February 29, 2008
Tories Propose Morality Clause On Film Tax Credits
Photo by sevennine from the Torontoist Flickr Pool.
In the 1996 Canadian movie Kissed, a young female mortician discovers the joys of necrophilia. That same year, David Cronenberg made Crash, wherein a group of omnisexual urbanites eroticize car accidents. In Léolo, a 12-year-old boy masturbates with a chunk of liver, later served to his family for dinner. This spring's Young People Fucking is, well, called Young People Fucking.
Canadians have traditionally been somewhat blasé about graphic content in our films, especially in comparison to our neighbours south of the border. While the FCC is quick to slap a fine on CBS for The Jackson Nipple Scandal, or attempts to penalize NBC for not knowing Bono would swear during a live broadcast, we're rather used to seeing the occasional bare bum or hearing a salty expletive on network television, choosing to govern ourselves with our remote controls. A two-man threesome portrayed in Atom Egoyan's Where The Truth Lies damned the film to NC-17 purgatory in the United States (most theatre chains won't run an NC-17 movie), whereas domestic cinemas barely batted an eyelash. Shockingly, Canadian society has yet to crumble into a mash of debaucherous immorality.
Domestic productions all carry a consistent hallmark—the seemingly endless slates of government and private logos in the closing credit roll. It is virtually impossible to get a homegrown show made in Canada without taking advantage of government grants and tax credits, many of which are handed down by the Department of Canadian Heritage. But a proposed Tory amendment to the Income Tax Act, allegedly spearheaded by a prominent evangelical crusader, could see the Heritage Minister denying tax cuts for films and television shows arbitrarily deemed offensive or immoral.
Additionally, the amendment to Bill C-10 could allow tax credits to be cancelled even if government funding has already been secured, potentially stranding the development of a television show in pre-production or bankrupting a film in mid-production.
A closed-door panel of representatives from both the Heritage and Justice departments would decide what content is too sensitive for freethinking adults to manage their own exposure to. Annette Gibbons, a representative from Heritage Canada, says that the enhanced powers of censorship are merely a minor revision to the existing act, stating, "It's our responsibility to ensure that public funds are not invested in certain types of material, such as hate propaganda, excessively violent material, or pornography."
It is even more disturbing to discover that an evangelical activist claims to be behind this new proposal to police the morality of Canadian artists. Well-known partypooper and self-proclaimed Harper pal Charles McVety (right), president of the Canada Family Action Coalition, says that non-right-wing "values" are unwelcome in the Canadian entertainment industry—including sexual content devoid of any educational value, and, unsurprisingly, depictions of homosexuality. McVety boasts that his lobbying of Conservatives like Justice Minister Rob Nicholson and Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day led to the revised draft of Bill C-10.
Director David Cronenberg, who is notorious for pushing the envelope in his films, likens the plan to "something they do in Beijing." D.B. Scott of the Canadian Magazines blog suggests that the censorship could extend to literature in much the same way. Public consultations are now being held to rejig the funding bodies for Canadian magazines into a single entity, also administrated by Heritage Canada.
The grant and tax credit process in Canada is already complicated and discretionary (and understandably so). Committees can deny funding or tax credits for many reasons, though rejections are primarily due to the viability of the project from start to finish on a technical and creative basis rather than hinging a rejection on the moral character of the story.
In the United States, the ultra-stringent MPAA solicits feedback from two Christian ministers before rendering a classification on an appeal, and some films granted an "R" rating in Ontario are given the NC-17 kiss of death across the border. Generally, profanity and depictions of sexuality are seen as more dangerous to the American moral consciousness than violent bloodshed and horror.
Since pornography and literature deemed obscene is restricted in Canada under section 163 of the Criminal Code, and because film classification and television regulation already exist, the proposed amendment to capriciously deny tax credits based on a morality audit smacks of American-style fundamentalist meddling and political pandering.
Many of Canada's most successful independent films are known for their willingness to go into some dark places and tackle unpalatable issues. Granting a tiny panel the power to arbitrarily hobble the already-struggling domestic film industry under the guise of morality has no place in contemporary Canadian art.
Film shoot photo by sevennine from the Torontoist Flickr Pool. McVety photo via Canada Christian College.
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Ok, so what can the common man do to make sure bible thumping right wing nuts don't stranglehold our system?
Well, perhaps the first step might be to round up a panel to deny tax cuts to religious organizations...'cause I often find them to be of questionable morality.
Well I suppose we could cut funding to all of it, then we could all agree that the system was fair.
Once you having committees choosing what to fund and what not to fund, everyone's gonna want to have their say.
What a load. It's time to write Olivia Chow a letter I guess...
Not that I would have expected her to vote in favour of this crap. What a load.
I wish I knew a social conservative so I could call them an asshole at times like this. The rest of the time it is better not to know a social conservative.
This is actually at its third reading in the Senate, so you'd need to contact some Senators, as MPs can't do much about it.
Amen, Marc — this really grinds my gears.
The legality of gay marriage is probably sufficient evidence for many that "Canadian society has crumbled into a mash of debaucherous immorality." Evidently two happy homos is two too many.
From the CBC article:
The particular issue aside, I find this extremely worrying... it signals that we're heading towards 3,000-page omnibus bills with $16 billion in earmarks, being passed by overwhelmed MPs without the time to properly review them.
Write your MP.
Write the Minister of Heritage, Josée Verner.
Write the Liberal Heritage Critic, Mauril Bélanger.
