Vancouver: It might look like a tax credit, but it ain’t. That’s the word on the proposed grant program that is expected to be offered to incentive-starved producers in Alberta in the next provincial budget.

Details on the program are expected by November. In the meantime, while the government insists no numbers are yet attached to the proposal, speculators suggest it will be a $15-million fund paid out over three years.

No one knows what the final form of the grant will be, but one option, say industry observers, is that it will operate much like provincial tax credits in other provinces. In this scenario, the grant is likely to be rebated based on 20% of labor costs spent in Alberta and capped at 50% of the budget.

That could mean about 10% of an overall budget for an Alberta-shot project will be returned in the form of a grant at the end of production. But in this case, the rebate will come automatically instead of having to wait for a Revenue Canada tax return.

The funding hope comes two years after the government pulled the plug on the funding-oriented Alberta Motion Picture Development Corporation, a move that gutted the provincial film industry.

Prior to the ampdc collapse, Alberta was handling about $50-million worth of indigenous production per year. Post-ampdc, the yearly tally has fallen to $18 million. (Service production has also fallen off from about $100 million to $30 million over the same period.)

The new financing source is also the result of a semantic shuffle. Late last month the Alberta cabinet decided to designate the film business as an ‘art form’ rather than an ‘industry.’ As an art form, film is eligible for the same kinds of grants as theatrical and publishing enterprises; the Alberta government has for years rejected the idea of tax credits for industry.

According to Gordon Turtle, communication director for Alberta Community Development, which will oversee the new incentive, the grant program is still in draft stage, but could be through the bureaucratic process within ‘four to six weeks’ and should be included in next year’s budget, which goes into effect April 1.

‘The government has accepted in principle the initiative to come up with a film development program,’ says Turtle. ‘Other provinces have introduced or enhanced support for their film industries, so we need to revisit the issue.’

This spring, a committee was struck to study the status of the film industry, and while the results of that study have not yet been made public, one of the recommendations was an incentive program that would revitalize the Alberta film sector.

Andy Thomson, president of Great North International in Edmonton, says that half of the 60 hours of production his company is handling this year has been shipped to places like Vancouver and Halifax where the economics work better. Great North’s 13-episode series Storm Warnings for Discovery would never have been produced in Vancouver this year had there been an incentive at home, he adds.

‘I’d repatriate 90% of the production to Alberta if there was an incentive,’ says Thomson. ‘The grant would signal the rebirth of the Alberta industry. It would be possible to finance drama series and get us back to we were four years ago.’

‘We asked for something to make Alberta competitive,’ says Dale Phillips, president of the Alberta Motion Picture Industry Association and a member of the task force created in the spring. ‘We want something that is performance- and market-driven. But, ultimately, we don’t know yet what it will be.’