Victoria OKs $25K funding for Island film commission

Victoria councillors have unanimously endorsed restoring $25,000 in funding to the Vancouver Island South Film and Media Commission.

And the city will look for alternative ways to provide the commission with more stable funding in the future.

Councillors are asking the film commission to report to council next year on its economic impact in the city in 2018.

“One of the reasons we phased out the fee-for-service grants is we were giving out money with zero accountability. We didn’t ask anybody to report. We just gave money year after year without even knowing what was happening,” Mayor Lisa Helps said.

“So I think, without question, the film commission does really important work and I would just like to know how our $45,000 is leveraged.”

Councillors supported a motion put forward by councillors Marianne Alto and Jeremy Loveday for another $25,000 to be awarded to the film commission on top of the $20,000 grant already given this year.

Loveday said finding a stable, predictable source of funding for the commission from the city is important.

“When it was a fee-for-service grant, I think they had to spend a lot less time worrying about how much money would come, and that allows them a lot more time to market our city and our region to production companies around the world,” Loveday said.

The city for years gave the commission $45,000 annually as a fee-fors-ervice grant. But that changed in 2016 when the city eliminated fee-for-service grants and, instead, put all grant applicants into a strategic-plan grant pool.

Those grants, determined by a third-party committee, saw the commission awarded $20,000.

Coun. Chris Coleman said any information the commission can provide about its economic benefit will be helpful.

“We know that direct impact in 2016, which is the last time we have stats for, that there were 950 jobs created in the region. About 350 of those were direct employment within the city,” Coleman said.

There were also about $12,000 worth of permits applied for in 2016, as well as $80,000 worth of parking fees for film shoots, he said.

“I think that we’ve always lumped the film commission in with a number of other service organizations, perhaps, and never asked for the business rationale for it, and I think there’s an enormous benefit,” he said, noting that the South Island recently was featured on the latest season of The Amazing Race Canada.

Coleman said the film commission should be considered a “priority investment.”

He suggested, for example, a National Geographic special could be made on the restoration of the Gorge waterway.

“There’s a whole documentary that we’ve never been able to pitch,” Coleman said.

“That only occurs when we properly fund film commissions.”

Coun. Margaret Lucas called it “puzzling” that the commission is always struggling to prove its worth to Greater Victoria. “It is such a significant economic benefit to our city,” she said.

Film commissioner Kathleen Gilbert hopes the city will return to a fee-for-service model.

She said in 2015 the film commission brought in almost $20 million of direct spending to Greater Victoria.