John Ralston Saul
Culture and Foreign Policy
Republished with permission

The film industry is the prime example of cultural foreign policy being so out of balance that the policy of other countries dominates within Canada, while the Canadian industry - in spite of talent, effort, acumen and considerable success at exporting - is severely handicapped abroad by its weak position at home. And that weakness is almost entirely the result of a dysfunctional distribution system.

In spite of having a handful of relatively successful production companies which export with success around the world, the Canadian film industry has 4% to 6% of the home market-place. The essential point here is that the film business is unregulated. There is no CRTC equivalent to ensure even minimal Canadian content in a system dominated by foreign interests whose specific purpose is to sell their own wares. If we consider that CRTC regulations, unsatisfactory though they are, have had a real impact on the quantity of Canadian content on television, there is no reason why regulation cannot accomplish the same in the film sector.

It must be understood that the film market, as it is currently organized, constitutes a drain on the Canadian economy. The value in films lies in their rights. Canadians go to cinemas where they see
films whose rights are owned abroad. As a result a large slice of their $8 ticket is simply shipped out of the country to the rights' holder.

Foreign companies making films in Canada create jobs, but they do not solve this problem. They operate a sophisticated version of the "drawers of water, hewers of wood" analogy. The films are made here because we are cheap, but the value of that film (the rights) is immediately removed elsewhere by its owner, then re-exported to Canada as a finished product, so that Canadians may pay to see it and thus send their money abroad.

Canada is the only developed country which allows its market to be treated as a subsidiary part of another market. American distributors insist on buying North American rights so that there can be no real market for Canadian distributors. This is key to the absence of both adequate funding and screen access for Canadian productions.

a) Funding

Telefilm has been an important factor in what success we've had. In the absence of a normal funding system, because our own market particularly in English - is more or less denied to us, Telefilm and other provincial funds have provided essential money - in particular, start-up funds.

We need to look for mechanisms which will produce more financing sources without drawing on taxes. In other words, the system which has control of the Canadian market must be made to contribute to the society from which it makes its fortune.

b) Film Policy

There are three simple ways to begin altering this structure. All three are perfectly do-able. They have been considered in the past but weak Canadian governments have humiliated themselves by caving in before the pressure brought by Hollywood through its friends in Washington.

This is precisely the sort of area in which close co-operation with other countries - such as France
who have similar concerns, could create an international consensus on national policies.

In the meantime, nothing except backbone prevents us from acting to:

1. Legislate to create a Canadian distribution market; that is, legislation which would establish Canada as a distinct market from the U.S. for the acquisition and distribution of independently produced films. This would represent approximately 10-15% of the market. It would be exceedingly generous in that it would leave the rest of the market integrated for the sale of Hollywood produced pictures.
2. Establish screen quotas as the CRTC already has for television. The exhibitors often complain that this woul-d cost money and annoy viewers. What they actually mean is that they are organized to sell American products. They certainly cannot be referring to any sacrifice in the quality of what they would have to show.
   
   If gradually escalating quotas were instituted, the exhibitors would simply have to begin addressing the need to publicize, package and popularize Canadian pictures. At present we have 4-6% of the market. A quota system might increase this by one or two per cent a year.
3. Create a box-office levy. This system exists in Britain and France. It simply obliges the exhibitors to contribute a percentage of their gate to a production fund open to Canadian producers. This could be added to Telefilm or, in order to create a greater variety of sources, we could create a new product-neutral fund.

c) Airline Films

A specific foreign-policy issue is that of the films shown on Canadian airlines and Air Canada. I must have missed something, but I have never seen a Canadian film, Anglophone or Francophone, on a Canadian airplane. No doubt there have been a few. But the issue is not whether one in ten or twenty or thirty is Canadian. The point is that they are Canadian airlines living op the Canadian trade. And we have the necessary film industry. films and quality. So that is what they should be showing.

Nor is it a question of whether the airlines are privately or publicly owned:

1. Airlines, in being granted the licence to exploit the Canadian market, benefit from the largesse of the Canadian citizenry.
2. One of the central aims of the airlines on the international routes is to convince as many foreigners as possible to come to Canada; that is, to fill their planes. They are thus attempting to sell Canada. Why then do the exact opposite by shOwing American movies which sell the United States?
3. Most airlines operating out of other countries show their national movies. Perhaps they do it out of a sense of self-pride or self-respect. No doubt this quality  could be considered by the managers of our two airlines.
4. Quality is certainly not an issue. The vast majority of the pictures shown in the air are at best B movies. Most were failures at the box office. On a recent trip across the Atlantic on Canadian, I was astonished (as an avid filmgoer) to find that I hadn't even heard of the 5 films being offered that month.

What prevents these two airlines from showing Canadian films? Nothing except that they seem to get their films from suppliers who treat the North American market as one (that is, American). What is to prevent them from doing business with a Canadian supplier? Nothing. What prevents government Ministers from pressuring them to do this? Nothing. Does a Canadian supplier exist? If there were a market it would. It would exist within hours.

It is a particular scandal in a bilingual country that the current system, devoted as it is to the Hollywood system, eliminates French-language films. Canada, after all, produces these in quantity anc at a very high level of quality.

Finally it must be stated and restated and restated - because the Hollywood interests deny this about everyone except themselves - that we have a vibrant and talented film industry. We make films which are sold around the world; which win prizes and admiration; which earn money for Canada as exports. We have exciting directors, mature and young. We have wonderful cameramen, editors, actors lighting men. We have all the technicians and the technology.

The only thing we are missing is a market. structure which allows us to make full use of this talent and this industry inside Canada and therefore outside of Canada. We suffer, quite simply, from varying levels of exclusion, controlled as our market is by a monopoly system which has - who can blame it - its own interests. It is up to us to ensure that our interests are looked after.

d) Co-production Agreements

One of the two clear successes of Canadian film policy is the negotiation of 23 international co-production treaties. These are one of the few competitive advantages we have which Hollywood does not. These are also the basis for long-term alliances and are being taken advantage of.

We must protect these and negotiate more.

John Ralston Saul is an essayist and novelist. He is the author of many books, including The Doubter's Companion - A Dictionary of Aggressive Common Sense, Voltaire's Bastards: the Dictatorship of Reason in the West, and Paradise Eater, which won the Premio Letterario Internazionale in 1990. Mr. Saul has a Ph.D. from King's College, London.