In my experience the Liberals and Cons will ignore emails, but the NDP may already have a form reply prepared. So send a dead tree letter too, because you don't even need a stamp.
Two tips: 1) Ask direct questions free of hyperbole. 2) Be clear that this issue will help decide who you vote for.
It also helps to tell your MP that you're in their riding, but you might want to lie about being in one 'a dem biiig cities when addressing the Cons.
Crap, the Senate already?
Paul: Yeah, and look at how all the hetero marriages totally collapsed when the gays were allowed to wrest their sacred institution away from them! Canadian society is a shadow of what it was a few years ago! Oh, woe the loss of traditional marriage that has remained unchanged for thousands of years!
And by traditional marriage, I mean how women were traded as chattel for most of its existence, how men usually took multiple wives, how women were forced into marrying their dead spouse's brother, and how getting hitched was basically a property transaction between a man and his bride's father. That's traditional marriage, fundies. (McVety was also one of the most vocal opponents to marriage equality legislation.)
So, Canadians have done OK for decades watching naughty movies and most of us are perfectly normal and productive people, so why are we in need of morality police now?
"Crap, the Senate already?" -- You bet, and third reading, at that. It's most likely we'll be fighting to undo this one rather than prevent it. A targeted campaign to the Senate is the best bet for the latter right now.
This is brutal. It could really hurt the Canadian entertainment industry, although my thinking is it can't possibly last. I can't imagine they would be that stringent about everything without people complaining vocally and repeatedly. Still, pretty scary shit.
I wrote about this first yesterday when I first heard about it and again today when I learned who was claiming to be behind all of this. I actually heard this guy on CFRB on the Leslie Roberts show, he sounds like a complete boob, but more over he seems to have actual sway over the government. Everyone who was concerned that the social conservatism would overtake the small c conservatism seems be getting proven right, which to me is sad as a small c conservative.... oh well, I guess its back to holding my knows and voting red again...
Like it or not, governments are in the morality business. Whatever the moral/political orientation and impetus, morality is imposed on the public through human rights codes, the criminal code, municipal by-laws, family law, tort laws, courts, etc all setting out acceptable and unacceptable behaviors, acts etc.
The government has no business picking and choosing which films get government subsidies based on vague standards of "morality". Either it should fund all films, or it should end the subsidy program for everybody. Let's hope the Supreme Court strikes this one down as unconstitutional.
The government has no business funding any art or entertainment. Let people pay for what they want.
We shouldn't be taking money from people to produce art that intentionally offends them. It's a deeply immoral thing to do. Less government is the best government, and we shouldn't be building mansions for Robert Lantos with government cheques.
Clearly this legislation is necessary, as it would be ungood to subsidize crimethink. Up with duckspeak!
The funny thing about this argument is that morality is considered "arbitrary" while creative merit is somehow seen as concrete. (Hey at least McVety is using a rulebook that's been around for a couple thousand years. It's not very arbitrary at all.) And frankly I'm sceptical that a government committee is even qualified to judge a film's technical merits.
In the end, I'm pretty sure films will continue to get chosen as they have in the past: by hiring someone with the right connections who writes these applications for a living and knows what the jury wants to hear.
Also, it's still not censorship. No one seems to be capable of using that word properly anymore. It's like people are jealous of those countries where true censorship exists and have legitimate reasons to rebel against it.
spacejack: I don't think that anyone is classifying creativity as concrete at all, but a panel deciding on whether or not to withhold tax breaks based on their own views of morality certainly is arbitrary, especially considering that the moral views of the panel presume to represent the moral views of all Canadians, even though people who are offended at the premise of a film aren't being forced to watch it.
As for McVety's "couple-thousand-year-old rulebook," that rulebook also says that eating lobster of greatly offensive to God, while sacrificing your daughter pleases God, so I'm certainly hoping that if McVety wants to take the Bible so literally, he isn't eating any food prepared by a menstruating woman or wearing polycotton or else he might be considered an abomination himself.
RealityCheck, you said: "The government has no business funding any art or entertainment. Let people pay for what they want...Less government is the best government."
A valid opinion, but I hope in that case you mean no tax breaks for corporations, no interfering in who can and cannot get married...a totally free market and no morally-motivated legislation, right? Or did you just mean no arts funding? Because that's a bit different.
Sandra Oh just called out Bill C-10 on the Genies as the restrictive, repressive legislation it is. She got a warm applause for it.
To Marc: "a panel deciding on whether or not to withhold tax breaks based on their own views of morality.."
This is exactly the kind of extreme left-wing panel we have had in position for decades handing out government grants to such lofty endeavours as artist Vanessa Tiegs who produces paintings by smearing her menstrual blood on paper and calling it art. Why should should the majority of us who find this type of expression repulsive, have to fund it?
I say that funding should be determined by a formula that reflects the audience that would support it. This formula can be tested by holding exhibitions or screenings made up of judges who represent a cross-section of the general population. Then hopefully, pieces of trash that are disguised as art will get exactly the kind of support they deserve. If that means that our society might miss out on the odd edgy work that disturbs or angers society, so be it.
What gets me is that these Christofascists (yes, it's time to say who the real fascists are) already have a twin film industry that makes 'Christian' films, in the United States. The movies are independently made by the big Christian ministries, and have their own distribution network, as well as their own theaters-one of the makers of this kind of film is is Jack Harris (director of The Blob.) So why don't these people watch these films from these companies
(Christian Movies, Christian Cinema)and leave the rest of us alone?
BTW, here's the websites in question: