timeimmortal

Almost.

It isn’t that we — the average Canadian citizen — are telling filmmakers who receive large donations from the government trough that we would rather they “leave the country” to make their movies (although I’m still bitter that my tax dollars funded this movie, and that it is apparently considered to be a “good” example of what the Canadian film community can produce).

It’s that we don’t want to pay for crap. Make good movies, Ms. Polley, and you’ll probably find people willing to fund them. Make movies that trash the values that people hold dear, and their wallets will (surprisingly!) dry up, and then quickly.

So it would appear that the founder of the Facebook group opposed to Bill C-10, University of Alberta professor David Kahane, is also the teacher of a course where students meditate, repeat to themselves “May I have the ease of well-being,” and have as homework the task of sitting in public places directing thoughts of love and kindness at passers-by.

And this is apparently a “social justice“-themed class.

Look, I know a lot of Catholics out there have some strong reservations about the “social justice” movements that have been gaining ground in the Church of late (some see it as nothing more than a backdoor attempt to sneak socialism back in to the Church). Be that as it may…for all the reservations that people might have about such groups, at least they do works of social justice from time to time, usually.

Not Professor Kahane’s students, it seems. They’re too busy telling themselves that they are okay, too busy having “the ease of well-being” (whatever that might be). And when it actually comes time to do something apparently related to social justice, what do they do? Sit on a park bench and think happy thoughts at the people going by.

It’s nice work if you can get it, but do you suppose that any of Professor Kahane’s students — let alone David Kahane himself — has ever, I don’t know, seen the inside of a soup kitchen? That is social justice. Sitting on a park bench wishing yourself “the ease of well-being” and intently hoping that your positive vibes are reaching the people walking past is not social justice.

It’s just lazy, self-centered liberalism at its finest.

Update: Welcome, Steynians!

It would appear that the Conservative Party’s current proposed text of Bill C-10, alterations to tax law that would also see the guidelines for which Canadian productions will or will not be granted federal funding, is in fact almost exactly the same as a proposed amendment to the same act put forth by the Liberal Party in 2003.

Strangely, there were no warnings of “chill winds” back then, and no fears of “censorship.” But I guess that was when the Liberals were in power, wasn’t it? Now that et. al. are in power, the very same words have a vastly different meaning, and I expect we’re only a few more steps away from becoming a theocracy.

Pffft…yeah, right. Progressives are such a twitchy lot, aren’t they?

brookelyn writes in with some further commentary on Bill C-10, following up on another article I had written about same.

I’m going to break this one up and respond to it in parts.

First of all thank you for posting a link to the actually bill, it’s been hard to find.

Just for the record: from the default parlimentary website for the Government of Canada, the text of Bill C-10 can be found in four clicks (Bills > Government Bills > C-10 > As passed by the House of Commons).

The current government requirements for the tax credits are more than sufficient they are very detailed, very specific and focus on work being created in Canada by Canadians.

And to think that people consider it jingoistic when Americans express with pride, on various products, that said products were made in America, by Americans.

The idea being that if a Canadian creates the content, it is intrinsically Canadian.

See, this is where I would actually dispute that idea. Someone like Jim Carrey is Canadian by birth, but he lives and works in the U.S. Anything he “creates” — a comedy routine, a movie, etc. — is not intrinsically Canadian even though a Canadian was involved, in whole or in part, with the production of the content in question. The sentiment that since a Canadian created something, that something is intrinsically Canadian seems, at best, rather misguided, and at worst rather dishonest.

The problem with allowing the government to monitor content is that now a small group of people is determining what is Canadian.

Except that we’ve already established that the government already has stipulations and guidelines regarding the granting of funding to Canadian media productions, which presumably require that the government take a role in monitoring the content of those productions to ensure that they are “intrinsically Canadian,” and therefore worthy of receiving funding.

In other words, the extant system already appoints a “small group of people” to determine “what is Canadian.” So why present a methodological objection to a bill that won’t significantly change the methodology employed in the government’s process of deciding which productions do or do not receive funding? The primary changes effected by this law will be to decision-making criteria, not to the method by which the decision is reached.

For example if a person is really offend by the word Fucking or the idea of teenagers fucking — it’s called “Young People Fucking” by the way — and wants to cut funding to a film because of it. Martin Gero the director of that sweat, funny, refreshing truthful romantic comedy, is brilliant and his artistic voice is exactly what I want my tax dollars to pay for. And it is exactly the type of project that needs a tax break to get made.

