I think the section of Bill C-10 which allows the government to yank a movie’s tax credits for moral or educational reasons after it has been produced is a bad idea, for many of the reasons people have spelled out before. But I’m almost tempted to say I don’t have a dog in this fight right now.
Today and yesterday, various reporters — including the Globe and Mail‘s Gayle MacDonald, Jennifer MacMillan and Gloria Galloway, Variety‘s Brendan Kelly and the Canadian Press’s Ian Keteku — reported on the fact that Sarah Polley led a group of Canadian film industry types in meeting with the government and calling on the powers that be to change this aspect of the bill. And since I have never cared for Polley’s strident politicking, I find myself wishing the anti-C-10 forces had a better frontperson.
I also had to snort, just a little, when I read in Keteku’s piece that Brian Anthony, CEO of the Directors Guild of Canada, said the proposed law would lead to a “homogenization” of Canadian film. As if, due to the fact that the industry is so small and so many movies need up-front government financing to get made in the first place, with all the creative interference that comes with that, the industry didn’t feel pretty “homogenous” to begin with? Oh, sure, perhaps one kind of homogeneity would end up being sacrificed for another, but still.
Meanwhile, who is for this aspect of Bill C-10? Social-conservative groups such as REAL Women of Canada, reports the Globe and Mail in a separate story. Oh joy.
Actually, that last story raises some other interesting questions. One of the other pro-C-10 people quoted there is Rose Anne Dyson of Canadians Concerned About Violence in Entertainment, who cites American Psycho (2000) as an example of the sort of film that should have been denied tax credits in the past. But wait a minute, wasn’t that an American co-production, in which case Bill C-10 wouldn’t have had any effect on its tax credits to begin with? Or, since it was co-produced by Lions Gate, which is ultimately a Canadian company, would it have been affected after all? If a movie is produced by a Canadian firm and an American firm, can the producers decide which firm truly represents them, for tax purposes? If it is advantageous to be a “Canadian film” when getting the up-front funding but disadvantageous to be a “Canadian film” when applying for the tax credits afterwards, can the producers declare that their film is “Canadian” by one government agency’s set of criteria but not by the other’s? And so on, and so on.
Meanwhile, that last story also quotes Noa Mendelsohn Aviv of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, who says the proposed law could give the government power to ban Looney Tunes — but that is clearly nuts, since the law applies only to the financing of brand-new Canadian movies that are being produced now, and not to the distribution of foreign American films that were produced several decades ago.
Finally, the Canadian Press says politicians have been lining up to take a look at Young People Fucking, the Canadian film that, due to its title more than its content, has been cited most often during the debate over Bill C-10. All publicity is good publicity, and all that. The film comes to theatres June 13.
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