Our admiration and empathy, certainly, go out to the folks at Telefilm who stare down a somewhat ‘existential’ problem at this time of year: $64.5 million in Equity Investment Program requests compared with $24.5 million available to give out to drama and feature film producers.

Surely faithful Telefilm staffers suffer in this unfathomable universe. Excruciatingly long hours. Little respect. Wrenching decisions. It must be like living through reruns of Sophie’s Choice.

Yes, everyone there wants to do a good job. Everyone wants to spread the wealth. Everyone wants existing success stories to add some more chapters.

But some work has to be sacrificed.

The problem with conspicuous growth in a subsidized economic model is that the money ultimately runs short. Worse, in that situation influence may well rear its ugly head. And despite the best of intentions, the little guy often gets left out.

At least that’s the way it looks, particularly from certain regional perspectives, in the parts of Canada where many producers wonder whether only conglomerates receive due consideration.

Who can blame producers with well-executed proposals, with all the ducks in the appropriate rows, for being frustrated? Who knows whether the talk of favoritism is correct or even rational?

The debate needs to be based on more reason, less innuendo. Does Telefilm assign a ratings cutoff point and renew every drama series with a certain minimum average-per-minute audience? Does it want to give a push to series approaching a syndication-friendly episode tally?

Many possibilities, few answers.

Case in point: for drama and features, Telefilm’s eip fund has paid out $24.5 million. The reasons for not divulging the list of productions range from ‘We never did it before’ to ‘Financing may still fall through’ to ‘It would be irresponsible to announce successful applicants with more funding to go.’

Yet whole production slates for some companies were decimated this month. And as we were going to press, producers of children’s, documentary, variety and performing arts programming were on tenterhooks to find out if they would have work for the rest of the year.

Renewals, of course, took a significant share of the drama kitty. The industry was prepared for that. Apparently what producers weren’t prepared for was the level of fallout. Even Alliance Atlantis’ Justice got the boot.

Does that mean other high-end projects were left off the books? Does that mean that only low-budget projects with proportional high licence fees but few prospects for international export remain as viable eip-endorsed production? Telefilm won’t say.

Complicating the process is the lack of appeals, the scheduling – how many producers were enroute to mip when they heard the bad news? – and its effect on production. The challenge for producers big or small is compounded by the realization that most projects still waiting for full funding are due for the fall broadcast schedules. And always implicit in this ordeal is the need to search for alternative, non-federal monies – the Holy Grail that remains for most Canadian producers too elusive.

There is little satisfaction for anybody in this game. The least Telefilm can do is respond with some humanity to the people who are directly affected by the decisions. Telefilm and the Canadian Television Fund owe it to the Canadian taxpayer and the Canadian producer to be more transparent in the decision-making process. Given the lineup debacles of last year and the subjective process this year, they need to tell us how and why decisions were made. Full disclosure now, not later when the spin is just right. We applaud the successful applicants and urge them forward. But there are too many out there wondering why they lost out. Provide some answers.