Why? Couldn’t he secure enough independent funding to complete the project? Was he unable, as many other directors have had to do, to fund the project himself? Could he have perhaps sought international investments of some kind? This film may be everything you say, and may even be a great film, although one wouldn’t know from the title (as an analog, would we assume that a book with a title like “The Divine Taste of Baked Feces” contains some of the most amazingly flavourful recipes known to humankind?).

But there’s another question. As has been established, existing guidelines attempt to ensure that funding goes to “intrinsically Canadian” productions. What is “intrinsically Canadian” about Young People F**king (I know what the movie is actually called — smarter than a box of hammers, here! — but I am trying to curb my cussin’ for Lent)? Do all Canadian teens f**k? Do all young Canadian teens f**k? Should they be f**king, if in fact some are currently not f**king? Is sex between young teenagers an “intrinsically Canadian” concept and/or practice?

Some people may feel that a production of this sort is exactly what they want their tax dollars to go toward funding. Others, myself included, would rather our hard-earned dollars not be funnelled into such productions. Whose preference, then, is the more valid? Should Canadians get a direct choice as to which productions their dollars go toward funding, and which productions their dollars should be denied to? Methinks such a system would be a little too clunky (and would doubtless result in Martin Gero, among others of questionable taste, losing quite a lot of access to dollars as a result). So…should the people be able to rely on their government to better appropriate the use of government funds, almost all of which come from taxes in the first place, by being more cautious in its investments and more exacting as to the qualifying criteria for receiving funding?

Or should the proles just shut up and accept what the Martin Geros have to offer them?

The point is it’s all of our money, it’s all of our culture, and the decision to view a film should be made by all of us at the box office.

Were a film privately funded, I would be the first person to agree — let the box office decide, and let the private entities who invested in the film reap the rewards of having made something people like and support, or reap the losses of having made something people feel isn’t worth supporting.

But with the issue of government funding of films, the rules change a bit. Whether or not I, as a Canadian taxpayer, go and see Young People F**king at the theatre, I’ve already contributed to it financially by the simple act of paying taxes. So the notion of voting for (or against) a production with my wallet is meaningless — money that I worked to earn has already landed in the hands of the production’s producers.

The fact of the matter is, it is not “all of our money” — it is either our money (as individuals), or it is the government’s money. Either way, other people apart from us and the government are not entitled to receive so much as a red cent; the only money we’re ever entitled to receive is the money we work for, after making an agreement with our employer that for a specific quantity and kind of work, we will receive a set financial compensation. Tax revenues are not the collective property of all Canadians, any more than my bank account is the collective property of all Canadians.

Because of the fact that my bank account is my own, and its contents mine alone, I exercise discernment and discretion about which causes I choose to support, and which I do not choose to support. No cause can — or should — expect that I will support them, and no cause should dare assume that it is entitled to my support of it. That decision rests with me, and me alone.

What is so wrong about the government reasserting that government funds are not the automatic entitlement of every two-bit Canadian hack director who has a video camera and a couple of no-name actors willing to doff their clothes? If government funding of film and television productions should go to those productions that reflect Canadian values and are “intrinsically Canadian,” then shouldn’t the Canadian government have every right — as the elected representatives of the people of Canada — to tighten the criteria it uses to reward those funds to those productions, the same as any citizen of Canada is fully entitled to do?

It’s not Censorship to say that the government will not fund certain categories of production, because the government is not actively forbidding people from producing content within those categories — it is simply saying that it will not, in and of itself, fund those productions (they will have to secure private funding instead of public). At no point would actually making something like Young People F**king become illegal (which would be true censorship). If those productions which do not qualify for public funding cannot secure private funding either (that is, if a Canadian production cannot secure adequate private funding within Canada), perhaps the producers of those affected productions should sit down and reflect on whether the majority of Canadians would really, honestly look upon their work as something “intrinsically Canadian” and/or representative of Canadian values.

I have to say, I think today might have set some kind of record for the number of Reader Mails I have received and answered. Not that I’m really complaining, mind.

At any rate, Erf writes in some follow-up thoughts to my response to a few questions he had about the Facebook group opposed to Bill C-10, and my dismissal of said group’s members as “whiny little liberals.”

Interesting. A couple of thoughts.

There’s a big difference between not getting around to answering your question about HRCs and actually liking HRCs. You may be right, but I wouldn’t take that as evidence. I do hope they respond, though! That sort of hypocrisy wouldn’t surprise me, sadly.

