There was a big forum recently in Toronto about the future and the character of the content that appears on our screens, big or small. The event was called Content Canada and brought together an impressive number of big names from the world of television and cinema.
Posted at 8:15 a.m.
Several major audiovisual industry leaders were present: Catherine Tait, President of CBC/Radio-Canada, Valerie Creighton, President and CEO of the Canada Media Fund (CMF), bosses from Corus, Bell Media, Rogers , private producers and, of course, major industry players from the United States (Netflix, eOne, Paramount+, Disney+, etc.). Because, of course, it was a question of partnerships.
Although I carefully scrutinized the list of panelists (there were around 85) who fed the round tables and that of the dozens of participants who came as observers, it was on the fingers of one hand that I counted the very rare Quebecers present at this event which took place at the Drake Hotel on September 13 and 14.
The director of the event, Ferne Cohen, explained to me that the organizers did “everything possible” to reach Quebec leaders from the world of television and cinema, but without success. Yeah…
All these beautiful people were gathered to discuss major issues concerning this industry, in particular the redefinition of Canadian content in the context of Bill C-11 which should lead the digital giants to pay contributions in order to protect the Canadian audiovisual landscape. .
Several good questions have been discussed during this forum. What defines the Canadian content of a series or a film? How to create partnerships with southern neighbors while protecting intellectual property? What role should a public broadcaster play in the creation of Canadian content?
We also talked about the famous point system that determines whether a production is Canadian or not. For example, if the director or screenwriter is Canadian, you get two points. If the lead or supporting actor is Canadian, you get one point. A decorator or composer of Canadian origin also gets you a point.
To obtain certification, at least 75% of program expenditures or at least 75% of post-production expenditures must be paid for services provided by Canadians or Canadian companies.
You might be wondering, what are producers doing in Canada? They do that.
All of these crucial issues affect all links in our industry, including those in Quebec. However, we were not invited to party.
While digging through the lists, I still came across the name of Richard Jean-Baptiste, an independent Montreal producer who took part in the panel led by Valerie Creighton, patron of the FMC. He too was surprised to see that he was one of the few Quebecers invited to Content Canada.
During this panel, there was a lot of talk about inclusion and diversity. Richard Jean-Baptiste took the opportunity to declare this: “What I observe in Quebec is that only one group of people seems to be represented, so we are missing out on a lot of things. »
This must have made Anglophones salivate, who like to nurture the image of a Quebec withdrawn into itself. I joined Richard Jean-Baptiste on Friday, he qualified his remarks. According to him, the diversity on Quebec screens has grown in recent years. However, he notes that the presence of white Quebecers is still very strong among decision-makers. “They’re the ones making the content decisions,” he told me.
On that, he is right. But why was he the one and only Quebecer to be able to debate this question? It is still amazing to see that we are organizing a big event where the words “inclusion” and “diversity” are trumpeted and that we are excluding Quebec from this important debate. Were the organizers and guest leaders afraid of the directions that some of the discussions might have taken?
Are they afraid of having to tackle difficult subjects such as the differences in the budgets allocated to productions in Quebec and those in English Canada? Richard Jean-Baptiste told me about the aberration that arouses the ire of creators in Quebec. They have to deal with a sum of around $600,000 to create an hour of television (which very often breaks audience records), while creators in English Canada juggle, for the same hour, with a budget of 1 million dollars and sometimes even more.
The Canadians discussed among themselves their concerns about the American giants. And they did it without us. And after that, when we dare to talk about our reality as minority francophones, we are told that we have our finger in the navel and that we don’t have the same “dialogue” with multiculturalism as the rest of Canada.
The cultural gap between Quebec and English Canada has widened considerably in recent times. There is ignorance and bad faith there. And also a great excuse to hit our head once again.
It has often been said, but I believe that this event underlines the obvious: English Canadian cinema and television have always been in search of an identity. Now, under the threat of the digital giants, this industry is once again trying to distinguish itself and is looking for a way to tell its story.
It should first be known that it is not just with a pointing system that we define the identity of a creation. It is with its essence. And the survival instinct of these creators.
But obviously, we don’t really want to talk about this subject in Toronto.