Canadian Heritage committee  We agree with that on this side as well.

Canadian Heritage committee  That's for sure. However, that visibility will be achieved when we understand that funding has to be modulated and that much more has to be granted for development, distribution and visibility. The constraints have to be removed. Since you are a federal committee, I think it would be high time to see whether the Broadcasting Act and the Telecommunications Act are up to date and keeping pace with the 21st century.

Canadian Heritage committee  We have talked very little about the distribution of films; we only alluded to it briefly. Distribution is one of the important issues.. For a fiction feature film to receive funding from SODEC, Telefilm Canada or other Canadian organizations, you need a distributor; however, there are not many distributors in Canada and those that exist are large distributors.

Canadian Heritage committee  That is our position. The SODEC position is in the report on film. We will be making changes to our regulations very soon, and to our programs, to take all of this into account. As we say in English, it's the number of eyeballs that count, not the platform.

Canadian Heritage committee  May I answer, Mr. Hillyer?

Canadian Heritage committee  We received 1,440 applications last year. We were only able to support a little over 400 of those, including short films, documentaries, programs for young filmmakers and feature films. It is true that there are a lot of applications and we can only choose about a third of them.

Canadian Heritage committee  Good afternoon.

Canadian Heritage committee  It is quite doable if the regulations concerning fiscal assistance are amended. Ms. Collin is correct. First, we wait for the money. While waiting for the funds, interim funding is very costly. We could say that that is a perverse collateral effect of the system. The tax credit formula as such is terrific.

Canadian Heritage committee  I see disadvantages to the extent that some could oppose it, but that will not be the case for SODEC.

Canadian Heritage committee  We manage the seven tax credits for culture. We submitted a certain number of improvements to the system to the government. We think that in a lot of cases certain steps could be eliminated and this would not cause problems. There are often two opposing philosophies when it comes to tax assistance.

Canadian Heritage committee  Yes.

Canadian Heritage committee  As a producer, I made over 150 films. I was then the executive director of the National Film Board of Canada's French Program during five years, and I took part in the great digital shift at the NFB, by opening interactive production studios, among other things. Today, there is indeed an issue with visibility, since the offer is overabundant.

Canadian Heritage committee  Yes, I can hear you just fine.

Canadian Heritage committee  Thank you kindly, Mr. Brown. I'd also like to thank the committee members for inviting us to appear today. I'll try to keep my remarks brief. Just a note for the interpreters: I won't be presenting my brief in full, so as not to go over my eight minutes. Joining me are Marie Brazeau, SODEC's Director of Hospitality and Film Operations; and Fannie Sénéchal, Director of Communications.