I think I'll just focus, then, on the key parts of what I was going to talk about, which is reiterating somewhat what Patrick has said already. This year we've distributed films like Barney's Version and Incendies, which are two of the most acclaimed films of this year, and if we don't do something about Bill C-32, those kinds of films will have more and more difficulty in being made. Those films are being affected directly already.
We've also suffered from this plague of piracy and we need some clear rules and a deterrent in order to prevent this from happening.
Last summer a young filmmaker whose new film we are distributing received congratulations from an acquaintance who had just seen her film. This surprised the filmmaker, since her film wasn't scheduled for commercial release for another month. What she discovered was that her film was already available online and that dozens of other people she knew had seen it as well. This is one anecdotal piece of information, but this happens regularly.
Online piracy is out of control and is damaging the Canadian film industry today. Currently, four of the top ten most pirated films on BitTorrent are distributed in Canada by Canadian distributors.