Thank you very much.
Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. I am the executive director of the Canadian Independent Film and Video Fund. With me is Jean-Louis Robichaud, chair of the fund and former director of the Centre provincial de ressources pédagogiques in Saulnierville, Nova Scotia. We thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today.
The Canadian Independent Film and Video Fund is a dynamic private sector funding body that supports non-theatrical film and video projects created by Canadian independent producers to enable lifelong learning. The fund provides financial assistance to documentaries and educational and informational films and videos, and has also supported new media projects.
These programs are destined for use in the educational sector from kindergarten to university; in museums, film festivals, libraries, health services, community groups, and cultural and social services; on educational and specialty television; on airlines and cruise ships; and in the business, home video, and new media markets.
Since 1991, the CIFVF has provided $17.9 million of funding to 900 projects, covering a vast variety of subjects and using a variety of formats, including documentary, docu-drama, drama, animation, and training-instructional. In managing its financial allocations for funding to independent producers, the CIFVF strives to ensure that one-third of the funding available is designated to assist original French-language productions, and approximately two-thirds of the funding is allocated to original English-language projects.
Educational and informational production activity is carried out in all parts of Canada, and the CIFVF makes every attempt to encourage and support productions originating from all regions. To that end, the CIFVF endeavours to ensure that one-fifth of the money available at each deadline is allocated to projects originating from each of the following regions: Atlantic and northern Canada, Quebec, Ontario, the Prairies, and British Columbia.
Please note that the CIFVF is providing responses today to only certain issues raised by the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage on the role of the CBC.