invades

the Hill

"The campaign is on," says Dennis Mills, parliamentary secretary of the federal Ministry of Industry. Mills is referring to the Canadian Film and Television Association's invasion Nov. 15 of Parliament Hill to lobby against indiscriminate cuts to the industry. Mills vows he will "do everything short of bombing this place," to support the film and tv industry.

Since Mills' Toronto riding holds the highest concentration of film technicians and studio space of any riding in the country, his enthusiasm is not surprising. But according to producers who attended the meetings, it is definitely rare.

When 40 members of the cftpa gathered to meet with officials from the ministries of Trade, Finance, and Heritage, the Prime Minister's office and with opposition critics, they discovered what cftpa president Sandra Macdonald calls "an astounding degree of ignorance. We learned that we should have been doing this twice a year for the last 10 years," she says.

The cftpa had stats on hand to push at government officials: the film and television industry boasts a 225% increase in total revenue earned over the last decade, a current annual tally of 31,000 employees, and a $1.9 billion annual injection of combined direct and indirect benefit to the gross domestic economy.

These numbers were taken to Parliament Hill to try and ward off impending cuts to Telefilm Canada and the cbc and to enforce the need for a refundable tax credit.

This is the first time the cftpa has done this, says Macdonald, and the decision to lobby Ottawa en masse was made in the face of the upcoming February budget.

Steve Levitan of Protocol Entertainment says although this is just a beginning, the day was less than perfect. "The people we met with all seemed to fall back on the message that the government is committed to reducing debt, and across-the-board cuts are coming and they are going to be painful."

Create jobs

The most effective argument, says Kevin Shea, coo of Atlantis, is to uphold the industry's ability to create jobs and generate revenues. "There are only two things the government cares about: job creation and reducing the deficit. If we're an industry that can demonstrate that we accomplish both those things, plus prove we have a cultural benefit, then maybe we won't be on the hit list in February."

Shea says there are rumors that, at the end of the day, Finance will make across-the-board cuts, and that is what he is fighting. Such a move would mean "impairing sectors that (the government) should be investing in," he says.

Macdonald thinks there are alternatives. "There are two separate things going on in the government: one is the Department of Finance's overall targets for deficit reduction. At the same time, there has been an overall program review to look at individual programs. So in fact, (program review head Marcel Masse's) emphasis is a very selective cut. Some things could be considerably deeper than the 5%, and some, if they were considered valuable, could be less."