Bill C-10, is it a veiled attempt at censorship?

Tax credits for Canadian film and television productions supposedly serve both a financial and cultural purpose.  The tax credits help keep Canadian production going, keeping people working in the industry with all the positive economic spin-offs that come from that.  Tax credits by helping to keep the industry alive also serve a cultural purpose in that there continues to be Canadian film and television product out there on the market for Canadians and the world to consume should they so desire.  I think that the real purpose of tax credits is a cultural one more than anything.  Tax credits could be given to all sorts of different industries out there, or corporate tax rates could be cut, or direct subsidies could be given to certain industries.  The tax credits are more like an easy way to subsidize a major part of Canada’s cultural industry.  I think that it is culturally important to have Canadians films and television programs, in fact we probably do not have enough of them as it is.

The changes proposed by the Conservatives to the tax credit system would allow Heritage Canada to deny tax credits to productions that it deems are contrary to public policy.  What exactly, or even imprecisely, “contrary to public policy” means is unknown.  I think that it is very dangerous to start picking and choosing what productions get tax breaks and which do not.  The worry that violent or exploitative productions may benefit from government programs is one that is not warranted in my view.  What is too violent?  What is exploitative?  If the worry is funding films that promote violence or hatred that sort of thing will already be caught with provisions in the Criminal Code.  Productions the exploit children would be caught by employment standards legislation, and productions that go even further and potentially sexually exploit children would be caught by the Criminal Code.  We already have laws in place to prevent unlawful things from being recorded and passed off as art.  If the images and storyline being depicted fall within the law then it should not be the role of government to decide which films get tax credits and which do not.

Being a gay male I am always wary of the potential to censor.  The past 20 years has shown that when government employees are given the ability to censor gay and lesbian material they tend to go way overboard (the ongoing battles of Little Sister’s Book and Art Emporium have proven that).  Queer people are clearly not the most popular with this government either.  If given the chance I am sure that many in the Conservative party would undue all the legal and legislative victories that queer people have achieved over the decades.

Bill C-10 is currently being reviewed by the Senate Baking Committee.  Now that the potential censorship issues have been brought to light I think that it is incumbent upon the Liberal dominated Senate to amend the bill and send it back to the Commons for more review and discussion.  If the Conservatives are determined to allow Heritage Canada to deny tax credits to certain film and television productions there should at the very least be a set of guidelines developed so that bureaucrats are not able to make arbitrary decisions, and even worse to prevent Conservative politicians from giving orders about what films/television programs pass muster and which do not.