Bill C-10 Morally Dubious

It has come to my attention that Bill C-10 alters the Canadian Income Tax Act in such a way that it gives the Minister of Heritage excessive discretionary control in deciding which film and television productions may be allowed tax credits. It also allows the minister to communicate about which productions get tax [...]

Letter to Robert A. Morin, CRTC Secretary General

Re: Broadcasting Public Notice CRTC 2008-6
Dear Mr. Morin,
I support a policy of fully itemized public disclosure of all aspects of Canadian program development and Broadcasting. We need to be specific about the kinds of programming Canadian culture needs for optimal health. There must be clearly designated percentages of our culture dollars for [...]

Screenwriters vs General Electric?

I was listening to CBC Radio One this morning and I heard an interview with a woman from Hollywood who was saying the Writer’s Guild of America was foolish to think it could win a strike against the powers that be in Hollywood. Then the reporter dropped this bomb…. General Electric owns [...]

Smarter Gentler Communities With Video

The language of motion pictures has been mastered by a relatively small proportion of our population and this has resulted in a power imbalance that threatens the integrity of Democracy. Acquiring literacy in the language of motion pictures is essential for all people because the language of motion pictures dominates public discourse and [...]

Canadian Film / T.V. Busness Development???

When I joined the Director’s Guild of Canada as an Associate Member in 1988, most people in the industry bemoaned what they called “the crisis in English Canadian Dramatic Film and Television”. The ratings were horrendously low – somewhere between two and five percent of English [...]

A Challenge to The CRTC

I am very pleased with CRTC chair, Mr. von Finckenstein’s speech to the 2007 Banf Television Festival. It bodes well that we have such a clear thinking, fair minded person guiding the CRTC at this time.
Read his speech here. http://www.crtc.gc.ca/eng/NEWS/SPEECHES/2007/s070611.htm
However. Small Businesses and Cultural Communities across Canada have been and are suffering [...]