Show must go on — with help
Film and TV industry needs government help to get back to work,
It must have been music to their ears when the Toronto branch of ACTRA, the union representing Canadian performers, announced to its more than 15,000 members that “Ontario is getting ready to roll!” Anyone looking to make a film or TV production in the province is now free to do so — as long as they don’t do it in Leamington.
For content-starved Canadian viewers, this must be good news as well.
There’s only one problem: There’s currently not a single insurer in the world that will provide coverage to film and TV producers without a COVID-19 exclusion. Unless government steps in, the situation won’t improve anytime soon.
Fortunately, the Canadian Media Producers Association (CMPA) has tabled a proposal that could solve the problem. Specifically, it’s asking the federal government to provide a $100-million backstop for COVID-19-related insurance claims.
The CMPA plan is not a handout. Producers would be required to pay an additional premium for the coverage. However, unlike the policies offered by large global insurance companies, whose COVID-19 exclusions are being driven by the out of control outbreak south of the border, this Made in Canada solution would be designed to address the specific risks of producing in this country.
It would allow the industry to get back to work. If the government decides to act.
Canada’s production industry is a highly fragmented web of small business owners (producers) and independent service providers (writers, directors, actors, composers, crew and others). Most producers have small full-time staffs and hire the bulk of their workers on a project-by-project basis.
This model applies equally well for a cooking show, a dramatic television series, a Telefilm-funded Canadian movie, or one of the many American films that are regularly seen shooting around Toronto, Vancouver and other Canadian locations.
In normal times, all this adds up to big business, supporting more than 180,000 direct jobs and adding an estimated $12.78 billion to the nation’s GDP.
Until there’s a safe and effective vaccine — which depending on who you ask will happen sometime between next year and never — the biggest risk to any production is a COVID-19-related shutdown. That may take the form of a lead performer or director becoming seriously ill or dying, or merely a government reimposing lockdown in the middle of filming.
The TV networks, lenders and equity financiers who fund productions are not willing to assume that risk, which is why they require insurance coverage without any exclusions. Without such insurance, there can be no production.
Allowing this situation to continue is bad policy for several reasons.
Most obviously, a sizable industry that governments across the country have deemed safe to reopen is effectively prevented from doing so. In provinces like Nova Scotia and Newfoundland, which have active production industries and one diagnosed case of COVID-19 between them, the case for returning to work is especially compelling.
Since writers, directors, performers, composers and crew are not full-time employees, the Canada Emergency Wage Subsidy provides no relief. This problem is felt acutely by younger and lower-paid workers who lack savings to fall back on.
Some in the industry are eligible for the Canada Emergency Response Benefit, which is a direct financial cost to the government and provides a bare subsistence income in the costly urban centres where production talent is most concentrated.
The fact that very little content is being produced anywhere in the world also presents a unique opportunity for Canadian creators. A less crowded market means their work can get an honest look on the global stage instead of being drowned out by American productions, as happens during normal times.
Canada has always been an attractive shooting location for large American producers, but it is particularly appealing right now since projects can be safely mounted here while key jurisdictions throughout the United States, including California, face major outbreaks. The number of Americans who come to Canada for those projects is usually limited to a handful of key talent, such as lead actors and directors, with everyone else hired locally. With proper screening and quarantining, bringing American productions to Canada presents a significant economic opportunity.
Unlike traditional insurers, the federal government has an incentive to put people back to work and turn those who are unemployed and receiving benefits into productive taxpayers. That fact provides a wide margin of error in pricing the actuarial risk of a COVID-19 insurance policy since any losses would be offset by increased tax revenues and reduced benefit payouts.
The CMPA has given the federal government an elegant solution to the industry’s current mess. The only question is whether the government has the vision to take the project up.