Film industry doesn’t need more tax dollars

If credits are the only thing bringing the productions here, we can’t afford to keep enticing them

Shakedown, The Sequel, was previewed in B. C. this week as NDP leader Adrian Dix announced that if he becomes premier he will surrender to the latest in a series of escalating demands from the film industry.

Eight years ago in this space, we compared the way the film industry plays off jurisdictions against one another as the financial equivalent of the casting couch.

Just how far are British Columbians willing to go to match the inducements flaunted by Ontario, Quebec and countless other cities, counties, states and countries?

At the time that editorial was written, B. C. was offering film producers a 25 per cent credit for labour costs. In response to a sweetener offered by Ontario, the government here increased that incentive to 33 per cent, where it stands today.

Ontario and Quebec have since increased their subsidy in the form of tax credits worth 25 per cent of all production costs. The industry here is again talking about fleeing the province for greener pastures.

Recently, the provincial government wisely said enough is enough. Community, Sport and Cultural Development Minister Bill Bennett announced some alternative measures to support the industry, but said that we can’t afford any more subsidies.

Dix says an NDP government would sweeten the pot to attract filmmakers with another increase in the tax credit on labour to 40 per cent.

He argues, as does the industry, that we have built up a large skilled workforce in B. C. and significant infrastructure for the moviemaking business and that it is worth keeping. There is no argument about that. On its own merits, the film production industry is a great one to have in this province and especially in Vancouver. It is labour intensive and provides good wages, it’s essentially green and it gives the city and the province a good profile beyond our borders.

But the industry doesn’t seem prepared to exist on its own merits. It has quite successfully been able to play one jurisdiction off against another to exact incredible subsidies.

So how far should we be willing to go to keep it here?

The problem with that question is that we know at some point when we are competing on price we will lose out to some other jurisdiction that is more desperate.

In a finding consistent with other jurisdictions that have looked at the issue, Simon Fraser University economist Rhys Kesselman argued recently that at current levels, it is costing B. C. more than $ 100,000 for each job we save at the current level of subsidy. That’s a terrible deal and raising the subsidy will only make it worse. It’s time for provinces to get together and decide on a common bottom line. Competing with each other is a fool’s game that is only enriching foreign movie producers at our expense.

That won’t solve the problem of jurisdictions outside our borders that are more desperate for the industry’s attention.

Louisiana offers a tax credit of 35 per cent on all expenditures in the state and the movie business is reportedly booming.

But if price is the only thing that keeps the industry here, it’s an industry that we can’t afford to keep, no matter how much we like rubbing shoulders with the stars.

It’s past time to call the industry’s bluff.