City set to bail out Toronto's film industry

Does Ontario have a film strategy? It seems to me that when the auto industry is at stake the province takes the lead but for the film industry Toronto seems to have to paddle its own canoe?

There's always been a pretty significant separation of church and state when it comes to Toronto vs. Ontario. In fact, attrition from smaller Ontario cities and towns is part of the problem facing Toronto: a lot of smaller areas (Sudbury, North Bay, etc.) have been offering serious incentives to draw film business their way.

Sigh.

God forbid we should devote any significant resources to Canadian-made entertainment when we can all wet ourselves over a gaggle of B-list Hollywood celebrities filming some straight-to-DVD crap-fest...

"Oh look, there's Russel Crowe in Cinderella Man. Hope he doesn't throw a phone at me!"

"Ooh, there's Clint Howard soliciting a prostitute. I hear he's up for the role the wacky cab driver in Cheaper By The Dozen 3..."

"Are you going to the film fest gala? I can't wait to drop $200 for tickets to a movie that's opening across North America two weeks later!"

Meanwhile Canadian films struggle through their first weekend at The Carlton before they're yanked due to lack of interest.

"Serves them right," you say? Well, once upon a time the Canadian music industry sucked too. But thanks to a CRTC that actually had a pair, a few of decades of strict Canadian content rules has yielded some pretty good results.

As for film & TV, however, Entertainment Tonight Canada apparently qualifies as CanCon according to the CRTC. Yay us.

Give it to me straight, AC, don't mince words. How do you really feel? :)

Huh? This is the same city council telling me about TTC cuts and tax hikes?

The OMDC [Ontario Media Development Corp] drives a good portion of production outside our city, offering up a 10% regional tax bonus for anyone shooting outside the GTA.

If the higher Canadian dollar makes it uneconomical for US productions to come here, then we should just let it be. To use public money to subsidize this industry and pretend it's still viable with our high dollar is just distorting the market's new balance. Let other new industries who should rise rise, and let old industries who should die die. (Unless having US productions here somehow brings public good outside of the film industry, which I can't see any.)

Derek has it wrong. Tax breaks are not coming out of the public purse. What does it hurt to match our competition in giving breaks on revunue we wpnt get unless we have those breaks. If a production leaves Toronto, then we get no tax revenue or jobs. The film industry employs alot of people in good paying job. People are losing their lives over the slowing of the film business.

I'm a graduate trying to find work for the past months and it's been a real struggle. No jobs anywhere and a lot of free work being asked for. Unfortunately it doesn't pay the bills. I've had to take a minimum wage job serving popcorn to try and stay afloat. Something's seriously wrong with the industry.

Toronto has no film industry period. Like everything else Toronto thinks it can fake its way though but no one outside the city is buying it. We can all see that Vancouver is a better deal. Toronto screwed itself and its people. Film people once making 80k/year are serving coffee at Second Cup stores. What a cosmo city!

The sokution is to leave. Just like the film business did.