GATINEAU, QUEBEC — There was talk of a protest campaign at this week’s APFTQ conference to fight aspects of the new Canada Media Fund.

Producers expressed both fear that cable provider Videotron’s world view would preside over the CMF and disappointment with Heritage Minister James Moore, who said nothing to reassure the production community in his opening remarks at a closed-door event on Monday night.

‘There was no real message for us. We would have liked to have more interaction,’ Claire Samson, head of the Quebec producers association, told Playback Daily.

Moore cancelled his meeting with the APFTQ board due to a vote in the House of Commons, said Samson, adding that her organization has tried but failed to meet face-to-face with the minister on other occasions. ‘He doesn’t seem to want to meet us. And we want to. We aren’t going to deal with the issues affecting our industry over a cocktail.’

The issues on the minds of producers here are numerous, and most were touched on at the conference, including how to make money on non-TV platforms, the ongoing terms-of-trade talks between broadcasters and Canada’s two producers associations, the current short-term licence renewal hearings at the CRTC and, of course, the recent changes to the Canadian Television Fund, which will be reworked into the CMF in 2010.

The APFTQ will wait and see if its point of view is seriously considered at the upcoming CMF consultations before it takes more concerted action, said Samson

‘We are going to give Moore a chance. But if he doesn’t listen to us, we will have to do something. We are frustrated,’ she said. Representatives from Canadian Heritage were not available for comment.

Because the independent production community will not sit on the CMF board — it will include two independent representatives selected by Heritage and five for the BDUs — Samson worries that, in a couple of years, the board will simply tell the ministry that it will run the fund on its own without help from the government.

‘The cable providers seem to think that the CMF is their money. But it’s not. It’s the public’s money,’ said Samson. Heritage will kick in $134.7 million of the $310 million CMF.

Producer Sylvie Tremblay (Sovimage) echoed Samson’s comments, adding that the province’s whole industry — unions, the APFTQ and other concerned associations — are discussing the possibility of protesting the proposed CMF. ‘I feel that a certain cohesion is developing, with the actors unions, for example, even though we are sometimes adversaries. Our unity is palpable. If the changes don’t work for us, something will happen,’ said Tremblay.

During the last federal election campaign, the Quebec arts community launched a public campaign against the government of Stephen Harper, which many observers believe cost him a majority.

Pierre Karl Péladeau — the head of Quebecor Media, which owns Videotron and Quebec’s largest private conventional network, TVA — also came under fire, in absentia, at the conference, which took place at Gatineau’s Hilton Lac Lemay. Many producers believe Moore is heeding Péladeau’s word when it comes to the CMF, and TVA was portrayed as somewhat of a villain for not participating in the ongoing terms-of-trade talks between producers and Canada’s major broadcasters.

‘TVA doesn’t want to negotiate with us… You either sign their contract or you don’t work for them,’ said APFTQ’s assistant director general Brigitte Doucet, adding that Quebec’s other conventional broadcasters, TQS and Radio-Canada, will likely reach an agreement with APFTQ soon. The producers’ main issue is multiplatform compensation.

TVA, like other conventional broadcasters, is required by the CRTC to negotiate new rights agreements with the producers as a condition of its licence renewal.

On Monday, the president and CEO of TVA Group, Pierre Dion, assured the CRTC it would continue to work with independent producers, but requested that the federal regulator scrap its rules forcing broadcasters to enter new terms-of-trade with the sector. ‘Don’t interfere in our contract dealings,’ said Dion. ‘We work with around 20 producers which are our genuine partners. Our discussions are based on good business practices, but we also care passionately about making high-quality content.’

Roughly 230 people, mainly Quebec private producers but also a number of representatives of the CRTC, attended the conference, which ended Tuesday evening with closing remarks by Christine St-Pierre, the province’s minister of culture.