Time Immortal

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.

Comedy is the canary-in-the-coal-mine of a free society. When it becomes politically dangerous to laugh, we’re in more peril than anyone can usually imagine.

One notes that usually, the moment a person in Western society adopts a cause, their ability to find the in jokes about said cause becomes impaired. It seems, at times, as though modern progressives have almost no ability to find humour in anything anymore — everything is “offensive” in some way.