This is obviously subjective, but their charter doesn’t sound particularly whiny to me. Erroneous in places, yes — burying the text of a bill like this in a long and complicated piece of legislation (probably tied to some unrelated stuff) is unfortunately standard democratic procedure. But I don’t see the whining.

As for “imposing a conservative cultural agenda”, whether you’re a conservative or not the praise the bill is getting from a lot of conservatives does sound like that’s what’s going on. Whether this is bad or not depends on whether you’re a conservative, I suppose.

As for whether this bill will have negative effects, my answer is a resounding yes. My understanding of the bill is that the government doesn’t have to say whether they’ll fund a work until after the work is completed. Now, I’m not arguing that the government shouldn’t use discretion (sp?) about which works to fund. However, there should be clear, well-defined guidelines as to what gets funded and what doesn’t, and it should be possible to find out in advance whether a given work will qualify for funding or not. If filmmakers can’t know whether they’re going to get funds for something until after they’ve spent all the money producing it, they’re going to be extremely cautious as to what they try to do — and their other financial backers even more so.

In other words, this bill has the same kind of chilling effect that the HRC abuse has: people being very careful what they create, for fear the government will punish them for creating it.

Actually, this bill is rather different than what the HRCs do, because the government is not “punishing” anyone or exacting from any one person or group a financial penalty that is then awarded to another person.

I think the first error that is being made in how many people look at this bill and its implications is that there is an underlying assumption that Canadian productions are entitled to government handouts, which isn’t — or shouldn’t be — the case. No producer, no director, and no screenwriter is entitled, by virtue of being involved in the Canadian film and television industry, to access public funds to continue a project past a certain point in its development. And I, for one, think that the government should have every right to decide whether it wants to fund certain productions or not. That’s not the same as Censorship, any more than I am personally engaging in censorship when I…say…refuse to donate to charities that funnel some of their collected dollars into the abortion lobby. It’s simply saying that in the view of the government of Canada, which ostensibly represents the will of the people of Canada, certain productions aren’t of sufficient merit to spend public funds on.

Is it necessarily censorship when a university decides not to fund a new branch of research because, in the view of the university administration, the merits of the theory to be tested and the evidence collected for it thus far are insufficient? If not, then why is it censorship when the government proposes to act in a similar manner?

Obviously, there should be an established set of criteria that detail how one can and cannot qualify for public funding as a film producer or director. I would completely agree that if the government is going to be more restrictive in terms of how it doles out public funds, it should make clear the criteria it uses when considering whether to open its coffers. At the same time, there’s no point for the government to draft such guidelines at this point in time, when the bill that would make them necessary hasn’t even been made into law yet. If Bill C-10 passes, I imagine we will see exactly the sort of criteria that Erf is asking for drafted and put in place. But until and unless C-10 passes into law, there’s no need for the government to waste time drafting the criteria in question. So, they haven’t.

Now, admittedly, the bill does stipulate that the government doesn’t have to commit to funding a work until after it is completed. But then, as the leader of the Facebook group makes clear, most productions don’t apply for funding until the later stages of development anyhow. So I don’t get the sense that this bill will really put any kind of meaningful chill onto film and television production in Canada. I imagine that the criteria that the government will put forth will be fairly broad (’s government is not particularly socially conservative), so most producers won’t be adversely affected at all. Yes, there is a risk that some “art house” (read: soft-core porn films re-labeled as “avant garde”) productions may lose their funding…but by the same token, that will just mean that those productions will have to rely more on private investment, which I don’t think will dry up in the wake of this bill passing into law — if anything, the bill will increase the amount Canadian productions rely on private funds for their production, which I think is a good thing.

One would think that Canadian liberals and progressives, especially, would be happy to be free of government funding, because they’re all about “freedom” in what they produce, and decry any kind of “censorship” — even the “censorship” of negative press, at times. But the nature of government is to regulate that which it spends money on (be it healthcare, education, or film production), so one would think that the average filmmaker would be happy to be rid of government funding, and thus freed from government oversight. And yet, the exact opposite seems to be the case, and I admit I can’t quite wrap my head around this. But there it is: people demand that the government continue to fund Canadian film and television, without asking too many questions about the content being produced. We wouldn’t dream of telling a private citizen to fork over money without asking questions about what it will be used for (again, abortion is the one exception to this)…but apparently it is a sign of the coming chill winds of censorship when we start to say that governments are similarly entitled to be picky about what they fund and do not fund.

