A new bill that would give the Heritage Department the power to refuse funding for certain film and TV productions has triggered an uproar in Canada's film industry.
An omnibus bill proposing changes to the Income Tax Act, Bill C-10 would allow the Heritage Minister or a government panel to deny tax credits to productions considered offensive or "contrary to public policy."
The government says the measure would ensure that taxpayers don't end up footing the bill for productions containing extreme violence or pornography.
During hearings before a Senate committee last Thursday, Heritage Minster Josée Verner said the bill would tie up a loose end in the Income Tax Act.
"There is material that is potentially illegal under the Criminal Code, such as indecent material, hate propaganda and child pornography. Currently, there are no provisions in the Income Tax Act or regulations that exclude such material. This is a loophole that Bill C-10 would, in particular, address."
Critics have widely condemned the bill, saying it would quash creativity and financially cripple Canada's film community. Actors Sarah Polley and Wendy Crewson told the Senate committee that the bill amounts to censorship.
"If it's not against the law, you get to say it," Polley told the senators, adding that her own award-winning film, Away From Her, could not have received funding if the bill had been in effect.
The entertainment industry wants tax credits denied only to productions that violate the Criminal Code, such as hate material or child pornography.
But Rose Dyson, president of Canadians Concerned About Violence in Entertainment (C-Cave), says Canada needs "a bar that's higher than the Criminal Code."
"This is not a censorship issue, it's an issue involving discretionary funding," says Dyson. "Saying that the Criminal Code is fine, that pornography is not getting funded — there are all kinds of pornographic productions that have gotten tax credits and funding."
In her presentation to the Senate committee, Dyson said she agreed with journalist John Ivison who argued in defense of Bill C-10 in a recent National Post article.
Ivison wrote that as a taxpayer he was "outraged" because Telefilm Canada, the government body that supplies most of the funding, "handed out $158 million last year to such productions as Sperm and The Masturbators. "
Proponents of the bill say such movies are not watched by mainstream Canadians and shouldn't receive public funding.
Dyson, author of MIND ABUSE: Media Violence in an Information Age, says the film American Psycho, considered a "how-to manual" for Canadian convicted serial killer Paul Bernardo, received $120,000 in tax credits.
Gratuitously violent video games, now a large part of the industry, should also not be eligible for government funding, says Dyson.
"There are countless studies demonstrating that [media violence] is harmful to the cultural environment in which our children in particular are being socialized. For us to be funding this out of our own public purse is inexcusable."
Noa Mendelsohn Aviv, director of the Freedom Project with the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, says it's a "matter of freedom of expression" when the government gets to pick and choose content based on what it believes is against public policy.
Mendelsohn Aviv and other opponents of the bill worry that the language in the bill is too vague. The very notion of excessive sex, she says, is open to interpretation.
"The government has made statements suggesting they want to use it for things like excessive sex or gratuitous violence, things that are sensitive, that denigrate certain groups. But for each of those categories we have numerous examples of films that we think are valuable and important to the Canadian public and yet might meet these criteria."
Telefilm's mandate is to foster productions that "reflect Canadian society, with its linguistic duality and cultural diversity," according to its website.
However, Diane Watts, researcher with REAL Women of Canada, told the Senate committee that the material created by the culture industry in Canada by way of tax credits has "rarely achieved" its objective and has instead alienated and offended many Canadians.
"This is because the producers represent in many cases the views of very few Canadians. In 2006, only four per cent of Canadian box office receipts went to Canadian-produced films, while 88 per cent went to Hollywood-produced films and eight per cent went to others," said Watts.
The cost of the tax credit program in 2005 was $2.2 billion; it is presently $5 billion annually. The Senate committee was told that only two films have been denied funding since the program began twelve years ago, and that was because of their pornographical content.
Liberal Senator Wilfred Moore says any guidelines put in place under Bill C-10 would not be reviewable by Parliament, giving the Heritage Department "unassailable authority" to manipulate them without public scrutiny.
"There are major concerns from the industry of the hint of censorship or of the chance that one might not get approval sometime down the line. This sends a real chill through the industry in terms of the people who finance films," he said.
The Liberal government under Jean Chretien initially drafted this legislation in 2003, intending to limit tax credits for a movie about serial killers Paul Bernardo and Karla Homolka.
Charles McVety, president of the Canadian Family Action Coalition, says opponents' claims that implementing the changes will bring about the collapse of the entertainment industry in Canada amounts to "fear mongering."
McVety, who will testify before the Senate committee on Wednesday, says the bill merely gives the government the ability to enforce legislation that's already in place. He says it's "absolutely absurd" that public money has gone to pay for such movies as Young People F---ing and The Masturbators.
"The Canadian government has put $22 billion into 20,000 productions over the last 12 years. Unfortunately, some of these productions are objectionable films but under the current protocol the tax credit cannot be withdrawn for objectionable material."
C-Cave's Dyson says Toronto-based Rockstar Productions, producer of the Grand Theft Auto series of video games, has received some public funding for "extremely violent" video games such as "The Warriors" and "Manhunt."
There was an outcry in the United States after "Manhunt" appeared there, she says, and it was banned in the United Kingdom. Likewise Canadian director David Cronenberg's movie Crash was banned from distribution in Scandinavia and in London's West End theatre district, among other venues.
"Should we be happy with this kind of approach to cultural policy in Canada?" asks Dyson.
"The notion that they are as an industry entitled carte blanche to a blank cheque to produce anything they want other than what might be contrary to the Criminal Code…this is a remarkable degree of perceived entitlement."
Verner has said that she wants to work in collaboration with the industry to draft the Bill C-10 guidelines, proposing a year's grace in which to achieve that before the bill would go into effect.
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