Media? Direction?

Over the years, I have had the wonderful opportunity to work with many of Canada’s government funded broadcasters and funding agencies. However, in the last while, a sad truth seems to be emerging and “showing Canada to Canadians” is not longer a priority. It breaks my heart to see “Jeopardy” on the CBC.

I must admit that I am terribly conflicted by government involvement in our media and cultural agencies. On one hand, I see their necessity – how else can we tell some of the important stories of our nation? But then when I see some of the things that are put on or exhibited and I ask myself, “Are we living in the same country?”
The Canada that I see everyday is a wonderfully diverse community of people with heritages from around the world. Toronto and Vancouver are fantastically diverse which not only adds to the flavour of the city, it is part of its essence. So why is Canadian film and television so white? For the life of me, why does it seem as if programs set in Vancouver seemed to have more American blacks in it than Asians? Aren’t the largest two visible minorities in Canada, the South Asian and Chinese?

But diversity issues aside, almost anybody you talk to about Canadian media will tell you that the system is broken and something should be done about it. Here are a couple of thoughts that might be an interesting entry to discussion.

1. We need to encourage private investment. The media industry is fraught with risk and we need to encourage those that are willing to participate in it. We had a system of tax breaks before but they were so seriously abused, that the investor who only saw the term “tax deduction” didn’t realize that there wasn’t a solid project to go along with the tax relief. I’m not suggesting we go back to this model but we should have some incentives to help build the indigenous private film industry. There are many potentially profitable stories that can be told by Canadians and we need some help to tell them. These films don’t need government investment but private investors should be given some encouragement for their risk.

2. For our public agencies, let’s figure out what we want to do. Right now, it seems that policy changes every couple of years which makes it impossible to achieve an identity. I suggest some kind of Public Inquiry that will look at where we feel we are going as a country and what we feel is important. Once we know what we want to do, then it is easier to figure out who is going to do it and how much it is going to cost. Now this group has to be made up by more than one political party because we can’t keep changing policy every time there’s a change of government. Nor should it made it up of artists/media types only. A non-partisan comprehensive look at what we hope to achieve.

Once these suggestions for private and public companies are determined, let’s give at least a ten year window so that there is time for implementation and stability.
Knowing the rules allows us to know how to play the game. The hard part for those of us that play the game is when the rules keep changing or even worse, it looks like there are no rules at all.

Next week I will be in Toronto for some meetings as I’m the government’s Chair, Chinese Canadian Advisory Committee to the CHRP. I’ve invited Cam Hui, a really bright money guy , to be a guest blogger.