Our presentation today will focus on three key points: first, the need for sustained, long-term investment in public funding instruments; second, the need to keep Canadian feature films Canadian; and third, the difficulties faced by Canadians in actually seeing Canadian films.
Public funding is crucial to helping our cultural industries attract private investment. The government must continue its investment in Canada's cultural assets by committing to long-term funding for the industry's economic drivers.
As a crown corporation dedicated to promoting the advancement of the audiovisual industry in Canada, Telefilm Canada supports the development, production, distribution, and marketing of Canadian feature films. Telefilm aIso administers Canada's co-production treaties and the Canada Media Fund's funding programs, and, additionally, Telefilm helps develop and promote feature films through its Canada Feature Film Fund. The spirit and intent of the CFFF is to encourage the promotion of Canadian feature films that have high box office potential while aIso supporting a wide range of genres, budgets, companies, and regions. Equally as important, each dollar from the CFFF triggers $2 in additional financing for digital media projects and $3 for feature film projects. Clearly the fund is an important economic generator worth supporting.
Unfortunately, since its parliamentary appropriation was cut by 10% in 2012, Telefilm has struggled to do more with less. We would like to echo the comments made by other presenters before this committee about the pressing need to fully restore Telefilm's parliamentary appropriation.
Sarah.