By Darren Eke
Now this is reality television. It really shouldn’t surprise anyone that the federal government has decided to slash the budget of the Canadian Television Fund.
After all, this is just “another” organization designed to embrace and promote the diversity of our Canadian culture.
Established in 1996, the CTF has supported Canadian television productions including documentaries, dramas, feature films and children’s programming.
However, the 2003 federal budget has set a “new direction” for Canadian television: reduce domestic programming in favour of foreign service productions.
This change requires a 25-per-cent funding reduction to the CTF’s already-strapped $100-million budget.
These cuts also threaten thousands of jobs in our domestic television and film industry.
At the same time, however, the government has decided to increase tax incentives on foreign productions choosing to work in Canada.
Admittedly, these tax credits will help the Canadian industry by increasing government revenue and creating jobs. But at the end of the day, one crucial element continues to suffer: Canadian culture.
This $25-million cut has huge implications for the current state of Canadian television production and offers long-term consequences for the future.
The immediate effects would see some current domestic projects being shelved indefinitely until appropriate funding comes along.
Don’t get too attached to the projects that are solely dependent on government funding, because they’ll never see the light of day.
And you can forget programs reflecting a nation of diversity. Instead, Canada will be bombarded with recycled American programming.
Unfortunately, these aren’t the only problems.
Future setbacks involve the entire cast of people responsible for creating this distinct programming: producers, writers, directors, actors and technical crews.
If these pillars that construct and reflect Canadian culture can’t find work, they’ll likely move south to sunnier job prospects and the country will face another “brain drain.”
One can’t get into the minds of the people who created this dilemma, but it should be obvious that cutting one-quarter out of any budget will have major consequences.
But maybe there is some logic behind this. Forget promoting domestic culture, the government can get a bigger paycheque by offering these tax incentives for foreign productions.
In return, these foreign companies will love us so much they’ll create a project reflecting our culture for us.
If that doesn’t happen, it’s okay. At least we have the CBC.
After all, our national broadcaster has become an expert at creating something out of nothing from a government that gives it less each year.