers incentives to shoot outside Toronto.

Murdoch could not be reached for comment, but in the letter, she wrote, ‘Ontario producers have been doing what our national government has said it wants them to do, which is to try to create distinctly Canadian television and film. What is being asked for today is that the CTF not continue to harm Ontario with discriminatory policies.’

Barrett, who similarly declined comment, has rebuffed calls from the likes of lobby group Film Ontario to reconsider Vancouver’s status. While an earlier CTF incentive offered a bonus of 5% of a TV show’s budget to productions made outside Toronto and Montreal, the 2005/06 round of funding applications through the broadcaster performance envelopes is weighted for regional production as well as audience success.

New regional definition

The board of the CFTPA, divided over the issue, has asked Newfoundland producer Paul Pope to propose a new definition for regional TV production. The CFTPA will present Pope’s findings at the upcoming Prime Time conference (Feb. 15-17 in Ottawa) in a bid to entice more CTF dollars from Canadian Heritage.

‘Our definition of regionalism is 20 years out of date. The industry has grown and evolved,’ says Ira Levy, CFTPA chair and executive producer at Toronto’s Breakthrough Films & Television.

Pope, who could not be reached for comment, has drawn data from Telefilm Canada and the CTF to break down past and current coproductions and to identify the regions in which projects are actually controlled and operating from, which is not clear from the applications submitted to government funding agencies. The CFTPA rethink is expected to redefine the relationships of producers partnering on interprovincial coproductions.

CTF critics were emboldened by Auditor General Sheila Fraser’s recent report of the industry fund, which pointed to an imprecise definition of regionalism.

‘It is not clear whether a regional production is a production made in a particular region or one that depicts a region,’ Fraser wrote, adding the CTF was backing inexperienced producers when attempting to boost the number of projects from ‘under-represented communities.’

Meanwhile, David Paperny, president of Vancouver-based Paperny Films, defends B.C.’s regional weighting as a much-needed subsidy for, among other expenses, flying to Toronto to discuss projects and cement relationships with network executives.

‘There are precious few broadcast executives in Vancouver. Almost all the decision-making power lies in Toronto,’ he says.

At the same time, Paperny echoes others in insisting regional considerations by the CTF pale next to questions of provincial tax credits, audience appeal, and other market-based criteria.

Paperny adds the true culprit behind the quarrelling is reduced licence fees from Canadian broadcasters, which have left producers everywhere bickering over what’s left from a shrinking pie.

Levy agrees, arguing that more CTF dollars would ease the current tensions among regional producers.

‘If everyone bands together and really makes the case for the success of Canadian TV, it’s natural that the government will continue to support the CTF and support it in a greater way,’ he says. ‘And that should address the regional question.’

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