As for whether this bill reflects a right-wing social agenda…well, in a sense that’s not even the question. Did this bill emerge from a party that is, at least nominally, conservative? Yes, it did. But is the bill itself necessarily conservative in its stipulations and outlook? It doesn’t seem to be, no — if anything, a lot of it seems like common sense. And that shouldn’t be the exclusive domain of the Right (although at times it seems to be). Yes, it enjoys a lot of support from conservative elements in society, but the bill itself is not overly biased in one political direction or the other. To me, at least, it seems to be a bit of common sense thinking about the state of government funding of Canadian film and television production (which, we must admit, has churned out some pretty tasteless and questionable material over the years).

Update: Welcome, Steynians!

Erf writes in with a request for a bit more information about the Facebook group I mention in this article.

Since at least some of your readers (such as myself) aren’t on Facebook and therefore can’t look at the group you linked to, would you mind telling us a little more about them? It sounds like there’s a group of people who oppose government Censorship and are trying to stop such a censorship bill from passing. (I’ve heard about this bill, and it’s pretty bad news for small filmmakers.) What about the group has convinced you that (a) they’re liberals, (b) they’re whiny, and (c) they’d still support stuff like the HRCs? The last in particular sounds like quite a jump. if a bunch of liberals are supporting freedom of speech, I thought you’d be pleased.

While I am generally happy to see people standing up for freedom of expression, I utterly despise people who pick and choose which freedoms of expression to stand up for — on the subject of fundamental human rights, I’m very much “all or nothing” and cannot stand to see a person at one moment advocating for his or her right to speek freely, while in the next breath advocating for some manner of restriction on another person’s right to do same.

And I do happen to think this group, unfortunately, is comprised mostly of people who act in that exact way. I joined the group for all of five minutes and asked, on the group’s “Wall” (sort of an open chatbox concept) whether anyone who opposed Bill C-10 likewise supported MP Dr. Keith Martin’s Bill M-446, which would see subsection 13(1) removed from the Canadian Human Rights Act, ending the particular form of government censorship that we call the human rights commissions.

I’ve left the group already, but I keep checking back on it from time to time. As yet, I’ve yet to receive a reply to my question.

But let’s take Erf’s questions in order, O Reader.

First, why do I suspect that the group is comprised of liberals? Well, apart from the fact that it was founded by a political science professor, and aside from the fact that all of the people on my friends list who have joined are of a liberal political bent, I have no concrete evidence. But gut feeling and experience suggest to me that if one did a survey of the group’s membership, the predominant majority would be of a left-wing bent (especially if the trends I have seen among the people on my own friends list can be taken as any kind of indicator).

Second, why do I classify the group as whiny? Well, let’s begin by taking a look at the group’s “charter”:

http://ualberta.facebook.com/profile.php?id=120403672

WHAT THIS GROUP IS FOR:

This group is for people who are *opposed* to the provisions in Bill C-10 relating to tax credits for film and TV production, and who want to work together fight the Bill. Purposes of this group include:

* Supporting one another in writing letters of protest about Bill C-10 (see info below).

* Organizing demonstrations and other forms of action to oppose the Bill (see Discussion Board).

* Keeping track of the progress of Bill C-10 through the legislative process, so that our activism can be well directed.

WHAT THIS IS GROUP NOT FOR:

This group is not for arguments against public funding of the arts in Canada. It is not for bashing people who oppose Bill C-10. It is not for talking about other issues that people should be concerned about instead of Bill C-10. If you are not sure whether this is the group for you, please see the Terms of Use below.

We don’t want to constrain others’ speech; we just want to be able to use this group to plan political action against C-10, and don’t want to get sidetracked. We’ve created another group if you want to discuss whether C-10 is a good idea, whether the arts in Canada should be funded at all, etc. This group is called “What’s so bad about Bill C-10?” and is at http://facebook.com/group.php?gid=8184619495

WHAT IS BILL C-10?

Bill C-10 is a long, omnibus bill of technical changes to tax laws; but hidden away in there is a provision that would allow the Heritage Minister to withhold tax credits if a production was considered ‘contrary to public policy’. We are opposed to this legislation because:

* IT IS UNDEMOCRATIC: This controversial new provision to screen the content of productions in awarding tax credits was never debated in the House of Commons, because it was hidden away in a long, technical piece of legislation.

