According to Toronto’s Globe and Mail, the Senate Banking Committee is about to report back to the rest of Canada’s federal Parliament about the contentious Income Tax Amendment Bill C-10.
It will be remembered that after the House of Commons passed the draft legislation unamended, a furore blew up over the existence of a contentious, potentially draconian clause within the legislation. This provides for Canada’s federal Minister of Heritage to remove public sector tax credit status from any media product that is ‘contrary to public policy,’ ‘advocates acts contrary to the federal Canadian Criminal Code, and would effectively sabotage funding in such a context.
Canada’s film and media production companies have declared war on the federal government, which only inserted the contentious clauses to pander to Christian Right pro-censorship zealots like Charles McVety of the so-called Canada Family Action Coalition, Canada’s antifeminist REAL Women and their ilk. Against that, Atom Egoyan, David Cronenberg and the Vancouver, Toronto and Montreal mayors, as well as Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty have all loudly denounced the proposed legislation as an unwarranted and draconian attack on free speech.
Well, after many hearings, the Banking Subcommittee will probably recommend that the contentious clauses should be dropped. The federal Liberal Opposition seems to have scented blood, arguing that in a time of projected economic recession, it would be foolhardy to sabotage Canada’s delicate tapestry of stable public funding and private investment involved in its film and television production sector.
Heritage Minister Josee Vermer has adopted a more pragmatic approach to the proposed deletion of the contentious clauses, which isn’t surprising, as she isn’t particularly supportive of the clauses in question. Liberal Senators Francis Fox and Wilfred Moore have said they’ll try to get them deleted.
I wonder when Canadian Tory PM Stephen Harper is going to finally admit defeat on this one, and have the offending clauses deleted without triggering a possible federal election, in which it is uncertain that his minority government would survive.
Recommended:
Gloria Galloway: “Senate to Amend Contoversial Bill C-1o” Globe and Mail: 18.06.08: http://www.globeandmail.com
1 response so far ↓
1 Craig Young // Oct 10, 2008 at 12:32 pm
Finally, it looks like the Tories have admitted defeat, and the contentious film tax credit provisions are going to be scrapped if the Tories retain power after the forthcoming Canadian federal election.
It looks like the growing international economic crisis made them realise that they’re vulnerable to pro-credit arguments that this is no time to weaken Canadian employment through sabotaging
Canada’s thriving independent media sector. They’re already in trouble over arts funding cuts, for that matter, especially in Quebec.
Arts 1 Fundies 0
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