Thank you.
Good afternoon, Mr. Chair and members of the standing committee. My name is Tara Walker and I'm the executive director of On Screen Manitoba, which is the independent production industry association for Manitoba. Presenting with me is Kim Todd. She's the chair of our board, and she's the president of Original Pictures, an independent production company based in Winnipeg, Manitoba.
Kim has been producing television for over 20 years. She started as a senior producer with Atlantis Films in Toronto, and she has produced Canadian classics such as The Diviners and A Bear Named Winnie, which were both for CBC, and fun prime time series like Falcon Beach for Global and ABC Family in the United States. We represent the film, television, and new media community in Manitoba. Our membership covers the entire production industry in our province, from the creators—that's the producers, writers, directors—to the technical and creative craftspeople who are represented by labour groups, the service and goods suppliers, and the broadcasters in our region. Our mission is to lead, build, and represent the production industry in Manitoba.
We appreciate this opportunity to address you at such a critical time in the evolution of our industry. We agree with the Canadian Film and Television Production Association, the CFTPA, in their assertion that television broadcasting in Canada is now at a crossroads, and that key decisions made by officials over the next term will lay the foundation for the future of our industry and for the system for the next generation of Canadians.
We also agree that the Canadian independent producers are the cornerstone of the system, as is the content they produce. Independent production is a means of ensuring that our broadcast system is diverse, distinctively Canadian, and inclusive of local communities.