* IT WILL HAVE EXTREMELY NEGATIVE EFFECTS ON THE WHOLE CANADIAN FILM AND TV INDUSTRY: Films and TV programs apply for tax credits late in the game, after scripts have been written and principal photography completed. They use the predictability of tax credits to apply for federal subsidies, loans, and Telefilm Canada grants. With the proposed new guidelines, films and TV programs with even a whiff of controversy will become risky for funders, and artists will be under strong pressure to self-censor. Indeed, all productions will find it more difficult to secure financing due to this uncertainty. See these discussions for details: http://facebook.com/topic.php?uid=9036150977&topic=4369 and http://ualberta.facebook.com/topic.php?uid=9036150977&topic=4388

* IT FEELS LIKE A COVERT ATTEMPT TO IMPOSE A RIGHT-WING CULTURAL AGENDA ON CANADIAN FILM AND TV: The Tories’ evangelical base is celebrating the new legislation as a victory: the Globe and Mail reports that “Charles McVety, president of the Canada Family Action Coalition, said his lobbying efforts included discussions with Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day and Justice Minister Rob Nicholson, and ‘numerous’ meetings with officials in the Prime Minister’s Office. ‘We’re thankful that someone’s finally listening,’ he said yesterday. ‘It’s fitting with conservative values, and I think that’s why Canadians voted for a Conservative government.’ ‘There are a number of Conservative backbench members that do a lot of this work behind the scenes,’ he said.”

See Items Posted for links to news stories that will tell you much more about the Bill.

Incidentally, the last point above might also support my theory that the group is predominantly liberal in its outlook. Notice, O Reader, how willing the group is to denigrate Bill C-10 as a method of imposing a “right-wing cultural agenda” — “right-wing” being a negative thing here (and the implication thus being that “left-wing” is preferable).

But let’s unpack the first two claims made about Bill C-10.

First, is it undemocratic? Well, no…it’s not being imposed by a judge, after all (which would truly be undemocratic, since judges are unelected). Instead, it is a bill which must pass through multiple votes in the (elected) Legislative Assembly of Canada — the same Legislative Assembly that was democratically elected by the people of Canada. And even if the bill passes, future governments always have the option to strip out the amendments made in it. There is nothing undemocratic about this bill.

Second, will it have negative effects? Reading through the charter above, one gets the strong sense that the founder of the group feels that Canadian filmmakers are entitled to government funding, but that the government has no business saying what content it feels comfortable funding in Canadian films. That’s a bit of a double standard, methinks. But really, is that not the government’s right? If the government is going to be expected to fork over dollars for the development of television programs and films that do not have enough private funding on their own, shouldn’t the government be able to say whether or not it feels that a television program or film is something it would be comfortable to support? Canadian citizens have that right — we cannot be compelled to hand over money to causes we do not support (I will note that federal funding of abortion is one exception to that statement), nor can we be compelled to pay money to see a movie we would rather not see. That’s one of the cornerstone principles of a free and democratic society: that the people can choose what to support, and what not to support, based on an individual set of criteria.

Why shouldn’t the government of a free and democratic nation have the same right?

I’ve read through the discussions taking place in this Facebook group, and most of them seem to devolve into condemnations of conservative politics and religious belief. One would think, reading some of the comments, that Canada is only a couple of days away from becoming a formal theocracy, and then a fascistic one.

But when I read the actual text of the bill itself, all I see is the government saying that it won’t automatically support all television programs or films produced in Canada, that it would rather not support a Canadian-produced movie like Young Teens F***ing (you think I’m making that up, don’t you?).

These complaints are based on sensationalism and deliberate distortion of the facts. They are, in a word, whiny, and much more than that as well.

Now, in response to Erf’s third question, why I think the group would nevertheless support Section 13 being kept in the CHRA…well, I do seem to have already answered that, and I am still waiting on a reply to my question about Dr. Keith Martin and Bill M-446. But it one takes a stroll through the many and various liberal-minded Canadian blogs out there, one tends to note that in many corners, the response to Bill M-446 is extremely negative, even (and perhaps especially) on blogs that oppose Bill C-10. I would find it difficult to believe that the membership of this group thinks differently about the issue.

I would bet good money that pretty much every member of this Facebook group (”Keep your censoring hands off of Canadian film and TV! No to Bill C-10!”) would nevertheless support keeping subSection 13(1) of the Canadian Human Rights Act (CHRA) intact, and would condemn Liberal Party MP Dr. Keith Martin as an associate and abettor of hatemongers and Nazis.

In other words, another pack of whiny little liberals who have the physiological appearance of being all grown up, but who have the capability for rational thought of elementary-level schoolchildren.

Update: Welcome, Steynians!