Douglas Barrett is a Partner and Member of the KNOWlaw Group, McMillan Binch, Toronto.

In the 10 years since Playback was first published much has changed in the way in which film and television production is financed in Canada. Here are some of the principal developments.

Growing sophistication of industry

The past decade has seen a real consolidation, growth and expansion of the independent sector in Canada – and not just on the financing front. A considerable number of Canadian companies, both publicly and privately owned, are now internationally accepted as first-class program producers and distributors, having the in-house resources to finance and deliver high-quality programming in considerable quantity for both domestic and foreign audiences.

I remember talking to a cbc executive a decade ago who defended in-house production on the basis that independent producers could not be counted upon to consistently deliver quality programming of the type required by the cbc. Whether or not that observation was true at the time, it would definitely be off the mark if it were said today.

This accepted ability to turn out quality product is a key factor in the shifting of public sector resources which has occurred during the past few years. More on that below.

Participation of lenders

Late in the eighties the Royal Bank of Canada became the first major financial institution to take an interest in our industry, led initially by the late Wayne Drury and later by Robert Morrice. Rogers Telefund has also made a significant contribution as a secured lender.

The success of the Royal and Rogers in this area has recently drawn competition from other financial institutions, and Telefilm Canada has instituted a new loan guarantee program.

The effect of this borrowing capacity has been to give Canadian producers a major advantage in the highly competitive international arena. The ability of productions to obtain interim finance their productions is extremely attractive to foreign distributors desiring to pay for their product on or after delivery.

More private funds

The crtc support for the independent production sector has resulted in the creation of a number of production funds, largely as a result of licence applications or the takeover of existing licensees. Significant among these are those of the Westcom Entertainment Group, the Shaw Children’s Programming Initiative, the Maclean Hunter Fund and the Cable Production Fund.

Public sector cutbacks

The Alberta Motion Picture Development Corporation, certain Ontario film development programs and the Ontario Film Investment Program have been eliminated. Telefilm has suffered significant reductions in its Parliamentary appropriation. cbc/src and the nfb have gone through structural downsizing.

These have all been major setbacks, both for the affected institutions and the independent production sector.

But recently we have begun to see that what is ending is not necessarily the participation of government in funding film and television productions, but the way in which government undertook this task.

Gone, declining or readjusting are the bureaucracies that second guessed the creative and market decision-making of independent producers. But the resources have reappeared in other ways.

New types of support

The arrival two years ago of the Cable Production Fund and its new successor, the Canadian Television and Cable Production Fund, together with the introduction of the Quebec, Nova Scotia, federal and Ontario labor-based tax credit and rebate programs has heralded a major shift in the thinking of governments about how best to ensure the production of quality Canadian programming.

Governments are now prepared to accept the fact that the combination of content certification requirements, and evidence of marketplace support are enough basis for any funding decision, and that after meeting these requirements, producers should be left alone to make their own producing and distributing decisions.

As a result, these new government initiatives are either based on a first come, first served approach in the case of the funds, or are operated on an automatic basis without a cap in the case of the credits and rebates.

As well, while the higher point requirement of the ctcpf will ensure the production of genuinely Canadian material, the more relaxed rules of some of the credits and rebates will ensure the maintenance of a volume of production. This approach assists a strategy of supporting both quality content and job creation.

No one has calculated whether the value of the new initiative actually exceeds the loss experienced in the cutbacks, but I would suspect that across the country this could well be the case.

The new sources of financing do not mean that institutions like Telefilm no longer play a valuable role. Far from it. That role, however, will be different and more selective in the future, and must be adjusted to the new context. Francois Macerola and his management team at Telefilm are well aware of these underlying shifts and are working to make that adjustment.

Role of Playback

As a final note, Playback itself has played a vital industry development role during the past decade – by making available a huge volume of material which enabled each of us to be better informed and, as a result, do our jobs better.

Part of our competitive success in both the domestic and international marketplace results from having a quality and quantity of information that only a good trade journal can provide.

Thank you, Playback.