Copps wants CTF, government agencies to be more responsive to Canada’s ethnic communities

The Canadian Television Fund (CTF) may be spread even more thinly as multicultural film and TV producers push to win greater access to government financing. Canadian Heritage minister Sheila Copps recently noted that her goal was to make government institutions and funding, including the CTF, more accessible so that more culturally diverse stories would be told. The CTF is partly funded and administered by the government agency Telefilm Canada. At the Minister’s Forum on Diversity and Culture held this week in Ottawa, Copps stressed the need for "inclusion" of all ethnic communities on the country’s television screens. "It’s an issue of recognizing that when you make investments in the diversity of our stories, it makes the story platform stronger and I think that’s the message that we’re trying to get across," she said during a media scrum at the forum. "It’s not to micromanage funding in different agencies. It’s to say, okay, in 100 years from now when people look back at our stories that will be our history. What are our stories? Do they reflect all of us or do they only reflect a certain percentage of the population." She pointed to the example of Toronto-based and India-born director and writer Deepa Mehta. She has directed such feature films as Camilla, starring the late Jessica Tandy and Bridget Fonda, and Fire, which opened the Perspective Canada Program at the 1996 Toronto International Film Festival. "If you use the example of Deepa Mehta…until her last film, Deepa Mehta, who is probably the most renowned Canadian filmmaker worldwide, has never had support from the government. Why? Because her mould of Indian-Canadian experience didn’t fit the programs and I guess what we’re trying to say now is let’s stand back from the programs and let’s look at how we create a program for diverse voices." Copps noted that "Telefilm itself has begun a Canada-wide discussion on how to consider the possibility for support for third-language films." Defending her reign as cultural minister, Copps said that direct investment in the audio-visual industry had increased 200% during her tenure. She downplayed suggestions that embracing culturally diverse groups would put more pressure on the already over-subscribed CTF, hit this year with a $25-million cut in government financing. "Obviously, there is an opportunity for the agencies (Canada Council, Telefilm, CTF) to get together to talk about how we might build this (culturally diverse) platform," she said. "But I think what we’re trying to stay away from is to say if you have a group that is coming forward, you’re somehow going to disenfranchise the entitled. …The question is, does the CBC, does the Canadian Television Fund, does Telefilm respect diversity of voices?" The Heritage minister also noted that the House of Commons Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage is in the process of putting together a report on the broadcast industry that will focus on the diversity of voices issue. "I happen to believe that the work of the standing committee on the new Broadcasting Act is about diversity of voices in all their colour," she added. Paul de Silva, an independent producer and executive director of the International Council for Diversity in Film and Television (INDICO), said there has been a "sea change" in the attitude of government agencies in terms of accepting cultural diversity. INDICO was formed in more confrontational times at the Banff Television Festival in June 2002. The organization’s goal is "to provide opportunities for broadcasters, development and production agencies, independent distributors and funding agencies to share experiences, expertise and resources in order to promote cultural diversity through high-quality film and television productions." He told Canadian Communications Reports, "I think that Telefilm has really been trying to look at their policies and procedures…I think there has been a major shift in their understanding of what kinds of things need to happen. I think they are at a stage now of examining what is and what isn’t working. The next phase is to implement some of the recommendations that come out of their research." De Silva believes that certain structural aspects of Telefilm and the grid it uses can be tweaked to advantage certain kinds of cultural diversity shows through the existing system. "I think one of the things they are looking at is whether or not to have a specific envelope for cultural diversity or not. There have been models that have had success in terms of increasing Francophone and women’s representation." He said he was optimistic that Telefilm officials were "really serious about making the changes that are necessary." But Telefilm Canada executive director Richard Stursberg doesn’t appear to be on the same page as de Silva or Copps, who mentioned that by creating an envelope for Aboriginal producers the government was able to contribute to the production of the 2001 Cannes Film Festival Golden Camera winner, Atanarjuat: The Fast Runner. Stursberg prefers that all producers apply for government funding under the same criteria and notes that productions representing and speaking to Canada’s various ethnic communities should not be marginalized. "What we don’t want to do is say 3% of the total money is for you, we want to say 100% of the money is for you," he told CCR. "There are two distinct schools of thought on this. One school of thought is that people should be put into little slots. That’s not our view. Our view is that this is the mainstream. (Cultural diversity) has got to be reflected in mainstream film and television. It’s a quite different view. It’s the only way you’ll be successful in making great television movies and films." Stursberg said that Telefilm had just completed a review of everything that the agency financed over the last three years to find out the extent to which minority groups were reflected. He said the research revealed that about 40% of all projects getting funding involved minority producers, directors, writers, and/or themes. "And in the last little while, we’ve done a whole whack of roundtables with minority groups, including on the issues of access," he added. Heritage announcement At the forum’s conclusion, Canadian Heritage made a vague announcement of an agreement involving the department, Telefilm Canada, the National Film Board and the Canada Council of the Arts "to provide support to develop the capacity of diverse communities in the audio-visual sector." No one at Canadian Heritage could provide details at press time. A media release by the department said that Copps wanted to remove barriers to access to programs and information on cultural initiatives; to find ways to develop audiences, infrastructure and partnerships; to improve outreach and capacity initiatives; and to develop resources and strategic programs on diversity and culture. Stursberg indicated that the agreement was a commitment to ensuring that access to the various government programs was maximized for Canada’s ethnic communities. He noted that Telefilm and CTF criteria would be revamped next year, but it doesn’t appear as though special envelopes or additional points for cultural diversity projects are being considered. "We want to make television shows and movies that appeal to people, so they’ve got to reflect the audiences (and that encompasses cultural diversity). That’s essential," he said. "We want to move in television the same way we did in feature film, which is away from just making a whole lot of stuff to making things people want to see. We want to focus our resources in such a way that they are completely focused on investing in things that are likely to succeed with audiences, and that’s an enormous shift. One of the things we’ve done is started a conversation with the other parts of the television fund about how we’re going to make that shift…We hope by next year, we will have made the shift for the fund as a whole to a much more audience-based set of criteria for decision making (in what gets funded)." In a conference call at the conclusion of the forum, Copps noted that recommendations stemming from the forum would be published on June 27 – Canada’s multicultural day. "We’re hopeful at that point to be able to provide a clearing house so that your concern about television can be communicated to the right people," she said during the call in response to a producer who complained that he no longer had the financing for programming in Russian. Copps added, "We just learned, for example, that the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council, as a result of this meeting, is going to start publishing their notices in many different languages. So that’s the kind of information we hopefully will be able to get through a clearing house once we have the response to the two-day meeting."

Copps wants CTF, government agencies to be more responsive to Canada’s ethnic communities

Broadcast | April 25, 2003

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