OTTAWA — The Canadian Audio-Visual Certification Office (CAVCO) published Tuesday updated guidelines for the Canadian Film or Video Production Tax Credit (CPTC) program.
These new guidelines take effect immediately and replace the previous CPTC guidelines issued on April 2, 2012.
The primary objectives of the update were to:
integrate information from CAVCO public notices issued since 2010
reflect amendments to the Income Tax Regulations in 2014 and 2016
make minor changes to administrative requirements
provide additional clarifications on CAVCO’s administration of program requirements
make wording changes, or reorder information, to improve the clarity and flow of the document
The updated CPTC guidelines…
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By Denis Carmel
OTTAWA – After hearing Janet Yale and Monique Simard from the Broadcasting and Telecommunications Legislative Review panel on Monday, the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage had the new Heritage Minister, Steven Guilbeault, in for a discussion about the contents of his mandate letter.
He appeared with Hélène Laurendeau, his deputy minister and Jean-Stéphen Piché, the Heritage Ministry’s senior assistant deputy minister for cultural affairs. Of course, some questions were on other subjects and there was some discussion about the BTLR/Yale Report.
First, the Minister said not once but twice that he would table legislation based on the…
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OTTAWA – Canadian Heritage took “positive” action to boost both official language communities when it agreed to a 2017 investment by Netflix that committed $500 million over five years in the country, which is all the law requires to fulfil its mandate, it said in new court documents.
Netflix has since said it has already spent more than $500 million in Canada, beating the five-year goal.
“The text of subsection 41 (2) provides a general obligation to take ‘positive’ action,” Heritage said in its defence. “It is an obligation to do something and not an obligation of precise result.” The department…
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By Denis Carmel
OTTAWA – We’re going to have to wait a little longer to learn more about the next steps in the legislative process following the publication of the Broadcasting and Telecommunications Legislative Review (BTLR) panel report.
In its first public meeting after the 2019 election, the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage invited representatives of the panel to brief the committee members on its report, which is actually called Canada’s Communications Future: Time to Act, issued on January 29th. Many are also calling it the Yale report.
In its appearance at the committee today, the panel’s chair, Janet Yale and panel…
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OTTAWA — The Canadian Association of Community Television Users and Stations (CACTUS) identified a major omission in the Broadcast and Telecom Legislative Review panel report released at the end of January in that there was no mention of the community element in Canada’s broadcasting system.
While Recommendation 52 in the report (officially titled Canada’s Communications Future: Time to Act) maintains the existing definition of the Canadian broadcasting system as consisting of “public, private, and community elements”, there is no mention of the sector throughout the remaining 235 pages of the report, says CACTUS.
“Everyone acknowledges the crisis in local news and…
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To effectively regard the whole communications field through the broadcasting lens results in a distorted view
By Konrad von Finckenstein and James Mitchell
IN AN EFFORT TO PROVIDE a critical overview of the recent report by the Broadcast and Telecommunications Review Panel (the so-called Yale Report or BTLR Report), with particular focus on its ‘machinery’ recommendations (i.e., those having to do with institutional and ministerial mandates and powers), this analysis will highlight why the new-concept CRTC should be set aside.
What the panel recommended
The BTLR was asked, as part of its mandate, to comment on the institutional framework employed for the regulation…
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By Etan Vlessing
TORONTO – Whether Ontario content creators should go for the glory of making films or TV shows of their own, or the grind of working for Americans in an expanding service sector, is set to be part of a revealing industry debate kicked off Thursday by Lisa MacLeod, Ontario’s Minister of Heritage, Sport and Tourism.
MacLeod, addressing reporters at Ontario Creates in Toronto, unveiled a 15-member Ontario film and TV advisory panel of industry stakeholders to advise and offer recommendations on how the province can continue to “sustain” its film and television and animation industries.
But as…
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OTTAWA – The Québec Association for the Recording, Concert and Video Industries (ADISQ) has asked the Governor-in-Council to send back and force a rehearing of a CRTC decision in December that it says unfairly allows Sirius XM Canada to put more money into an English-language fund over a French-language one for Canadian content contributions.
French-language Musicaction and English-language Factor are two funds that receive annual injections of money as Canadian content development expenditures – in this case, a minimum of four per cent of Sirius’s annual revenues. Since its initial licensing in 2005 and until 2012, Sirius XM had been…
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Panel report targets foreign players, but Murphy urges caution
TORONTO – Doug Murphy said he appreciates the recommendations of the government-appointed panel tasked with reviewing Canada’s communications laws, but the Corus Entertainment president and CEO urged caution about the regulatory pressure it may add to Canadian broadcasters.
“It looks like this report is calling for even more regulation and more regulatory burden,” Murphy said in a phone interview on Friday. “What we cannot have happen here is more regulatory burden on the incumbent actors – that’s not acceptable.”
Murphy, like others, is still sifting through the 235-page report, released Wednesday, which contains…
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By Christopher Guly
OTTAWA – After barely a day to digest, the Broadcast and Telecom Legislative Review panel report claimed centre stage during day one of the Canadian Media Producers Association’s 25th Prime Time conference in Ottawa on Thursday.
One day after releasing their report – 19 months in the making and which resulted in 97 recommendations – chair Janet Yale and fellow panelist Monique Simard provided some insight during a lunchtime appearance.
“Our job was to deliver recommendations on how to modernize the legislative and regulatory framework governing the communication sector in broadcasting and telecommunications,” said Yale. “We really thought about…
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