Canadian Heritage Committee on April 27th, 2015

[Pierre Nantel, NDP, Longueuil—Pierre-Boucher, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I want to thank all three of you for coming.

I want to thank my colleague Mr. Terence Young for bringing in Mr. Helliker, because clearly we're talking in this panel about both extremes with young people: making young people aware of our movie-making and reaching the young people who are actually going to learn how to do it.

So thank you very much for bringing these witnesses.

This leads me to tell you how worried I am about the schedule. I want to make sure that we keep some speaking time, because I realize that we have not yet heard from witnesses from ACTRA and UDA. I hope we find some time, because obviously we cannot talk about movie-making without acting.

I want to thank you very much also, Mr. Blum, from Reel Canada. It's a great idea.

But, Mr. Lewis, you didn't find the time to end your testimony about the Alberta issue. You spoke about suppliers and employees. There's an issue about no payment. Is that right?

[John Lewis]

That's correct.

The feature film industry is a very risky one. It's highly capitalized, and you heard from your previous panel that there's no sure formula for success. The way the industry is formulated, for every individual production there's a single-purpose corporate entity created that will enter into agreements with the unions and the guilds, but also with suppliers.

Unfortunately, as in any industry, there are some players who have failed to meet payroll and failed to pay suppliers. What is problematic and what Alberta has dealt with is that they will say: “That wasn't us; that was the previous company. This is a brand new entity, and that has nothing to do with us.” Well, Alberta—the first province to do this—has said no, we're going to look at your track record and we're going to look at what you've done. If you've defaulted, you shouldn't be coming up here for more money.

I'll give you a quick example. There was a show in Alberta in 2008, When Calls the Heart, that left $1.2 million in unpaid wages and invoices to suppliers. They finished the show in Romania because it blew up in Alberta. They finished the pilot in Romania and came back to British Columbia—the same production company, with the same writers, same directors, same producer—and got access to funding from the federal and provincial government and are in their second season.

I just think that's fundamentally wrong.

So what Alberta has done—and I would strongly recommend that this committee look at it, and we're doing this across every province—is to consider whether you have a history of not paying your bills, and factoring that in to whether you get additional funding in the future.

That should be a fact.

[Pierre Nantel, NDP, Longueuil—Pierre-Boucher, QC]

I perfectly understand.

You are right. All too often, in production, companies are created for each production so that the accounts are separated. Indeed, we will have to link the various companies involved.

Mr. Lewis, I wanted to discuss one last point with you, but I'm afraid I won't have enough time.

Instead, I will turn to you, Mr. Blum.

The week for Canadian film is absolutely wonderful and inspiring. I probably saw the movie you suggested, Breakaway, on the same evening as Mr. Young. We should introduce MPs to Canadian cinema. It was a very good movie in which we identify ourselves and that reflects our realities, our multiculturalism and everything else.

Based on your information, there are few events in Quebec, apart from what is being done at Excentris. Quebec director of photography André Turpin said—I think we can talk in the past tense—that the collegial film prize that has been around for a few years is in jeopardy. This is along the same lines. Does the fact that the system is well developed in Quebec not make it part of REEL Canada?

[Jack Blum]

I'm not sure I understand the question; I'm sorry.

I understand the college prize.

[Pierre Nantel, NDP, Longueuil—Pierre-Boucher, QC]

Yes, in Quebec we have the collegial prize for CEGEPS.

[Jack Blum]

Yes.

[Pierre Nantel, NDP, Longueuil—Pierre-Boucher, QC]

It's the same principle. They show Canadian-made movies, Quebec movies, and they favour having people talk and exchange views about them. Then they make a selection, and there is some winner—

[Jack Blum]

—of recognition.

[Pierre Nantel, NDP, Longueuil—Pierre-Boucher, QC]

Yes.

Have there been exchanges between your two organizations to talk about this reality?

[Jack Blum]

Yes, that is the case, and we've been approached to possibly adopt a similar thing in English Canada. It's quite a huge undertaking, and obviously we are stretched to do what we do. Right now we are focused on high schools. We would love to focus on higher education as well.

It's a great idea, though.

