To our Senators:

Thank you!

(Not the hockey team, the Upper House; specifically the Standing Senate Committee on Banking, Trade and Commerce)

The changes proposed by Senators Fox and Moore would:

1. Remove the power for the Minister of Heritage to refuse tax credits based on “public policy” or to issue guidelines about film content, while at the same time safeguarding the right to deny funds when the production itself is contrary to the Criminal Code;
2. Give producers an efficient judicial appeal mechanism if the Minister blocks or delays funding;
3. Continue to prevent government funding of pornography, child pornography, and hate propaganda.

The Canada Family Action Coalition didn’t think Canadian law was strong enough around point 3.
An Ipso Reid poll conducted last week found 52% of Canadians surveyed disagreed with the ‘contrary to public policy part.’
So while the Coalition plays I’ll see your poll and raise you one, it’s good to see the Senate committee doing their job. Fear doesn’t drive ‘Canadian family values’ yet.
It has been said the religious conservative movement in Canada is about 10 years behind the US. I was reading this earlier this evening.

In the late nineties, for example, one of Dobson’s top priorities was abolishing the National Endowment for the Arts, long loathed by conservatives for funding projects they deemed obscene or anti-religious. Though there had been talk in Republican circles of zeroing out funding going back to 1994, the NEA was still up and running in 1998. “The problem was that moderate Republicans [in Congress] were coming under pressure from their constituents to keep NEA funding, because this was the perfect ladies garden club-type issue,” said Mike Schwartz, chief of staff to then congressman Tom Coburn. The Jesus Machine: How James Dobson, Focus on the Family, and Evangelical America are Winning the Culture War. Dan Gilgoff pp. 113-114

Prior C-10 posts

Afterthought: How much did the committee hearings cost? Who paid for them? Did they exceed what tax credits some film and TV companies apply for?   Producers don’t have to apply for tax credits if they chose not to.  Does The Canada Family Coalition care that US companies filming in Canada would be exempt?