When the Canadian Film and Television Production Association was formed in 1990 out of a merger of the two industry groups that had until then been uneasily splitting the territory between them, everyone knew the time had come for a united front.

Founding chairman Charles Falzon recalls the two predecessor bodies, the Canadian Film and Television Association and the Association of Canadian Film and Television Producers, as respectively ‘a very good service association’ and a more ‘entrepreneurial’ association, composed of fewer producers ‘all poising themselves for the next phase of the industry’s growth.’

Whatever, it was one association too many.

Sandra Macdonald, the association’s first president and ceo, recalls the split as a licence for authorities to ignore producers. ‘The two organizations frequently took opposing positions on things, meaning [Ottawa] didn’t have to pay attention to the industry. They could just say ‘Get your act together and then come and talk to us.”

Douglas Barrett, who still sits on the cftpa board as well as holding posts as the executive chair of Toronto’s PS Production Services and as a partner in the law firm of McMillan Binch, witnessed the merger process close up and says, ‘All the outside saw was two organizations wailing on each other.’

The two associations ‘participated in a lot of public policy matters. They would appear one after the other and make separate submissions and the outside world saw no distinction – both organizations were representing Canadian producers. The two associations thought their issues were distinct; no one else did.

‘There was a point in time when a number of outside sources and influential people within the industry felt the time had come for a single voice.’

At an initial meeting with, in the first instance, almost everybody from both boards, Barrett gained the sense that the new collective needed a forum to iron out the differences.

‘So we weren’t just putting together your stuff or ours, your approach to labor relations or ours, or will we let in your members or ours,’ says Barrett. ‘There were literally dozens of issues where we had traditionally had different approaches and both thought their system had merit.’

The process of nutting out these issues involved smaller working groups and meeting up once a week for two months at the offices of McMillan Binch.

‘We had dinner and liquor and our approach was to break up problems into different areas of concern, and ask ‘What makes sense?” continues Barrett. ‘Quite a number of people put the industry ahead of their own desire to see a particular solution. Quite a number of industry [members] worked to do what made sense, not what served their personal interest or their business interest. At first there was a lot of tension, people had to overcome their personal competitiveness to come to this thing and I believe that made people feel friendlier towards each other. A lot of people who went to this big-shot law firm weren’t expecting to enjoy themselves and we did, we had a lot of laughs.

‘I knew in the first meeting it would work. People who had been competitors were learning to enjoy each other’s company and focus on what made sense and a lot of the problem fell away.’

Falzon recalls spending most of the first two years of the association involved in debate and discussion aimed at reconciling various priorities.

‘Lots of people forget there were lots of debates. It was the real cornerstone of the association [asking], ‘Is the industry about international sales or the service industry [and so on]?’ We came to the conclusion that the industry includes all of those,’ says Falzon.

‘I think for me, what I’m proud of is that the association was potentially going to be divided again if the different interests weren’t met.

‘We needed to make our voice heard in Ottawa and other political circles, to unify our resources and focus on what we agreed on. And it became clear that we had more in common than [we had] dividing us. We all realized when we were around the same table that we were much more on the same wavelength than we’d ever thought. What we all have in common is that we need a healthy industry.’

This search for commonality has extended to the composition of the board. The cftpa is quite up-front about its desire to have a mix of board members from all the provinces, from all sectors of the production industry and representing every size of company.

Says Barrett: ‘The bylaws require a minimum number of people [from each area]. Nobody wanted to have 10 provincial elections; we’re a national association with one body of members, not a collection of different interests. That’s why we don’t have a whole series of elections. But we do want to have a certain result.

‘Both [premerger] organizations were very Ontario-centric, but it’s very important for the association that we have national representation. We had to strike a balance to get credibility.’

Linda Schuyler, current chair of the cftpa, echoes these sentiments. ‘It’s a very delicate balancing act – juggling regions and the centre, large companies and small, drama and documentary, children’s and performing arts, publicly traded and sole ownership, those who are purely producing and those who are vertically integrated.’

With this balance in place in one single body, Barrett says the next most important thing the early organization did was ‘bring in mature management and set up an Ottawa head office.’

This mature management took the form, from 1992 to 1995, of Macdonald. Barrett says ‘her connections in Ottawa were important and assisted in our ability to move ahead.’ (Macdonald, currently National Film Board chairperson and government film commissioner, was director general of television at the crtc between 1990 and June ’92.) ‘And as we gained in strength and credibility, the number of members shot up.’

Macdonald recalls the formation as a process of consolidating some resources and dispensing with others. ‘At the point where the newly merged organization recruited me, we were just at the point where the merger had gone quite well at the board level but at the staff level had been quite a problem. The two previous executive directors couldn’t get along. The mission of the two organizations had been rather different and each had its own way of doing things. It became clear to the board that it couldn’t just select one of the two, it had to start again. The staff was still there; it was a bit rocky until we were able to form staff that would all pull in the same direction.’

In 1992 when Macdonald came on board, costs were 50% higher than revenue coming in. ‘We had to either find a way to cut costs or increase revenue, which we could do by increasing the membership fee and getting people to feel like they were getting value and pay the increased fee and getting more members.

‘Item one was stability. The other thing we wanted was the credibility of industry and industry credibility in Ottawa, the fact we could go to decision-makers with a clear message, a clear set of goals and back it up, so we could guarantee we didn’t do it once a year and then forget about it.’

These efforts appear to have been worthwhile. Lisa de Wilde, president and ceo of Astral Television Networks, a longtime supporter, says, ‘The cftpa has done a marvelous job of rallying small, medium and big producers over issues that unite them. The role of the independent producer has been put on the map in Ottawa, in the minds of politicians. They’re building the producers of the next generation.’

Macdonald says of her time at the helm in the early years: ‘We did enormously increase the credibility of the organization and it is now considered one of the major players in the industry. Prior to 1995, the production industry was a speck on the horizon in terms of the major forces developing programming and projects in this area. As it matured, the industry recognized that it couldn’t be every guy for himself. If you want to be at the grownups’ table you have to behave like a grownup.

‘The industry before 1984 virtually didn’t exist. In the decade from ’84 to ’94 we saw an enormous explosion of the number of companies. The smart ones stayed around, and the more sophisticated they got, the more they realized they didn’t have to be a cottage industry. We couldn’t have made the steps the cftpa made without a large number of people who have been in the industry long enough to know you have to look further than next week.’

Not just for the health of the industry, but for the national image: Elizabeth McDonald, current president and ceo of the cftpa, says feature films more than any other cultural product are a ‘calling card’ for the nation in the eyes of the outside world.

Robin Cass of Toronto’s Triptych Media, chair of the feature film committee, concurs: ‘This is how we gain an impression of who we are as a country. Australia is a good example of a country that uses feature film to give a certain idea of the identity of the country. You draw an impression of what you imagine the place to be like; you see glimpses of the landscape, you see glimpses of the humor of the place; it adds up to create an impression. I imagine people look at Canadian cinema and think it’s a beautiful country; and we present very interesting and challenging stories.’

Steve Ellis of Ellis Entertainment, who is currently at work on drafting a terms of trade agreement with the cbc, is full of praise for the association’s decade of work: ‘There aren’t many areas of the business that haven’t been affected and touched [by the cftpa]: they’ve made producers’ interest felt and helped create some stability in a pretty volatile industry. The association has scored some real victories in the past 10 years.’

If the past 10 years are anything to go by, the next 10 should be an exciting time for the Canadian film industry, both for those without and within.