Peter Rowe is a veteran film & TV director. Rowe’s history of the Canadian film industry, Popcorn with Maple Syrup: Film in Canada from Eh to Zed, airs on CBC Thursday, Nov. 18 at 8 p.m.

Autumn is usually the one time of year you can expect to see a few Canadian films in theaters. There are never any at Christmas, none in the blockbuster summertime, but there are usually a few that get more than the standard one-night-stand at the Toronto or Vancouver International Film Festivals and play for a few weeks in the fall.

But if Telefilm Canada is possibly going to meet its goal of a 5% Canadian take at the box office, things better change fast, because right now the theaters are almost 100% Hollywood.

There will be no happy ending to this saga unless the same sorts of measures are taken with Canadian theaters that were taken 35 years ago regarding content quotas for Canadian television and radio stations. Celine Dion is the biggest star in the world, Playback exists, and you are working in Canadian television all because the CRTC’s Canadian-content requirements created a demand for content, and thus formed a Canadian television and music industry.

It’s as simple as this: we don’t have a quota for theaters, so we don’t have a theatrical movie industry. The one time we had a quota, we blew it. In 1927, England created the Empire Film Quota and, while both English and Australian producers used it to successfully jump-start their own industries, Canadians, certain we could not handle the complexity of film production alone, invited Americans – mainly Columbia Pictures – to B.C. to make B-movies that became known as ‘Quota Quickies.’ The quota did a lot to help the career of Rita Hayworth, who starred in several of these films, but virtually nothing to help Canada.

If Canada had had men of vision back then instead of spineless toadies such as Ray Peck, head of the Canadian Motion Picture Bureau, the quota might have worked. Unfortunately, it might never happen today. Not only are theaters, unlike the airwaves, a provincial rather than a federal jurisdiction, but the Motion Picture Association of America (even with bulldog Jack Valenti no longer helming) would fight to the grave to prevent such an action. Lewis J. Selznick succinctly stated the American opinion of a Canadian film industry in 1921, and it has hardly changed since: ‘If Canadian stories are worthwhile making into films, companies will be sent into Canada to make them.’

The Americans have seen how well quotas work, and they don’t like them. The one instituted by South Korea six years ago has had a revolutionary effect on the country’s movie-going habits and on its Korean feature film industry. But in Canada? Many have pushed for quotas here, including Michael Spencer as head of the CFDC in the 1970s, various secretaries of state and heritage ministers, industry groups such as the Directors Guild of Canada and various other filmmaker organizations. The political will just isn’t there and, in today’s political climate, it seems about as likely to happen as the government demanding that Home Depot sell a certain percentage of Canadian-made screwdrivers.

No, we have to do it the way the French have – with a carrot, rather than a stick – with a levy that may even bring Canadian theater owners into the film production business. In fact, every theater in Canada already collects a levy – the 7% GST on every ticket. My modest proposal is this: that the federal government decree that the theaters no longer have to remit this 7% to Revenue Canada – that they can keep it for themselves – providing they play Canadian-made features for 7% of the year.

Incentive for theaters

Suddenly, Canadian theaters will have a huge incentive to show Canadian films, and perhaps even to participate in the Canadian film industry. Finally, Canadian audiences will begin to get a chance to see the films their tax dollars have been supporting.

Just as a regulated television market led to the creation of a television production industry, so this new incentive to show Canadian films will profoundly help get Canadian films into theaters. If the films don’t connect with the audience as well as they should, if exhibitors feel Canadian films are too effete and arty to stand up to public inspection on a Friday night, then this huge new potential infusion to their bottom line will, one hopes, get them involved in the creation of more robust fare that can stand on its own and make some real money

The theaters, though, can’t change things on their own. There are other organizations that have to be brought back into the loop. Television networks and stations have all but abandoned their contribution to the Canadian feature film industry. I think each Canadian network should be regulated to participate in the funding of 12 feature films a year and broadcast them, following theatrical and video release, once a month. If we can’t have a ‘movie of the week,’ we should at least get a ‘movie of the month,’ a Canadian one (not the Disney fare that has replaced hockey on CBC Saturday nights) on each of the networks.

One additional player must be pulled into the ring of the Canadian film business. Just as television networks do, our national airline, Air Canada, broadcasts daily to viewers who have little control over the fare presented to them. Counting all viewers in all planes, the airline’s reach is probably roughly equivalent to that of many of the smaller digital television channels. And yet they are totally unregulated.

Why, please tell me, should Showcase Television have to show a high percentage of Canadian content while Air Canada (it is called Air Canada, isn’t it?) shows reruns of Seinfeld? The airline should be regulated by the CRTC, just as the networks are. Air Canada is not a Crown corporation, but not only does it enjoy protections from competition similar to those of private broadcasters, but the people of Canada helped bail it out with a $170-million grant last year; in return, we can expect them to support other aspects of Canada, including our film industry.

The national carrier is the first view of Canada most visitors see; it is absurd that Air Canada introduces them to the country with American TV shows and movies.

And so, looking at the future through rosy glasses, here’s what happens: the theaters, no longer having to remit 7% of their ticket price to the government, begin showing Canadian films. The audience begins to get more of a taste for them. The theaters, feeling they have a better idea of what the public wants than Telefilm and the other gatekeepers, begin commissioning and investing in their own Canadian films. These films are hits, with correspondingly larger video sales. The 7% the government lost at the theater wicket is more than compensated for in video revenue. The television networks are pleased to run these hits on a Saturday night, even during a hockey strike.

No one demands their money back from Air Canada because they watched a movie shot in Montreal instead of Malibu. Instead, the planes are full of MPs, flying back from Ottawa to their constituencies, happily watching Canadian hits and thinking what wise decisions they made to help Canadian film.

And everybody lives happily ever after.