Production sector to receive $50M in gov’t insurance support

Independent producers will be able to access a $50 million insurance backstop to help get TV and film productions off the ground despite the COVID-19 pandemic, Heritage Minister Steven Guilbeault said Friday. The Short-Term Compensation Fund for Canadian Audiovisual Productions will compensate independent productions if filming has to be interrupted or shut down due to COVID-19. It will be administered by Telefilm Canada and the Canada Media Fund, and provide a maximum of $1.5 million if there is a temporary interruption and $3 million if production has to shut down entirely. Speaking to reporters Friday, Guilbeault said he was open to increasing that if necessary. “If we realize $50 million is not enough and more is required to help the audiovisual sector we will certainly adjust this measure accordingly,” he said. The insurance support is something the industry has been asking since June. Earlier this month, surveys conducted by the Canadian Media Producers Association (CMPA) and the Association québécoise de la production médiatique (AQPM) said some 214 “camera-ready” film and television projects -- employing 19,500 people and representing $1 billion in production spending -- were at “imminent risk” because of a lack of COVID-19 insurance available to producers. In a statement emailed to the Wire Report Friday, the CMPA thanked Guilbeault, and said the fund "will help hundreds of camera-ready Canadian film and TV projects move forward after months of uncertainty." "The swift implementation of a workable program is now mission critical, to safeguard thousands of jobs in jeopardy. We look forward to working with the Minister, Telefilm and other industry stakeholders, to ensure the launch of this new funding measure as soon as possible," said CMPA president and CEO Reynolds Mastin in the statement. Guilbeault said the fund would be available within weeks, and that to be eligible, a company would have to be owned and controlled by Canadians who are making a Canadian production. Recipients must also be an independent company that is not affiliated with a broadcaster. He added that further details on eligibility would be released in coming weeks. “We want this fund to be in operation as soon as possible, so we are literally running to put this together ... as soon as possible,” he said. Guilbeault said he would be tabling legislation reforming the Broadcasting Act in the coming weeks, but declined to offer any additional information about what will be included. Since January, Guilbeault has been promising new measures targeting large foreign digital companies. Guilbeault said in June that he would introduce legislation in the fall focusing on ensuring all content providers, including web giants, support the creation and discovery of Canadian content. He also said the government would bring forward legislation this fall requiring companies like Facebook Inc. and Alphabet Inc. to compensate news organizations for the sharing of their content. In a radio interview Thursday with journalist Evan Solomon, Guilbeault indicated the government would, in addition to imposing sales taxes on foreign digital companies, also bring in additional corporate taxes on those companies that would apply to the use of data and advertising. That’s something Liberals promised in the 2019 election campaign, when they pledged a three-per-cent tax on the advertising and data revenues of companies with at least $1 billion in global revenue and $40 million in Canadian revenues a year. But in January, Guilbeault said the government had decided to wait for OECD consultations on the corporate tax issue, while it was ready to move on the sales tax. He indicated at the time extending GST to foreign digital companies would be included in the next federal budget. That budget was never tabled because of the COVID-19 pandemic. On Friday, Guilbeault said that any tax measures would be the purview of Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland, but declined to specify whether both the GST and the new corporate taxes will be included in the upcoming budget. “All fiscal measures are a matter of the finance ministry and the finance minister. The bill that I will be tabling will really look at how we can ensure that web giants are doing their fair share when it comes to supporting Canadian arts, Canadian artists and Canadian stories and the distribution of those stories,” he said. Guilbeault didn’t directly respond to a question about whether that means the upcoming bill will deal only with new measures that don’t involve financial obligations or contributions, such as rules around how much Canadian content streaming services must have in their catalogues. Instead he pointed to previous comments by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau indicating that the new GST rules would be included in the next federal budget. He didn’t answer whether that means the new corporate tax will also be included in that budget, the date for which has yet to be set. “On the GST… I’m basing my assumption on the comments made by the prime minister,” he said. “There’s a lot of work to be done between now and the next budget. We’ll have to see what will be in it.” — Reporting by Anja Karadeglija at akarad@thewirereport.ca and editing by Michael Lee-Murphy at mleemurphy@thewirereport.ca

Production sector to receive $50M in gov’t insurance support

News | September 25, 2020

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Production sector to receive $50M in gov’t insurance support

News | September 25, 2020

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