[Pierre Nantel, NDP, Longueuil—Pierre-Boucher, QC]

Yes, absolutely.

If possible, could you send us the information on the support that you receive from the Canadian government, if any? That is absolutely the type of initiative that we need, I think, to introduce young people to the films produced here.

Mr. Lewis, representatives from a lot of Canadian companies have told us how important Canadian film production is, but they have also told us about a critical mass that was accumulating in U.S. productions.

Is it true that the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees helps employees maintain such high-quality skills that U.S. producers coming to Canada have full confidence in being able to work with them?

[John Lewis]

In a short word, yes. It's an industry that's quite integrated between large U.S. productions and indigenous Canadian industry. Those large U.S. productions create the infrastructure, create the sound stages, the equipment rental houses, but also create expertise at the crew level.

We're dealing with the federal government on the temporary foreign worker program, because we're an industry that works side by side and hand in hand with producers to allow through our collective agreements—nothing to do with immigration policy—the bringing in of world- renowned cinematographers and whatnot, working side by side with Canadians.

I can tell you that over the last 20 years the number of U.S. high-end crew has dropped dramatically, because there has been training taking place on set day to day, and people know what's going on; it's that sort of thing.

Yes. The IA is perfectly situated for that. We're across both borders. Our people work all over the world. It's not just Canada and the United States; we work everywhere, because we are the leading technical union supplying those kinds of crafts.

[Pierre Nantel, NDP, Longueuil—Pierre-Boucher, QC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gord Brown]

Okay. Merci.

Thank you.

Mr. Dion, you have seven minutes.

[Stéphane Dion, Liberal, Saint-Laurent—Cartierville, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you very much for joining us, gentlemen.

Maybe the best way to use my seven minutes would be to start with your document, Mr. Lewis, and to invite Mr. Blum and Mr. Helliker to join the conversation. It's a very dense paper. I'm not sure I've absorbed everything in it.

Maybe we can start on page 2 with what you have to say about the telefilm micro-budget program. You are suggesting, are you, that it's a program that may encourage people to stay small, to not grow?

[John Lewis]

I will agree with one point your previous panel talked about: marketing is essential. This committee in its previous incarnation spoke in some of your earlier reports, from 2008, and Telefilm spoke about a minimum marketing budget, but it has also talked about a minimum production budget.

You're dealing with the elephant in the room. You're dealing with the studios and what they can produce.

So there's a fine line between trying to encourage young filmmakers, but at the same time not to the point where the budgets are just so small that there are too many sacrifices.... I'll point out again that safety is an issue. These are big, long-running shows; the hours are long, and if you're undermanned in terms of crew because there is no money.... No one's trying to do the wrong thing; there's just no money.

[Stéphane Dion, Liberal, Saint-Laurent—Cartierville, QC]

And the program is encouraging people to stay too small?

[John Lewis]

Yes, because the budgets are micro-budgets. It's to help the filmmakers coming out of school get their first feature film. There's a place for it, and I'm not saying throw it out, but I think we have to be careful about how large that program becomes. And it tends to be very regional; a lot of it gets done in Atlantic Canada.

[Stéphane Dion, Liberal, Saint-Laurent—Cartierville, QC]

I thought your organization would want to cancel it. It was created in 2012, so it's a new program.

[John Lewis]

It was 2012.

We're not saying cancel; we're saying limit. We're just saying that we have to be careful that it doesn't become any larger, because it really puts pressure on the industry. It's not just our people; it's the equipment houses that are asked to donate all the equipment for free.

[Stéphane Dion, Liberal, Saint-Laurent—Cartierville, QC]

I understand.

Do you have a comment on this specific point? No. Okay.

The next point concerns a suggestion we have received in this committee many times. It's the fact that there's a kind of clawback from the province.

[John Lewis]

Right.

[Stéphane Dion, Liberal, Saint-Laurent—Cartierville, QC]

When the province subsidizes, you receive less from the federal government. Is that the “grind”?

[John Lewis]

That's right, its the grind.

[Stéphane Dion, Liberal, Saint-Laurent—Cartierville, QC]

We have been told that it will be very costly for the federal government to not do that. I don't know whether you have an idea how much you are asking from the federal government for that.