Censorship - still a dirty word?
Yesterday, actor, director and screenwriter Sarah Polley went to Ottawa to speak before a Senate committee on the proposed tax ammendment bill, C-10 which contains a provision to deny tax credits to films deemed “morally objectionable”.
Polley rightly points out (via the Star):
She said the proposed law threatens not just the artistic quality of productions but also the industry’s financial future.
“I think ultimately that’s the cost of freedom of expression. We’re all going to see things we don’t like. I see movies that I don’t like. I see things that offend me politically. I see things that offend me morally,” Polley told a Senate committee.
“I choose to debate them, to have a dialogue about them or to turn away from them, not to say that they shouldn’t be allowed to exist and certainly not to give that power to the minister,”
But the Conservatives came back preaching to the choir:
“Hard-working Canadians are growing increasingly tired of special interest groups telling them what to do,” Tory MP Pierre Poilievre (Nepean-Carleton) said in a news release. “If famous actors and actresses want to produce materials that are offensive to the majority of Canadians, they can do it on their own dime, not on the backs of Canadian taxpayers.”
It should be noted that although these comments are attributed to Pierre Poilievre, Prime Minister Stephen Harper does not permit any statement to go to the press without his say-so. These comments, therefore should be considered to come directly from him.
I just love how the statement above manages to use language from the Mike Harris playbook, calling the actors who spoke yesterday (of which Sarah Polley was just one) “special interest groups”, rather than actually addressing the issue at hand: that this proposed bill is censorship, plain and simple.
Naturally I’m disappointed in the other parties (Stephane Dion, Jack Layton, I’m looking at you) who passed bill C-10 without a second thought, regardless of the censorship contained within.
What’s at stake here? Canada’s film community is difficult enough (don’t believe me? When was the last time you saw a Canadian film? See what I mean?), without a film maker having to appease the political leanings of whomever forms the Government. “I’m sorry, you cannot make that film, we find it morally objectionable”. That’s censorship. Of course, what the government says is “we never said that the film couldn’t be made, we just said that we won’t issue a tax credit.” The way film works in Canada, however, is that banks won’t back a film without the tax credits. So, in essence they are saying the film can’t be made.
I really wish the Opposition parties would grow a pair and finally vote to defeat this minority government. But it seems to me that all the parties lack both the stones and the leadership to do such a thing.
2 Comments
Grinningskull.com » Blog Archive » Censorship through funding cuts. on August 14th, 2008
[...] about money. This is the same tactic that was used to justify the tax credit changes under Bill C-10: its censorship of things that Harper and his cronies don’t [...]
Grinningskull.com » That old saw on April 15th, 2008
[...] National Post weighs in on the whole bill c-10 issue that I wrote about here. Instead of writing something that was well researched and thought provoking, column writer [...]