We usually count on our neighbors to the north to be the liberals, the ones who would never elect George W. Bush and let David Cronenberg go on being a national filmmaking treasure. But recently the Canadian government, which offers significant tax incentives to movie and television productions, decided it will deny tax breaks to productions that are deemed “inappropriate.”
What’s inappropriate? Well, that’s the trouble. An article in the newspaper The Globe and Mail explains that “the criteria used for denying tax credits to include grounds such as gratuitous violence, significant sexual content that lacks an educational purpose, or denigration of an identifiable group. A conservative activist also interviewed for the article though, claims that “films promoting homosexuality, graphic sex or violence should not receive tax dollars, and backbench Conservative MPs and cabinet ministers support his campaign.”
Canada’s filmmakers, Cronenberg included, are naturally protesting and the 1600-member Writer’s Union of Canada plans to organize against the new plan. Frankly, it seems impossible for this to actually happen. Canada has an entire wing of the government dedicated to funding film production, the National Film Board of Canada, and they’ve helped produce some of the most controversial and artistically daring films ever made. Sure, tax breaks to porn productions or racist tirades aren’t really necessary, but these guidelines are so broad that any conservative government could deny filming to something like, say, Brokeback Mountain (filmed partly in Canada).
My favorite take on the whole thing is from Canadian filmmaker Martin Grero, whose latest movie is called, no joke, Young People Fucking. “[It’s] less about censorship than destroying the economic foundation of our entire industry. It's old people fucking with the Canadian film industry." Couldn’t have said it better myself.
