How about we just stop using our tax dollars to support movies? What's wrong with letting a movie survive financially on its own merits? If it can't....then it shouldn't.
You really don't understand how this work.
Federal money, through subventions or fiscal programs, goes into many economics sectors, including the oil sector in Canada. The film and TV industry in this country relies on a minuscule percentage of that money, to produce not only movies, but also TV programming (and not only through the CBC - even Muchmusic benefits from those programs to generate local content). Without that money, there would be no more film and TV industry in this country, plain and simple. Tens of thousands of jobs would be lost instantly in Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver alone. And the country would lost its small voice; only american programming would air on our TV and only american movies would be offered in our cineplexes. Even great Canadian directors like David Cronnenberg would have to find work elsewhere. Do we really want a country with no voice like that? Once again, this is both a question of art and economics. Why should we accept that federal money be used to help the oil industry in Alberta (and without having to “morally†justify these advantages) and not our movie an TV industry ?
And now, the question of content. From the moment that you make that money available on the basis on morality, you are killing the creativity and the liberty of the filmmakers and the artists. If depiction of morally offensive content (and whose to judge what is moral or not?) is put in the balance, creators will be inhibited to express their visions of our society, the same way artists are in totalitarian country.
Some says, "let them finance themselves movies with risky subject". This will not happened. Virtually no movies are produced in this country without a little help from the governments. A film like Eastern Promises by David Cronenberg, received government money through Telefilm and fiscal programs. It's a good film, but extremely violent. Under the conservative proposal, it would probably not have been made. And what about a movie like CRAZY, which depicts homosexuality (oh! The sin!)?
Does the oil industry in Alberta has to "morally' justified the money it takes from the government Of course not. But when we talk about movies and TV, we enter the domain of creation, there is a "content", a depiction of values through art. And it is extremely insidious and wrong to want to limit the creative impulsive of Canadian artists. What it means is that our industry will be transformed into a bland, disney-esque voice without any personality.
I, for one, are happy to live in a country when a filmmaker can make a movie depicting in a positive way homosexuality, to take this one example. I think it's a sign of open-mindedness and modernity.
But beyond all the moral implications of all of this, it's the industry itself and it's thousand of jobs who are at stake. Kill the Canadian film and TV industry, and we are left being just a importer of culture from the US.
Oh, and by the way, you can also forgot about "Hollywood North". Americans who come to Canada to shoot Hollywood movies also take advantage of fiscal programs from the Canadian government.
This law project by the Conversatives is censorship, pure and simple. It brings us back in the dark ages.
We have to be grateful for the Senate on this one. Just when you thought this institution was useless, here it comes saving us at the last minute from this.