By Yonatan Lew
Newly crowned California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger sounds more like a Kindergarten Cop than the Terminator as he threatens to steal Canada’s film industry away from us.
As one who has heard many politicians say a vast variety of boneheaded things, I can say with authority that the comment made by California’s incumbent governor falls under the category of True(ly bad) Lies.
“I want to bring the productions back (to California). This has been one of our number one exports is show business entertainment (sic). And now the Canadians have stolen it from us,” Arnold said to reporters during his campaign.
Of course, the way he tells it, all Canadians are old-school movie villains twirling their black moustaches and laughing maniacally. I’m not sure about you, but I can’t even grow a moustache.
Some in the Canadian film industry are concerned that the loss of film production in the country would be devastating for the largest cities’ economies. Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver will all watch closely as Governor Schwarzenegger tries to dig California out of a very large financial hole. And we’re talking a hole that’s 10 billion dollars deep. Dig up!
In Ottawa though, there is not even a hint of worry. All in all, Ottawa constitutes only about two per cent of Ontario’s multi-billion dollar industry.
And most of the films produced here are not even of the American persuasion. In fact, virtually no U.S. film producers choose Ottawa as their production site, opting instead for Toronto, Vancouver or Montreal.
It’s true that Ottawa just established a new film office to bring funds to the city’s film industry. And you’d think that Arnie’s comments would have our new film commissioner quaking in his boots. But Ken Korrall is not the least bit concerned.
“Canadian production will still go ahead whether there’s Americans here or not,” he says. Ottawa’s main film work comes from independent Canadian films. And while the film office has been set up to attract more foreign film investments, keep in mind that Bollywood makes 10 times more movies than Hollywood.
So now the secret is out. Schwarzenegger can’t harm Ottawa. But what about the rest of Canada? Should Toronto be searching for a way to combat this threat? Should Montreal be shaking in fear? Should Vancouver run and hide?
If anyone is afraid of all the birds flying south for the movies, don’t be!
After 9/11, New York tried to attract filmmakers by making it cheaper for producers to come and shoot there and Canadian cities still got business.
If we can survive New York, we can take on California.
Even with a rising dollar, American producers will still bring work here because no matter how high the loonie gets, it’ll still be lower than the American dollar.
With our strong work force and the right type of scenery, producers will still choose Hollywood North over Hollywood and Vine.
Canadians shouldn’t fear the Terminator. Just think how much of a deficit Arnold is going into office with. Add that to the pressures of a whole country waiting to pounce on his failures and what it equals is a governor who will be more concerned about things like taxes and unemployment than fighting off those Canadian “thieves.”
And no matter how much Arnold wants to terminate our film industry the fact remains that the governor does not choose film locations, the producers do. And they choose Canada.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve been promised a role in a film being produced in Toronto.