IN THE DR SEUSS CLASSIC How the Grinch Stole Christmas!, the Grinch is robbed of his revenge when the good burghers of Whoville preserve their Christmas spirit and retain their celebrations despite having been robbed of their gifts and sustenance.
In the modern Canadian retelling, the Grinch is not Jim Carrey but Shaw Communications CEO Jim Shaw, who started sledding off with the Canadian content money our regs say he’s obliged to pay, just before Christmas – and has since encountered fewer effective voices preserving its spirit than there are moguls on a ski run.
Instead, while Mr. Shaw stands centre-screen expounding on why Shaw Communications refuses to make any further contributions to the Canadian Television Fund – which, he neglects to mention, the cablecos offered to start in the first place – the principal victims of his and Videotron’s stop-payment have manoeuvred themselves and their arguments into a corner.
They’re in the little box, on the picture-in-picture screen. The pro-CTF contingent, including Canadian producers and the ACTRA performers who began a strike against them January 8, have lost bargaining power with each day the strike continues. In more than one well-informed estimate, the strike is driving foreign producers to locate hundreds of millions of dollars worth of service production somewhere else.
Paul Bronfman, CEO of renowned equipment supplier William F. White, was just back from scouting business opportunities among producers in L.A. when Cartt.ca caught up with him. “No one’s going to book Canada as long as there’s labour turmoil,” he said gloomily.
It’s already meant that pilot season virtually passed Canada by. But much, much worse is to come: Not only are features and series which were scheduled to begin pre-production soon electing to shoot elsewhere, producers and service companies can expect that even when the strike ends, a fallow period will follow. Practically speaking, Bronfman points out, “it takes awhile to book these productions.” And they don’t book one day and arrive the next.
The veteran set supplier likens the strike to the final nail in the proverbial coffin, the event which – when added to our higher dollar and increasing tax credit competition from such states as New York, Louisiana and New Mexico – is costing plenty in dollars, perhaps more in damaged credibility. In 29 years in the business, Bronfman says, WFW has survived economic slumps, SARS and the odd labour hiccup. But in the fifth week of the ACTRA strike, he says this is the worst test yet. Except for some gear out at a few sets where producers have signed interim deals so ACTRA performers can keep working, most of White’s equipment sits idle.
Assuming many other service providers are suffering along with industry leading Whites, it’s a safe bet this strike is weakening producers’ financial health (because they cannot service shoots that renege on plans to shoot here, and they cannot launch production on many of their own new series without ACTRA talent) more than Mr. Shaw is.
Beyond money, this business-as-usual strike is costing the producers credibility. Their main advocate, the Canadian Film and Television Production Association (CFTPA), only started talks with ACTRA a few weeks before the last contract expired December 31. The talks broke off almost immediately and since then there have been court challenges, questions for labour relations bodies, a literal torrent of news release claims, counter claims and rhetoric, and a fire sale on flak jackets for PR staff on both sides.
Meantime, just before Christmas, Shaw made his move. He began boxing away at the CTF, its administration, its funnelling of 37% of its budget into programs intended for pubcaster CBC, its record of supporting too few of what he deems bona fide hits, and its failure to tell him enough about how it spends Shaw’s contributions. The CFTPA, ACTRA and other groups are fighting back, with the support of some influential TV commentators, but as long as there’s a strike afoot, they are distracted opponents in the path of a heavy hitter’s right hook.
That’s not to say the fund itself hasn’t been pointing out the flaws in Shaw’s generalizations and his selective referencing of the historical record. So has NDP heritage critic Charlie Angus, among others, as Cartt.ca has reported. And Heritage Minister Bev Oda single-handedly lowered the production industry’s collective blood pressure when she announced the government would continue to kick in its $100 million contribution to the fund for the next two years.
But while these responses might contribute – along with the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage’s emergency hearings beginning today – to giving the CTF a technical knockout over Shaw in the long term, his rhetorical domination of the debate thus far will force change upon the CTF in the end.
Shaw’s concerns about the CTF’s administration may have merit. But his point-of-view has not been effectively countered in the public debate – and as a result, the production community, which will live and die by this fund, has mishandled the opportunity to bring about change on its timetable, to say nothing of its terms.
Susan Tolusso is an Ottawa-based writer and editor who has been covering (or working in) the Canadian production industry for 17 years.
